Resource Library

An overview of some of the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges in standardizing employment contracts across jurisdictions.

Panelists will review common pitfalls when transacting with foreign governments, including governing law/dispute resolution, tax issues and intellectual property, and will discuss strategies for avoiding those pitfalls.

Most companies enter into contracts more frequently than they realize. In fact, any time you agree to take an action or make a payment in exchange for something of value, a legal contract arguably has been created. When these “handshake deals” are made, companies find themselves relying on memories of conversations or cryptic emails to establish that a contract existed. Attend this session to determine when contracts exist, navigate disputes, protect your company, and maintain relationships.

This session will enable in-house counsel to effectively respond to the need for a large-scale contracts remediation effort. This need may arise as a result of a regulatory enforcement action, such as after a US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violation has occurred, or after a change in regulation, such as when the EU declared the Safe Harbor framework to be invalid. While these efforts tend to be reactive in nature, panelists will pinpoint best practices for proactively identifying all business relationships and collecting and warehousing the associated documentation so that the company will be prepared to respond if needed. Panelists will present case studies of remediation projects, whether undertaken expeditiously under the watchful gaze of a monitor or over time in response to a change in regulation, or after the merger or divestiture of a key supplier.

Panelists will review common pitfalls when transacting with foreign governments, including governing law/dispute resolution, tax issues and intellectual property, and will discuss strategies for avoiding those pitfalls.

If your company decides to establish a business presence in another<br />country by partnering with a local firm, what considerations come into play in structuring and implementing a joint venture with the local partner? This program will examine the practical considerations relating to structuring the joint venture and negotiating its key terms,<br />including management control provisions and mechanisms to exit the joint<br />venture, seconding or transferring employees to the joint venture and cultural considerations in dealing with your local partner.

Discuss provisions in cloud computing agreements that address sensitive issues, such as data ownership and protection, privacy and intellectual property. Obtain tips on negotiating liabilities and risks in cloud computing contracts — what provisions SaaS providers commonly include in agreements, provisions large customers typically request, which are negotiable and how to mitigate the impact of terms you cannot change.

A panel of experts will discuss the contract clauses that most often cause disputes, even if the disputes are not over large dollar amounts. These disputes can occur for a variety of reasons, such as ambiguity in the contract language, or a requirement for the business to make exceptions to how it normally operates. The panel will provide a list of clauses that often create contract disputes or misunderstandings, and offer guidance on how to use the negotiation stage to avoid future disputes. The panel will also discuss strategies for working with internal clients to make sure the contract's requirements are realistic and complied with by all parties.

As legal departments expand their roles as business partners and compliance advisers, we have seen roles develop outside of the traditional attorney discipline. As with subject matter expertise, certain skills from other professions can assist the department to be more effective. This program will explore the strategic use of program managers, paraprofessionals, and other business experts to enable the delivery of legal services across the legal department and organization more broadly.

This panel-driven session will discuss understanding your baseline contract management needs and the available alternatives, as well as how to successfully manage a full portfolio of non-disclosure agreements and whether document assembly is ‘worth it.’