Civil Law

Committee hears about issues with meat inspections at UK border

Politicians have called for funding to be maintained for meat inspections after hearing evidence on the scale of products being seized at the border.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee examined biosecurity measures for animal and plant imports to the UK. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is responsible for product of animal origin imports. 

The committee has written to Sue Hayman, Defra Minister for biosecurity and borders, to request a timeline of the agency’s response to … Read the rest

Civil Law

UK FCA Letter Expresses Concerns About Fund Service Providers

In late 2024, the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a “Dear CEO” letter related to the FCA’s “Custody and Fund Services Supervision Strategy.” The letter shares the FCA’s expectations of UK FCA-authorised firms that act as custodians, depositories, and administrators in the funds sector. Importantly the letter also highlights some of the regulatory risks and topics fund managers should be reviewing as part of their due diligence before selecting service providers for their funds, irrespective of whether the … Read the rest

Civil Law

Further UK warnings about additives in American snacks

Devon County Council has become the latest authority to warn about the safety of American snacks, sweets and fizzy drinks.

Heart of the South West Trading Standards Service, which covers Devon, Plymouth, Somerset, and Torbay, said imported sweets not approved for sale are increasingly being seen in shops across the region.

Officers have carried out unannounced inspections of stores looking for non-compliant sweets, cereals, bakery goods, snacks and canned/carbonated drinks. They identified and removed products containing unauthorized additives or with non-compliant … Read the rest

Circuit Courts

New Courthouse Learning Center Teaches Minnesota Students About Judiciary

The federal courts in Minnesota are preparing today’s students to be the leaders of tomorrow through a new courthouse learning center in St. Paul. The Justice and Democracy Center of Minnesota is one of a growing number of civics education centers, museums, and exhibits in federal court buildings across the country.
Judiciary News – United States Courts… Read the rest

Supreme Court

Justices skeptical about Facebook’s data breach disclosure to investors

Justices skeptical about Facebook’s data breach disclosure to investors

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The justices heard arguments Wednesday in Facebook v. Amalgamated Bank, their first securities case of the year. The case involves the 2015 Cambridge Analytica-Facebook data breach, and considers whether Facebook’s disclosures to investors before the breach was public improperly downplayed the risks that data breaches posed to the company and its stock price.

Shareholders sued Facebook in 2018 after they learned that Cambridge Analytica had obtained the personal data of 30 million Facebook users. The shareholders conted that … Read the rest

Civil Law

The Evolution of Document Drafting: A Conversation with Jeff Pfeifer about LSA, Henchman and Lexis Generative AI Solutions

As someone who worked in the KM trenches for years, I have repeatedly watched legal tech companies promise to tame the wild west of documents residing in law firm Document Management Systems (DMS). Over the years I implemented or worked with a variety of KM solutions from Lexis, West and smaller software companies.  Recently the dominant DMS providers iManage and Netdocs have launched AI enabled drafting solutions

This past July Lexis completed the acquisition of Henchman, a Belgium based legal … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Justices dubious about dismissing suits while waiting for arbitration

Justices dubious about dismissing suits while waiting for arbitration

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Smith v. Spizziri is this week’s item on the court’s bountiful menu of cases under the Federal Arbitration Act. The question here is what options are available to a trial court that decides to send a case to arbitration. Must it stay the matter or, instead, does it have the option to dismiss it entirely? Discussion at the argument suggested that the justices were skeptical about the practical consequences of dismissal, so Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s opinion for a unanimous … Read the rest