JD Supra Weekend Reader: Honey-Laundering, Bitcoin Regulation, LinkedIn Accounts, Shark Wrestling

One day we’ll look back on all of this and think: remember when you had to type things on a keyboard? And use that funny thing called a “mouse”? I do miss that auto-correct, though: it was always good for a laugh… 

Happy weekend!

New math for businesses: (data breaches * BYOD policies) + encryption = a good night’s sleep (Fenwick & West) 

What do bad investments, terrible financial decisions, wildly successful business ventures, and careers in politics have in common? Hint: think professional athletes… (Duane Morris) 

Portrait of Jesus Christ hanging in an Ohio school provides important lessons for school districts (Franczek Radelet) 

Buzz this: A global “honey-laundering” sting by federal officials broke up a scam perpetrated by the country’s two largest honey processing companies – the nation’s largest food fraud case ever (Perkins Coie) 

Shopping for cyber insurance? Here’s what to look for (Sherman & Howard) 

Bitcoin may be virtual currency, but it is still subject to real anti-money laundering laws (Ifrah Law) 

Listed on NASDAQ’s market of unlisted companies? Don’t laugh – it could happen (Holland & Knight) 

The total value of mobile payments is expected to hit $1.3 trillion in 2017 (MoFo Tech) 

Eagle v. Edcomm: The Sequel. Or why all companies need to set clear rules regarding ownership of company-related social media accounts (Mintz Levin) 

You still can’t judge a book by its cover, but if you buy the book outside the US, you can now sell it without breaking intellectual property laws (Baker Donelson) 

Estate planning the 21st Century: cover your digital ass(ets) (Is That Legal?) 

A federal court recently allowed the FTC to serve motions on defendants based in India via email and Facebook messages (Miller Canfield) 

Are crowdsourced workers employees or independent contractors? (Barger & Wolen) 

Many states have adopted “parking lot” laws that allow gun owners to bring weapons onto their employer’s property (Dinsmore & Shohl) 

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau wants to start regulating non-banks that service private and federal student loans (Ballard Spahr) 

This is either the title of a new children’s book or valuable advice on keeping your job: “Don’t Wrestle a Shark While on Holiday in Australia” (Orrick) 

Filing personal bankruptcy? You’ll want to know the difference between Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 (John Skiba) 

Kivalina, the Alaska village that has spent five years suing energy companies for their role in the global warming that is inundating the town, has appealed its case to the Supreme Court (McCarter & English) 

Anonymous whistleblowers who report corporate misconduct to the SEC create special challenges for the companies accused of wrongdoing (Morvillo Abramowitz) 

We’re just not going to eat ever again (Lane Powell) 

The U.S. State Department is investing $6 billion to develop geothermal power in Indonesia for consumption in Singapore (Mintz Levin) 

New U.S. sanctions against Iran could create trouble for automakers (Foley & Lardner) 

The recently signed Violence Against Women Act means institutions of higher education will have to change policies and procedures related to on-campus acts of domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking (Pepper Hamilton) 

A Texas lawmaker has proposed a law that would allow courts to serve defendants via social media #areyouserious (BakerHostetler) 

A new EEOC report has identified seven distinct obstacles blocking equal opportunities for African Americans in the federal work force (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) 

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JD Supra Morning Brief: Professional Athletes, Logging Roads, “Honey Laundering,” Cyber Insurance

What a difference four decades make: next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. 41 years ago today, the Court ruled that unmarried people had the same right to contraception as married couples. 

Think you should go big on Kodak stock since you missed the American Airlines boom? Don’t call your broker just yet… (Bloomberg Law) 

What do bad investments, terrible financial decisions, wildly successful business ventures, and careers in politics have in common? Hint: think professional athletes… (Duane Morris) 

It can’t be sweeping intellectual property decisions every day: SCOTUS rules that runoff from logging roads does not constitute a discharge that requires an NPDES permit (Foley Hoag) 

Portrait of Jesus Christ hanging in an Ohio school provides important lessons for school districts (Franczek Radelet) 

Buzz this: A global “honey-laundering” sting by federal officials broke up a scam perpetrated by the country’s two largest honey processing companies – the nation’s largest food fraud case ever (Perkins Coie) 

The H-1B visa cap is expected to be reached during the first week after the application process begins (Fowler White Boggs) 

Shopping for cyber insurance? Here’s what to look for (Sherman & Howard) 

Think you can avoid CFPB regulation because Director Cordray was nominated via a recess appointment? Think again (Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck) 

Argentina passed a same-sex marriage law in 2010 and a gender identity law in 2012. Can reform of the country’s employment discrimination law be far behind? (Fisher & Phillips) 

