In the following guest post, Francis Kean, Executive Director FINEX Willis Towers Watson, take a look at an interesting and arguably surprising recent U.K. judicial decision in which a supermarket chain was held liable for the unauthorized Internet disclosure of its employees’ personal data. Francis has some interesting observations about the decision’s possible implications as well. A version of this article previously was published on the Willis Towers Watson Wire blog (here). I would like to thank Francis for allowing me to publish his article as a guest post. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this blog’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is Francis’s article: Continue Reading Guest Post: Claims Against Directors for Failure to Insure Against Cyber Risk Are More Likely Now
For many years, U.S.-listed companies based outside the U.S. have enjoyed a relatively advantageous pricing environment for their D&O insurance. Because many D&O insurance underwriters based outside the U.S. used a different pricing model than their U.S. counterparts, pricing for these foreign filers was in many instances lower than the pricing available to equivalent U.S.-based companies. In recent months, however, as a result of surging claims frequency and loss costs, foreign filers’ D&O insurance costs have jumped significantly. These developments and the claims-related factors causing the changes are detailed in an interesting March 20, 2019 article by Jane Njavro of Woodruff Sawyer entitled “Why D&O Costs Are Soaring for Foreign Filers” (
There is no private right of action under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. However, regulatory enforcement actions under the FCPA by U.S. government authorities can and often does result in massive fines and penalties. When companies subject to FCPA enforcement are compelled to pay these penalties they often then hit with follow-on civil lawsuits arising out of or based on the anti-corruption enforcement action. In the most recent example of this anti-corruption enforcement and follow-on civil litigation sequence, earlier this week a plaintiff shareholder filed a securities class action lawsuit filed against a U.S.-listed Russian telecom company that was the subject of both criminal and civil FCPA enforcement actions that recently resulted in the company’s agreement to pay substantial fines and penalties. 
A short time ago, a storm of controversy briefly emerged after a Delaware court 
In the latest twist in a long-running legal saga, on March 15, 2019, the FDIC announced that it had reached a $335 million settlement of the negligence action the agency had brought against PwC in connection with the accounting firm’s audit work for the defunct Colonial Bank. The curious thing about this settlement is that it represents only a little more half of the amount that a federal district court judge awarded the FDIC as damages in a July 2018 order in the case. The FDIC’s terse March 15, 2019 press release announcing the settlement can be found 
Even as the Brexit process unwinds in an ever more confounding pile of confusion, companies must continue to plan, operate, and report to their shareholders. U.S. securities regulators have already issued calls for reporting companies to provide greater details about the plans of management in the face of the risks and uncertainties surrounding the Brexit process. On March 15, 2019, William Hinman, the Director of the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance, speaking at a securities regulation conference in London, offered a more detailed overview of the kind of disclosures he believes companies should be providing their shareholders about Brexit. Among other things, Hinman provided a useful checklist of questions companies should be asking themselves and about which companies should also be advising their investors. The text of Hinman’s March 15, 2019 speech can be found 
In a number of recent posts (most recently 
For everyone involved in the public company D&O arena, IPOs are a continuing source of interest and concern. An important part of thinking about IPO companies and their D&O risk profile in understanding what is going on in the IPO marketplace. On March 6, 2019, the Proskauer Rose law issued its annual analysis of the 2018 U.S. IPO activity. The report provides an interesting overview of the important characteristics of 2018 IPOs. The IPO report can be found 
In a ruling that turned on the interpretation of a technical financial term, a federal district court concluded that the Options Trading exclusion in an investment firm’s E&O policy precluded coverage for investor claims arising out of a financial transaction gone bad. In concluding that the exclusion precluded coverage, the court applied a standard financial industry definition to interpret the meaning of a specific policy term. The court’s opinion makes for interesting reading and provides food for thought about the policy placement process generally and about the process of policy interpretation. District of Utah Judge 
