Singapore is a major center for trade relationships with other Asian countries as well as the rest of the world. Its familiarity with the English language, the English legal structure, and its high regard for the rule of law and ease of doing business make Singapore an attractive location for Western companies seeking to establish a presence in Asia. This program will explore the advantages and disadvantages of centralizing Asian operations and trading relationships in Singapore. It will examine the organizational structures that are available in Singapore and other practical issues relating to establishing a business presence in Singapore, including hiring staff and protecting intellectual property. The panel will also consider the impact of using a Singapore entity in cross-border commercial arrangements, including considerations regarding choice of law and dispute resolution options.
Document review and production accounts for as much as 60 percent of total litigation costs, but generally, over 99 percent of the information collected could have legally been eliminated prior to the event. The legal profession’s approach to curbing discovery and review expense has been focused solely on managing costs after discovery becomes necessary. When companies “clean-house” and proactively remediate data prior to litigation, the results are dramatically lower discovery and review costs. Even companies that have low to no litigation can reduce costs substantially for storage and be much better prepared should they find themselves in litigation. This session will discuss how in-house counsel can lead an initiative that reduces the amount of data their companies have by as much as 70 percent. The panel will lead a non-technical discussion on who should be involved, what existing IT resources are required, decision points and, most importantly, results.
This program will consist of a live, interactive mock negotiation of a sports sponsorship deal. The panel will provide the audience with a term sheet and will facilitate a mock negotiation over key deal points. The audience will be invited to identify key issues, offer their solutions on how best to address those issues, and debate the merits of various approaches and solutions. The panelists will guide the audience through the "negotiation," offer their recommendations and insights based on their experience in negotiating these types of deals, and address the issues that arise post signing.
We’ve all been there — swamped, in a new job and not knowing where to start. Hear veterans tell their war stories and the top five things they did (or wish they did) in their first year in-house.
This is an interactive session focused on the fundamentals of energy law. Geared toward the non-energy lawyer, this session will walk through basic energy concepts, standard energy contracts and trends in energy law as they affect non-energy companies. The session will end with a mock contract negotiation and discussion of best practices.
One of the most important topics in corporate compliance and governance compliance is subsidiary management. In our expanding global economy, the challenges of managing subsidiaries are complex, fraught with risk, and can quickly become an administrative nightmare. In this panel, compliance and governance professionals will discuss their experiences in managing entities across the world, working with agents and outside counsel, and managing tax issues. The program is aimed at identifying lessons learned, improving work practices, and reducing the risks and expenses your organization faces in maintaining entities around the world.
How do you keep track of intellectual property (IP) assets, decide what to educate staff on IP matters regarding infringement, and choose when to seek protections regarding copyright, trademark or patent protection? What can the non-specialist do in-house, and when do you need to go to outside counsel? How do you budget for IP matters? This program will focus on the operational IP legal function — not on the basics of what is a copyright or trademark. Attend this panel to discuss different models of IP management for small law departments and nonprofits, including managing international IP and enforcement of IP against members and volunteers.
This program will feature interactive discussion with the audience to include such questions as: Does my license cover use on servers? How does virtualization affect everything? What do you do with source code? Are source code escrows helpful? What about escrows for software as a service (SaaS)? What is the effect of the trend limiting liability of vendors for intellectual property infringement? What is the effect of open-source software incorporated into a commercial product? What effect is the American Law Institute's Principles of the Law of Software Contracts having? What else do I need to worry about?
Privacy laws are proliferating. This session will discuss how to implement a global privacy compliance program to address the EU Directives, as well as current updates and implementation of key country privacy laws, such the Personal Information Privacy Act in South Korea and similar laws in Malaysia and other Asian countries. This session will also address equally important US state law privacy developments.
Many in-house practitioners work in multi-national corporations. Oftentimes, their assigned business units operate across national boundaries, with legal advice delivered to business heads/executives in various parts of the world. Many jurisdictions do not recognize the attorney-client privilege, making legal advice rendered subject to disclosure/discovery. Our panel will explore the basis for the attorney-client privilege, where it does/does not exist, and how to intermarry the lack of attorney-client privilege with the way a practitioner delivers advice of counsel in an international business environment and manages litigation/discovery issues that arise.