Leaked government documents suggest that the U.K. Ministry of Justice has taken measures to radically weaken the jurisdictional reach of the country’s new bribery act, which could in turn reduce the work generated by the proposed law for U.S. white-collar lawyers when it takes effect.

A draft copy of the new guidance, first obtained by The Guardian, reveals that international companies with London Stock Exchange listings but no other presence in the United Kingdom will be exempt from prosecution under the act.

“The government would not expect, for example, the fact that the company’s securities have been admitted … to trading on the London stock exchange, in itself to qualify that the company is carrying on a business in the U.K. … for the purposes of [the act],” the guidance says.

Previously, such companies would have been subject to what has been described as the world’s most draconian anti-corruption law, carrying unlimited fines and an increased maximum jail term of 10 years.

via Leaked Government Documents Reveal Weakening of U.K. Bribery Act.

Philips Elecs. N. Am. Corp. v. BC Tech., No. 2:08-CV-639-CW-SA, 2010 WL 5838993 (D. Utah July 28, 2010);  Philips Elecs. N. Am. Corp. v. BC Tech., No. 2:08-CV-639-CW-SA, 2011 WL 677462 (D. Utah Feb. 16, 2011)

In this case, the court imposed terminating sanctions against defendant after finding that five employees had destroyed “thousands of computer files” in bad faith prior to the production of their laptops for examination and that defendant had attempted to hide those deletions from plaintiffs and the court.

Plaintiffs alleged copyright infringement, misappropriation of trade secrets and related claims.  In the course of discovery, the court entered orders compelling defendant’s production of relevant evidence, including the production of all of defendant’s computers and servers, and requiring preservation of the same.  The court found that, despite these orders, a proper litigation hold was not issued until 19 months after the duty to preserve arose and thousands of files were deliberately deleted from the laptops of five employees prior to their production for examination.  Accordingly, plaintiffs moved for a finding of contempt and for sanctions.

Sparing the details (of which there are many), the court found defendant in contempt of court for violating the court’s orders compelling production and preservation of relevant evidence.

Turning to the question of spoliation, the court found that defendant breached its duty to preserve, that plaintiffs were prejudiced by the breach of that duty, and that the defendant had acted in bad faith.  With regard to bad faith, the court held that “[b]ad faith or culpability ‘may not mean evil intent, but may simply signify responsibility and control.”  The court concluded that defendant “not only had the responsibility to preserve information relevant to this litigation on the five laptops, but that it also had control over those laptops and information stored on them.”

The court then addressed the arguments of the defendant that “BCT as a company was not responsible for the ESI’s destruction” (1) because the employees accused of deleting evidence had simply been deleting personal information and had inadvertently deleted other files, and (2) because the executives and employees who destroyed the files “were acting individually and contrary to BCT’s express directives not to delete documents from their laptops.” The court quickly rejected the first argument.

via “Bad Faith or Culpability ‘May Not Mean Evil Intent, but May Simply Signify Responsibility and Control.’” : Electronic Discovery Law.

Considering how much information we entrust to the Internet every day, it is hard to believe there is no general law to protect people’s privacy online. Companies harvest data about people as they surf the Net, assemble it into detailed profiles and sell it to advertisers or others without ever asking permission.

So it is good to see a groundswell of support emerging for minimum standards of privacy, online and off. This week, the Obama administration called for legislation to protect consumers’ privacy. In the Senate, John Kerry is trying to draft a privacy bill of rights with the across-the-aisle support of John McCain.

Microsoft, which runs one of the biggest Internet advertising networks, said it supports a broad-based privacy law. It has just introduced a version of its Explorer browser that allows surfers to block some tools advertisers use to track consumers’ activities online.

It is crucial that lawmakers get this right. There is strong pressure from the advertising industry to water down rules aimed at limiting the data companies can collect and what they can do with it.

Most oppose a sensible proposal by the Federal Trade Commission for a do-not-track option — likely embedded in Web browsers. They have proposed self-regulation instead, and we applaud their desire to do that, but the zeal to self-regulate tends to wane when it is not backed by government rules and enforcement.

Senator Kerry has not yet proposed specific legislation, but he has laid out sound principles. Companies that track people’s activities online must obtain people’s consent first. They must specify what data they are collecting and how they will use it. They need consumers’ go-ahead to use data for any new purpose. They are responsible for the data’s integrity. And consumers should have the right to sever their relationship with data collectors and ask for their file to be deleted.

via A New Internet Privacy Law? – NYTimes.com.