The threats to data security are substantial. Every organization faces some level of cyber risk. So how do we get better at cybersecurity? That is the question that Paul Ferrillo and Christophe Veltsos ask in the following guest post. Paul is a shareholder in the Greenberg Traurig law firm’s Cybersecurity, Privacy, and Crisis Management Practice. Chris is is a professor in the Department of Computer Information Science at Minnesota State University, Mankato where he regularly teaches Information Security and Information Warfare classes. I would like to thank Paul and Chris for their willingness to allow me to publish their 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. Paul and Chris’s article is set out below. Please be sure to also see the item at the end of the post about International Women’s Day. Continue Reading Guest Post: The Missing Link of Cybersecurity — Time for a Cyber Risk Check-Up
Regular readers know that I frequently write about insurance coverage disputes in which insurers contend that coverage is precluded due to the policyholders’ alleged late provision of notice. All too often, the policyholders end up without coverage as a result of the late notice allegations. In an interesting (albeit confusingly written) decision, a Michigan intermediate appellate court upheld a trial court’s rejection of a professional liability insurer’s late notice argument, finding that in fact the policyholder had provided timely notice of the claim ultimately in dispute, and therefore that the insurer was not entitled to recoup amounts the insurer incurred in defending and settling an arbitration that had been filed against the policyholder. The ruling highlights the fact that notice timeliness disputes often are factually complicated and that careful consideration of the applicable facts can sometimes confirm that a policyholder did in fact comply with the notice requirements. The Michigan Court of Appeals (Oakland Circuit)’s February 26, 2019 opinion can be found 
In one of the largest shareholder derivative lawsuit settlements ever, the parties to the consolidated Wells Fargo derivative suit arising out of the bank’s phony customer account scandal have agreed to settle the case for a variety of cash and non-cash benefits with a stated value to the company of $320 million, inclusive of a cash payment of $240 million. The $240 million cash portion of the settlement is to be paid by the bank’s D&O insurers, in what is, according to the plaintiffs’ counsel, “the largest insurer-funded cash component of any shareholder derivative settlement in history.” This settlement represents the latest in a series of derivative suit settlements with a significant cash component, a case resolution pattern in high-profile derivative suits that arguably represents the new normal in the world of D&O liability exposures. 
When Congress enacted the PSLRA in 1995, one of the goals was to try to deter frivolous litigation. As time has passed, it has also become clear that many of the PSLRA’s procedural reforms also created a structure of incentives for plaintiffs’ lawyers. For example, the PSLRA’s most adequate plaintiff requirement created an incentive for plaintiffs’ lawyers to seek to represent institutional investors. However, according to a recent academic study, with the passage of time, some of the incentives have had a distorted impact, as the incentives motivate plaintiffs’ lawyers to try to get hold of a mega-case “lottery ticket” that will produce a jackpot outcome – for the lawyers. These distortions in turn are creating many of the ills we are now seeing the securities class action litigation arena, justifying, according to the academic authors, another round of securities litigation reform. 
Although it is not always appreciated or taken into account, the fact is that executives of private companies can be held liable for statements or other actions made in violation of the federal securities laws. One very recent and high-profile example where this happened involved the SEC enforcement action (and subsequent criminal proceedings) 
Because the lawsuits are so expensive to litigate and to resolve, securities class action litigation has long been the subject of both scrutiny and criticism. However, while the history of concern about securities litigation is long, the case can be made that there has rarely been a time when securities litigation in the U.S. deserves a critical look more than it does now. As has been well-documented 
Last fall, the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform 
Every year, investors from Wall Street to Main Street await Berkshire Hathaway Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett’s annual letter to the company’s shareholders, for his commentary on the current business and economic environment, for his investment insights, and for his occasional folksy and humorous observations. In the run-up to the release of this year’s letter, which took place this past Saturday morning, there was hope that this year’s letter might do a little more – say, 