Welcome back to another edition of Inside Track! This week's briefing is steamy … or as steamy as a newsletter on in-house counsel can possibly be. We discuss what in-house counsel should be doing in the event of an executive divorce and so much more!

I can be reached anytime through my email at [email protected] or you can find me on Twitter @DanclarkALM.

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What's Happening-

 

Executive Divorce Doesn't Have to Get Messy

Now I don't love gossip. But I also don't necessarily hate it. So while I haven't been living and dying on everything that goes on in what I'm dubbing “the Amazon divorce,” I'm also keeping an eye on it. The whole imbroglio made some of us at Corporate Counsel wonder how an in-house legal team is supposed to handle the divorce of an executive.

The short answer, I found, is pretty much a version of 'Keep Calm and Carry On.' I spoke to a pair of divorce attorneys who deal with a lot of executive divorces and they said just keep to business as usual.

One thing that I never thought of that Dallas-based divorce attorney Brian L. Webb told me was to make sure you're not shredding documents any more than you usually do. He said the documents you would end up shredding are usually inconsequential.

The best advice I got was to keep business and personal issues apart from each other.

“However, the line between those two roles may not be as bright as everyone wishes it might be,” New York divorce attorney Michael Stutman said. “Often, I believe an executive may not be aware that certain communications between that person and corporate counsel would not be privileged.”

Has your legal team had to put out any fires from an executive divorce? Let me know!

 

The GDPR Suits Are Coming…

Yes, that was my feeble attempt at a Game Of Thrones “Winter is Coming” title. And while the GDPR might not offer all the suspense of the HBO drama, the stakes are high for U.S. companies and the litigation is starting. Here's the latest: The Austrian data privacy non-profit, Noyb, filed complaints against Amazon, Netflix and a few other streaming services for alleged GDPR violations.

The suits claim that users are unable to easily access personal data collected by the companies. The suits further claim that consumers are provided only with raw dataand they don't see how their data is being used.

Law.com reporter Caroline Spiezio reached out to the target companies and many of them gave the typical response of “we take privacy seriously.”

The suits should cause some concern, at least in my opinion. France's data regulator, CNIL, just fined Google $56.8 million for failure to comply with the GDPR. So if you're working for an American company, you should probably make sure your employer is GDPR compliant because … Fines Are Coming. Hey, I think that one worked.

Inside Knowledge: Compliance

Well, we've survived the first three weeks of 2019 and this year I've resolved to watch more sports … Not really. I already watch sports on a regular basis, I just needed a good segue for this edition of Inside Knowledge. FIFA chief compliance officer Edward Hanover discussed how sports organizations can work on compliance issues.

╋ Understand risk. He said organizations should conduct a compliance risk assessment once a year. Doing this, Hanover said, will allow your organization to understand its weaknesses and manage risk. He said that in sports, ticket sales, are a good place to start.

╋ Open an anonymous hotline. There are plenty of allegations of sexual harassment and assault in the sports world, making a hotline a worthwhile investment, according to Hanover. A hotline positions organizations to respond to alleged misconduct earlier, potentially avoiding unwanted publicity and costly lawsuits.

╋ Does it need to be said that you should have a due diligence program in place? Yes. Hanover says that your organization should have a risk-based process to identify all your third-party vendors and then have another process in place to identify “high risk vendors.”

╋ Learn how to use Twitter! It sounds like something a teenager would annoyingly say to their grandparents, but Hanover says Twitter is the key to a safe compliance future. It helps with transparency. The Twitter generation, he says, doesn't want a long winded explanation of what happened. They want something easy to digest so they, and you, can move on.

Don't Miss-

The Global Leaders of Law (GLL) will be hosting a “What Keeps You Up At Night” event in New York on Jan. 29 at Bar Boulud. GLL is an invitation-only membership group offering general counsel a global platform for in-person collaboration to exchange ideas and receive advice and guidance from peers. For more information, contact Meena Heath at [email protected]. 

Monday, Jan. 28 to Thursday Jan. 31- ALM is hosting LegalWeek 2019 at the New York Hilton Midtown. Explore industry trends at the Business of Law Forum, featuring perspectives from senior in-house lawyers at TPG Global, The Blackstone Group, Carfax.com, Baush Health, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and more. Speakers this year will include former U.S. Attorneys General Loretta Lynch and Alberto Gonzalez.

Thursday, Jan. 31 to Saturday, Feb. 2 - The National Bar Association Commercial Law Section will be hosting the 2019 Corporate Counsel Conference. The event will be hosted at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando in Orlando, Fla. Speakers will include Bradley M. Gayton, the group vice president, CAO and general counsel of Ford Motor Company, and Wanji Walcott, senior vice president and general counsel of Paypal.

Thursday, Feb. 14 to Saturday, Feb. 16- The American Bar Association will be hosting its 2019 Corporate Counsel CLE Seminarat the JW Marriott San Antonio Hill Country Resort and Spa in San Antonio, Texas. For more information email [email protected].

On The Move-

 

✦ CLOC ✦  Mary O'Carroll will be taking on the role as the president of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) in addition to her role as head of legal operations at Google. She joins CLOC the organization after founder Connie Brenton announcedshe would be stepping away from it due to a different vision from other executives in CLOC.

✦ Freddie Mac ✦  Ricardo Anzaldua has been named the new general counsel of Freddie Mac. He joined the company in May 2018 and worked as executive vice president and senior legal adviser to CEO Donald Layton. He replaces William McDavid who retired this month.

✦ Fotowatio Renewable Ventures Inc. ✦  Rob McDwyer will become the general counsel for the Australian energy company. He replaces Matt Baumgurtel who left the company to work as a partner at K&L Gates' office in Sydney.

✦ Lithia Motors Inc. ✦  David Stork will become the first chief legal officer of Lithia Motors. In his new role, he will help to further innovation, diversification, mergers and acquisitions and intellectual property.

✦ Voyager Therapeutics ✦ Robert Hesslein will take over as the general counsel for the clinical stage gene therapy company beginning in April. He previously worked as the senior vice president and general counsel of Foundation Medicine Inc.