Won’t let us bet on sports? Well, we’ll bet on fantasy sports then (but with real dollars) (Ifrah Law) 

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JD Supra Weekend Reader: Sexual Harassment & the Holiday Party, Facebook & the First Amendment, Food Safety & Peanut Butter, More

What does a week’s worth of key legal news and analysis look like? The JD Supra Weekend Reader:

Obamacare Deadlines, $13M for Exotic Dancer Misclassification, 2013 Medicare Taxes, and More – what you need to know, in the new JD Supra Corporate Law Report (Corporate Law Report) 

Building a better airline, not just a bigger one? Make sure you include an online privacy policy (yes, Delta, the California Attorney General is talking about you) (Ifrah Law) (Sheppard Mullin)

Throwing a holiday party for the office? Better make nobody adds sexual harassment to the invitation list (Armstrong Teasdale) (See also: 3 Cheers for Holiday Parties! 5 Rules for Limiting Employer Liability!)

“Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.” What does that have to do with shrimp peelers, intellectual property rights, and antitrust law? Everything (Lane Powell) 

Social media at the cutting edge of law: can a public entity delete comments on its FB page without violating the constitutional right to free speech? (Franczek Radelet) 

On time: the EEOC delivered a religious discrimination lawsuit to UPS. (EEOC) 

The cost of recycling electronics continues to climb (Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis) 

The FDA has suspended its first food facility under the Food Safety Modernization Act (don’t read this if you had peanut butter for breakfast) (Duane Morris) 

Facebook has been accused of monopolizing the virtual currency market for online games (Pillsbury) 

Think you know labor and employment law? Okay, then, test yourself. You may win a prize… (Nexsen Pruet) 

Cleaning HIPAA-protected health data can give it a new life (Corporate Law Report) 

Federal regulators are cleaning up with the False Claims Act (in more ways than one) (Corporate Compliance Report) 

BP hit hard with fines and sanctions over Deepwater Horizon disaster (Warner Norcross & Judd) 

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@lancegodard

JD Supra Morning Brief: Pot Laws, Peanut Butter, Pregnancy Etiquette, and More

Just like a good breakfast, the JD Supra Morning Brief is the most important meal (for your brain) of the day:

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. But you might want to hurry… (Bloomberg Law)  

Dead celebrities could learn a lot about making money from Liz Taylor (Foley Hoag) 

The cost of recycling electronics continues to climb (Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis) 

The FDA has suspended its first food facility under the Food Safety Modernization Act (don’t read this if you had peanut butter for breakfast) (Duane Morris) 

Read this before you begin drafting your company’s annual corporate governance and disclosure materials (Skadden Arps) 

Social media at the cutting edge of law: can a public entity delete comments on its FB page without violating the constitutional right to free speech? (Franczek Radelet) 

Go east, young entrepreneur – to Myanmar (Burma). President Obama did (K&L Gates) 

The future of gene patents hangs in the balance: the Supreme Court agreed this week to review AMP v. Myriad (McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff) 

BP hit hard with fines and sanctions over Deepwater Horizon disaster (Warner Norcross & Judd) 

Since 1989, there have been 891 exonerations based on DNA evidence. But experts think another 136,000 innocent people may still be behind bars (The Byrd Law Firm) 

Emily Post would endorse these 10 rules of etiquette for avoiding a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit (Constangy, Brooks & Smith) 

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You know where to find us: @JDSupraBuzz

JD Supra Morning Brief: Genes & Trade Secrets, FATCA & Tax Havens, Privacy & Facial Recognition, & More

Sure, the early bird catches the worm. But wouldn’t you rather catch the JD Supra Morning Brief instead? Full of goodness, and zero calories to boot: 

Being a lawyer is getting expensive (Bloomberg Law) 

Patenting genetic data may be controversial, but it’s a lot better than letting it become trade secrets (Foley & Lardner) 

SEC says “eat dirt” to those who wanted to halt implementation of the resource extraction rules while the legal battles play out (Foley Hoag) (Leonard, Street and Deinard) 

Will the Winchester Mystery House ruling scare off those who claim First Amendment rights to justify unauthorized use of trademarked phrases? Not likely (Greenberg Glusker) 

There’s an eight-year backlog at the US Department of State for processing EB-2 visa applications for foreign nationals from India (Morgan Lewis) 

Facial recognition technology appears to be less about cameras in the street than Facebook users tagging anyone and everyone in their photos (Ifrah Law) 

What should physicians and medical professionals do if their patient’s paper medical records were destroyed in Hurricane Sandy? Start by reading this (Abrams Fensterman) 

