Month: May 2015

Will Your Cyber Insurance Respond When You Need It Most?

As many companies are considering purchasing cyber insurance, they often wonder: “Will my insurer be there when I have a data breach?”  Cyber insurers have generally been good in paying claims. But the recent lawsuit featured in this Orrick Client Alert demonstrates that as the landscape evolves, insurers may refuse to cover breach costs by arguing that insureds failed to meet “minimum requirements” for cybersecurity. Tending to cybersecurity policies and procedures before breaches occur is more important than ever. READ MORE

Snowden Strikes Back: Mass Collection of Telephony Metadata Struck Down By the Second Circuit

As post-Snowden America well knows, for some years now the National Security Agency (NSA) has been collecting bulk telephone metadata under the authority of Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act and aggregating it into data banks subject to government query. Under the “business records” provision of this law, the NSA has been collecting all kinds of information about the numbers you dial, how often you dial them, and how long your conversations are—and it’s been doing so for years. READ MORE

Things to Think About Before You Leave to Work for a Competitor

An employee who leaves a company to work for a competitor can run into a hornet’s nest of legal problems.  The latest example of this classic fact pattern involves William Georgelis, a sales manager for building material manufacturer CPG International LLC.  After more than 10 years at the company, Georgelis pursued an opportunity at CPG’s competitor Snavely Forest Products.  In his job transition, Georgelis did some things that were potentially problematic: READ MORE