Hunton Retail Law Resource

Retailers face growing privacy liability from commonplace website technologies such as cookies, tracking pixels, and similar analytics and marketing tools. Plaintiffs invoke the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”) and the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (“ECPA”), statutes enacted decades before these technologies existed. These claims pose a heightened risk for retailers whose e-commerce operations depend on high-traffic websites and apps, real-time analytics, advertising technology, and customer-support chat features.

In retail, the most valuable assets often include pricing strategies, customer analytics, vendor terms, and private-label specifications. These trade secrets provide a critical edge in a hyper-competitive market. However, that advantage vanishes if proprietary data is leaked by a vendor or downloaded by a departing employee.

Under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, legal remedies often depend on whether a company took “reasonable measures” to maintain secrecy before a dispute arose. For a General Counsel (“GC”), trade secret protection is a governance priority, not just a litigation response.

Artificial Intelligence is being rapidly becoming a normal part of individuals’ professional and personal lives. In the legal industry, generative AI (“GenAI”) is being frequently discussed, with countless articles discussing its impacts, benefits, and implementation. But what are the practical implications and uses of GenAI in retail leasing?

On June 25, 2026, the Supreme Court held in Monsanto Co. v. Durnell that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (“FIFRA”) preempts state law failure-to-warn claims that would require a manufacturer to add or modify warnings EPA-approved warnings on pesticide labels.  This decision is the culmination of decades of product liability litigation alleging that the popular Roundup herbicide was carcinogenic and lacked sufficient warning labels under state tort laws. While this decision will likely close the book on the Roundup litigation, it also has important implications for any manufacturers that produce products subject to federal regulation under FIFRA.  

Although supply chain labor has long been a primary focus for unions, the COVID pandemic changed how labor viewed supply chain leverage, especially in retail. Years of planning during COVID produced new approaches to creating co-employer liability for lead firms—companies that sit at the top of supply chains, franchise systems, subcontracting networks, and other business arrangements in which work integral to their business is performed by workers whose legal employer is another entity.  Initial steps are now maturing into a comprehensive approach aimed at the commercial heart of the retail model. By 2027, retail's central labor challenge will be a sophisticated, top-down strategy to force lead firms into binding agreements.