HB Litigation News

Author: Tom Hagy

  • Cyber Captive Survey 2019 — AON

    Aon’s Cyber Captive Survey 2019 says that the rapid growth in the captive market of cyber-specific policies underscores that cyber is one of the primary risks for organizations across the world driven by an increasingly complex operational, technological and regulatory environment.

    Key findings include:

    • Healthcare and energy industries are leading the way, with 19% and 15% of organizations in these industries utilizing captives for cyber coverage respectively.

    • 41% of captives surveyed are incubating cyber risk.

    • The range in limits of cover taken out is up to USD$100 million.

    • An estimated 34% of all captives will be writing cyber in five years’ time.

    Read the complete report here! 

  • Nevada to try limited banking for cash-heavy pot industry — ElkoDaily.com

    Most marijuana dispensaries are forced to handle massive amounts of cash. Business owners are paying their employees with envelopes full of dollar bills, and bringing duffle bags full of money to government buildings to pay their taxes.

    That could all change with the new Nevada state law that allows dispensaries to offer a cashless option. This program will be tested for three years before being considered as a permanent feature. State Treasurer Zach Conine likened the system to gift cards or digital apps such as Venmo and said the program would not include broader banking services like loans. Since marijuana is still not legal federally, states are on their own with coming up with a cashless option. Hawaii took similar steps and included a debit payment app, which has spread to other states as well. California lawmakers are also devising a cashless system by creating a class of banks specifically for the industry. This temporary law is set to take place by July 1, 2020 with the hopes of easing transactions and lessen cash handling for customers and businesses

    Read the complete post by Michelle L. Price on ElkoDaily.com here! 

  • First Class Action Lawsuit Filed on Behalf of Victims of First American Title Company Data Breach — Yahoo!

    “Gibbs Law Group LLP has filed the first nationwide class action lawsuit accusing First American Title Company of failing to properly secure 885 million sensitive customer files, instead choosing to store them in a ‘woefully insecure,’” publicly-accessible system. “First American has turned the American dream of home ownership into a financial security nightmare for its customers,” according to the complaint.

    Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that First American Title Company was negligent, and violated its contracts with customers, in the way it stored their personal information, which included bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, financial and tax records, and photos of their drivers’ licenses. “This grave lapse in security resulted in publicly exposing hundreds of millions of customers’ personal files, leaving them vulnerable to identify theft and other cybercrimes,” the plaintiffs maintain. 

    Read the complete Press Release on Yahoo! here

  • Wells Fargo Proposes to Settle Auto Insurance Case for $386M — Yahoo!

    In 2017 customers of Wells Fargo & Company (WFC) filed a class action lawsuit alleging the bank forced unwanted auto insurance without permission from the customers. Currently WFC plans to pay around $386 million to settle the 2017 class action lawsuit. The high payout is due to the sheer number of customers affected. About 270,000 WFC customers were “pushed into delinquency ” and “almost 25,000 wrongful vehicle repossessions.” In addition to the class action settlement, WFC will be reaching out to individual customers offering financial service recovery, and restructuring their leadership teams. WFC is still seeing a decrease in sales and their numbers. In six months WFC shares “lost 4.5% against 6.5% growth recorded by the industry.”

    Read the complete post on Yahoo! here.

  • The Future of Cyber Operations and the Government

    In the forthcoming National Defense Authorization Act the House Armed Services Committee — specifically the Subcommittee on Intelligence and Emerging Threat Capabilities — seeks to amend the annual legislation to ensure that Congress is informed when the executive branch executes offensive or defensive cyber operations.

    The bill defines offensive or defensive cyber operations as a “sensitive military operation.” The goal of this shared information is additional oversight, especially given the newness of cyber tactics.

    As reported by journalist Derek B. Johnson of FWC.com, two covert cyber operations have taken place since POTUS announced the new policy. The first was in October 2018, a cyber operation with a goal of informing Russian operatives not to meddle with the midterm election. The second took place the following November in which the U.S. Cyber Command blocked access to Russian Internet Research Agency post election.

    While these two operations have been called “mild” in some critiques, former White House Director of Cyber Infrastructure Protection under President George W. Bush, Jason Healey, believes this highly specialized tactic is ideal since it presents the least potential for collateral damage. While Healey warns against grand and overt attacks, he states that sometimes “conflict is straightforward and you just have to stop adversaries from punching you in the mouth.”

    Read the complete post by Derek B. Johnson on FCW.com here.

  • The New York Privacy Act Would Allow Direct Action

    The New York Privacy Act,  introduced last month by state Sen. Kevin Thomas, advocates for consumer agency over their personal data and would give New Yorkers the right to sue companies directly for privacy violations. Thomas wants companies to put customer data protection ahead of their budgetary and business goals.  

    The bill summary reads: “Enacts the NY privacy act to require companies to disclose their methods of de-identifying personal information, to place special safeguards around data sharing and to allow consumers to obtain the names of all entities with whom their information is shared; creates a special account to fund a new office of privacy and data protection.”

