Hunton Retail Law Resource

As reported in the Privacy & Information Security Law blog, the Seventh Circuit rejected Neiman Marcus’ petition for a rehearing en banc of Remijas v. Neiman Marcus Group, LLC, No. 14-3122. In Remijas, a Seventh Circuit panel found that members of a putative class alleged sufficient facts to establish standing to sue Neiman Marcus following a 2013 data breach that resulted in hackers gaining access to customers’ credit and debit card information. No judge in regular active service requested a vote on the rehearing petition. Additionally, all members of the original panel voted ...

In a ruling of particular importance to the digital currency community, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for the first time has definitively ruled that Bitcoin and other digital currencies (also known as virtual currencies or cryptocurrencies) are commodities subject to the CFTC’s jurisdiction. Specifically, in an enforcement action announced on September 17, 2015, the CFTC issued an order against an online platform and its CEO for facilitating the trading of Bitcoin options contracts. We discuss some of the implications of this order below.

As reported in the Privacy & Information Security Law blog, Judge Magnuson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota certified a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3) class of financial services institutions claiming damages from Target Corporation’s 2013 data breach. The class consists of “all entities in the United States and its Territories that issued payment cards compromised in the payment card data breach that was publicly disclosed by Target on December 19, 2013.”

The en banc US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued its opinion today in SCA Hygiene Products Aktiebolag, et al. v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC, et al., Case No. 2013-1564. In a 6-5 decision, the court reaffirmed that laches is a defense to a suit for damages for patent infringement. In reaching this decision, the Federal Circuit distinguished Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1962 (2014), in which the US Supreme Court held that laches is not a defense to a suit for damages under the Copyright Act.