The next four years of FCPA, antitrust, and other regulatory enforcement won’t be pleasant for those who break the law (Michael Volkov) 

Remember the good old days of tax havens and bank secrecy? They’re gone now (Sanford Millar) 

Are you going to clean that (groundwater contamination) up? Yeah, in about 100 years… (Foley Hoag) 

There’s something for everybody in this post-election analysis (Bracewell & Giuliani) 

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Commercial Bribery, Puns and Parody, Accident Photos, Union Buttons. Must be…

… Monday’s JD Supra Buzz. FYI, here’s what we learned today:

Second Circuit rules on baristas, unions, and the NLRB (Fisher & Phillips) 

Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream v. Ben & Cherry’s XXX Ice Cream: parody or pun? It actually matters quite a bit in legal terms (Foley Hoag) 

Could a round or two of golf be considered a bribe? Maybe (Warner Norcross & Judd) 

The FCC’s new rules on closed captioning of internet-delivered content go into effect on September 30 (Sheppard Mullin) 

When does the U.S. government get involved in the acquisition by a Chinese state-owned company of a Canadian business? When there’s oil involved… (King & Spalding) 

The number of patent applications which refer to fracking (hydraulic fracturing) continue to grow (Foley & Lardner) 

From the other side of the world, a comprehensive overview of building an intellectual property strategy that works no matter where you’re located (Baldwins) 

Student loan collector gets schooled by the Second Circuit (Ballard Spahr) 

Is your business covered for cyber liability? (Scott & Scott) 

There aren’t any First Amendment rights to free speech in the private workplace (Constangy, Brooks & Smith) 

State laws begin to protect the privacy of accident victims (XpertHR) 

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Social Media Firings Are Back in the News – and This Time They’re Perfectly Legal

For months, the National Labor Relations Board has said that complaining about one’s job via social media is considered “protected speech.” 

But employees do more than grouse about working conditions, overbearing supervisors, and company policies when they’re surfing the web. Sometimes, they merely talk about their jobs. Sometimes, they “like” political candidates on Facebook. And sometimes, they get fired for what seems to be relatively innocuous activity online. 

Case in point: Gene Morphis, the former Chief Financial Officer of clothing retailer Francesca’s, who lost his job because he tweeted about his work and his company. From law firm Looper Reed:

“It was not clear in the article if [Morphis] had a contract. It does appear, however, he was not engaging in protected activity.  Instead the company claimed in a release the CFO was terminated because he ‘improperly communicated company information through social media…’

Francesca’s, a women’s clothing and accessory retailer, is a publicly-traded company which means the CFO does not have free reign to say whatever he wants.”

Bobby Bland and Debra Woodward, on the other hand, didn’t post details of their jobs online. Instead, they “liked” a Facebook page.

The page belonged to a candidate for the job of Sheriff in Hampton, Virginia. Unfortunately for Bland and Woodward, the candidate was running against their boss, Sheriff B.J. Roberts. When Roberts won the election, he fired the six people on his staff who supported his opponent, who responded by taking Roberts to court over the dismissals. Law firm Cullen & Dykman:

“Six Virginia Sheriff’s office employees sued the Sheriff of Hampton, B.J. Roberts, both individually and in his official capacity, after they were fired from their jobs in 2009… The employees, some civilians and sworn deputies, alleged First Amendment violations claiming that [their] terminations were linked to the expressions made on Facebook, in violation of their freedom of speech and freedom of association.” 

The court ruled otherwise. From Lawyers.com: 

“The main question was whether a ‘like’ on Facebook constituted free speech under the Constitution. Granting Roberts a motion for summary judgment, the court said no. Perhaps if they had actually written a comment they could have kept their jobs. The judge ruled, ‘No such statements exist in this case. Simply liking a Facebook page is insufficient. It is not the kind of substantive statement that has previously warranted constitutional protection. The Court will not attempt to infer the actual content of Carter’s posts from one click of a button on Adams’ Facebook page.’”

It remains to be seen if these recent events will have a lasting effect on employee use of social media. But one thing is clear: sometimes it might be better to keep your mouse shut.

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Read the updates:

• Houston CFO Fired for Social Media Activity (Looper Reed & McGraw, P.C.) 

• Facebook “Likes” Are Not Protected Speech Under the First Amendment (Cullen and Dykman LLP) 

• You Can Be Fired for a Facebook “Like” (Lawyers.com) 

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Related reading:

• Dealership Update - May 2012: A Supervisor’s Guide to Social Media, Part One (Fisher & Phillips LLP) 

• Reviewing an Applicant’s Social Media Site: Legal Right or Picking a Fight? (Miller Canfield) 

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Find more information on social media and the law here»