    “Fiduciaries, like an attorney or a doctor, hold onto your information. They don’t share it, unless there is a need for the purpose for which they collected it,” Thomas said. “That’s not what’s going on here with these data companies and these data brokers. They’re sharing it, and we’re getting targeted.”

    Pushback from the tech industry has been swift. John Olsen, Director of the Internet Association, said, “The NY Privacy Act, in its current form, is unworkable for businesses that want to comply and fails to provide New York residents meaningful control over how their data is collected, used, and protected.” Facebook also chimed in saying they would have to shut down Facebook access to New York users if the bill becomes law.

    Read the NY Senate Bill S5642. 

  • CannaLawBlog — Legalizing Cannabis Cash

    On May 20, 2019 banking associations from all 50 states and 1 territory sent a letter to Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee urging them to conduct hearings on the merits of providing cannabis-related business access to banking services.

    CannaLawBlog highlighted the primary concerns of the letter in a recent post:

    “Again, the primary concern expressed was that current law forces state-legal businesses to operate on a cash basis, which poses a safety risk, complicates enforcement efforts, and could damage local economies.”

    The banking associations wanted to emphasize their neutrality on the legality of cannabis, rather they wanted to show strength as a national community and validate, support, and respect those communities that have voted for legalized recreational marijuana.

    Read the complete post by
    HarrisBricken attorney Jihee Ahn on The CannaLawBlog.

  • CNN — Jury returns $2 billion verdict against Monsanto for couple with cancer — the biggest so far

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    A California jury returned a $2.055 billion verdict against Monsanto and their popular weed killer, Roundup. “The verdict in Oakland includes more than $55 million in compensatory damage and $2 billion in punitive damages.” The septuagenarian plaintiffs, represented by attorney Michael Miller of The Miller Firm, were a California couple that said long-term exposure to Roundup caused both of them to be diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer that usually cannot be traced back to a source according to the American Cancer Society. The particular carcinogen in Roundup is glyphosate, which the EPA has stated was not a carcinogen in a 2015 assessment, which contradicts WHO’s statement that glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans”. While a Monsanto spokesperson previously denied any manipulation, a jury found that a series of texts and emails between Monsanto and the EPA that proved Monsanto culpable of manipulating science.

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    Read the complete post by Michael Nedelman on CNN.com here!

  • Dr. Babyl: Artificial Intelligence Could Save Lives, Time and Money — TheDailyBeast.com

    Itchy throat? Headache? Upset stomach? There’s an app for that. There is a new AI healthcare system called Babylon UK’s National Health Service which features an AI-driven app that is reportedly able to separate “run-of-the-mill” illnesses from more life-threatening ones, while saving time, money, and anxiety for patients and doctors alike.

    Babylon offers more than diagnostic assistance; it is accessible to people in remote areas. “For example, Babyl, the Rwandan version of Babylon, offers remote appointments with clinicians, fills prescriptions, orders lab tests, and issues referrals.”

    Babyl enables affordable, personalized healthcare, combined with “the brains of thousands of doctors at once” to reach patients who cannot get to a doctor’s officer.

    In addition to assisting doctors with everyday check-ups and treating the common cold, the AI’s abilities extend to clinical trials. “In 2018 the Mayo Clinic partnered with IBM’s Watson to match patients with breast cancer to accessible clinical trials covered by their health plans. The matching program increased the enrollment of breast cancer sufferers in Mayo Clinic’s own clinical trials by 80%.”

    Questions are being raised, however, about how to mitigate risks posed by hacking or by nefarious manipulation of the system. Read about this and more in the complete post by Joelle Renstrom on TheDailyBeast.com. 

  • The Wrong-Headedness of Hindsight Standards — Michelle Yeary | Drug & Device Law Blog

    Dechert LLP attorney Michelle Yeary cautions against applying perfect hindsight to drug liability.

    “We all know hindsight is 20/20.  And, it’s easy.  There are dozens of television and radio programs that thrive on Monday morning quarterbacking.  There’s no risk in saying the coach should have called for a pass when you already know the run didn’t work.  It’s also dangerous because it’s easy.  People are often too quick to point out that you should have taken path B after everyone learns path A is full of potholes.  Pointing it out is one thing, holding you liable for it is another.”

    Yeary takes a look at what happened in Holley v. Gilead Science, Inc., 2019 WL 2077845 (N.D. Cal. May 10, 2019). The case involves two of the main active ingredients in AIDS drugs: TDF and TAF. The plaintiff alleges that the defendant should be responsible for allegedly knowingly using TDF over TAF (allegedly a safer alternative). TDF was FDA approved first and TAF second.  Unfortunately, Yeary wrote, hindsight “can be used to demand perfection,” allowing  plaintiffs to “proceed on what is essentially a stop-selling theory,” that first-generation drugs should not be submitted to the FDA because, in hindsight, “later approved treatments were safer.” That’s what happened in Holley, she said.

    Read the complete post by Michelle Yeary on the Drug and Device Law Blog here. 

    Read the opinion here.