Hunton Retail Law Resource

A federal court in New York recently found that litigation concerning damages related to a third party’s product recall required a defense under a commercial general liability policy. Thruway Produce, Inc. v. Mass. Bay Ins. Co., 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94846 (S.D.N.Y. July 20, 2015). Thruway Produce sold apples to Milnot Holding Company for use in baby food. The parties’ contract required the apples to be free of certain rodenticides (used to kill rats and mice). After discovering that certain apples were contaminated with rodenticide, Milnot was forced to recall its baby food ...

As reported in the Privacy & Information Security blog, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California recently granted, only in part, a motion to dismiss a data breach class action against Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. (“Sony”) in Corona v. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. The case therefore will proceed with some of the claims intact.

Read the full post.

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court in Kimble v. Marvel Enterprises, No. 13-720 (June 22, 2015), upheld the longstanding precedent provided by Brulotte v. Thys Co, 379 U.S. 29 (1964), which stated that “a patentee’s use of a royalty agreement that projects beyond the expiration date of the patent is unlawful per se.” Id. at 32. Justice Kagan, writing the opinion of the Court, stated that stare decisis requires the Court to adhere to the decision in Brulotte.

Read the full client alert.

Prolonged and torrential rains have caused widespread flooding in Texas, Oklahoma and surrounding areas. It is important that policyholders remain mindful of the substantial benefits that may be available to them for resulting economic and physical losses under ordinary business insurance policies.

On April 23, 2015, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that Nomi Technologies (Nomi) has agreed to settle charges stemming from allegations that the company misled consumers with respect to opting out of the company’s mobile-device tracking service at retail locations. The settlement marks the FTC’s first § 5 enforcement action against a retail tracking company.

The supply of a medicinal product without a marketing authorisation under national provisional permissions of use does not generally prevent an SPC.

The scope of protection of an SPC for a virus may be broader than the specific virus strain mentioned in the marketing authorization.

Today, the EFTA Court ruled on two important SPC issues that were raised in the Intervet case (E – 16/14). The case concerns, on the one hand, the supply of a veterinary vaccine without a marketing authorisation (‘MA’) under successive national provisional permissions of use in order to fight a ...

As reported on the Privacy & Information Security Law blog, the Federal Communications Commission announced a $25 million settlement with AT&T Services, Inc. (“AT&T”) stemming from allegations that AT&T failed to protect the confidentiality of consumers’ personal information, resulting in data breaches at AT&T call centers in Mexico, Colombia and the Philippines. The breaches, which took place over 168 days from November 2013 to April 2014, involved unauthorized access to customers’ names, full or partial Social Security numbers and certain protected ...

As reported in the Hunton Employment & Labor Law Perspectives blog, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently enacted two ordinances – which are being called the “Retail Workers Bill of Rights” – that provide extensive new protections to employees of “formula retail establishments” in San Francisco.  The new ordinances regulate how covered employers manage their workers’ schedules and impose additional financial and administrative burdens on those employers.

Read the full post.

On Friday, January 30, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued its opinion in POM Wonderful, LLC, et al. v. Federal Trade Commission, affirming the Federal Trade Commission's ruling in 2013 that a series of advertisements for POM’s pomegranate juice and supplements were deceptive and thus violated the FTC Act. However, the court provided some limited, yet important, relief to POM Wonderful and the other petitioners. The D.C. Circuit’s decision provides important guidance to companies advertising consumer products.

Read the full client alert.

As reported in the Privacy & Information Security Law blog, various technology companies, academics and trade associations filed amicus briefs in support of Microsoft’s attempts to resist a U.S. government search warrant seeking to compel it to disclose the contents of customer emails that are stored on servers in Ireland. On December 23, 2014, the Irish government also filed an amicus brief in the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals.

Read the full post.