MEPs voted through two resolutions today (5 May) that called for a more limited use of personal data collected by US authorities, fearing the data could be abused.

At issue are two separate transfers of data. One is the so-called Passenger Name Records collected by airlines about passengers on transatlantic flights, which are used by US customs and border control agents to screen people who travel to the US.

The Parliament decided to postpone its approval of a 2007 EU-US accord on the transfer of PNR, and a similar arrangement with Australia. They did so to give Cecilia Malmström, the European commissioner for home affairs, time to draft a new proposal that would answer calls by MEPs for a global agreement setting out how passenger data can be used and what legal redress citizens have over the use of their data.

The MEPs also want a separate effort to negotiate a deal with the US that would cover all data transfer deals between the two sides.

The other data transfer issue voted on today dealt with information collected on bank transfers from Europe that the US Treasury screens to weed out terrorist financiers. Negotiations on a new so-called Terrorist Tracking Finance Programme between the EU and the US are expected to start later this month. The Parliament rejected an interim deal in February because of concerns that it did no

via MEPs call for improved data security  |  Policies  |  Justice  |  Rights | European Voice.

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THE MacBook sat despondent while the latest zeit geist technology, the iPad, became one litigator’s primary resource in a recent four-day court case.

A litigation lawyer and blogger, who aptly calls himself Maclitigator, has completed what may be the first jury trial using the iPad as the primary means of getting information to the jury.

The lawyer said: “Apple has created a product which facilitates presentation of evidence without getting in the way and does so in a completely unassuming fashion.”

The iPad, which sits low and befits a place next to a legal pad or other notes at the podium, allows the trial material to appear to the jury as not “overly flashy”. Nor is it “a complete headache and a distraction to the attorney”, he said.

The lawyer used Keynote to upload all documents to be admitted. Blankslides provided a tabbed divider set up, separating photos of the scene, x-rays, medical records, tables and summaries into their respective categories.

As lawyers can use such technology in court, the question may be asked whether this will be the end of the “mega-litigation” described in cases such as the C7 judgement in Australia.

While the number of pages left to be read by judges and litigators, may not change, the format in which they are presented could be overhauled and condensed.

Justice Ronald Sackville described the C7 case, for example, as requiring a “Herculean effort” to go through the pages.

“The pleadings occupied 1,028 pages. The trial occupied 120 sitting days. The transcript of the trial is 9,530 pages in length. The statements of the witnesses’ evidence in chief totalled 3,654 pages, of which 2,041 pages were those of the expert witnesses. 12,849 documents totalling 115,586 pages were tendered by way of evidence. The applicants’ written closing submissions in chief totalled 1,556 pages. The respondents between them generated 2,594 pages of written closing submissions. The applicants’ submissions in reply totalled 812 pages,” it was said of the case.

The iPad solved this problem of multiple pages to a small extent. Photos were grouped as a single exhibit in the case, and all content to be admitted was contained in a single Keynote presentation.

In terms of the hardware setup, Maclitigator said it required a good high lumen projector, a long, high quality VGA cable, a VGA video adapter cable for the iPad, and a silicon case for the iPad just because it gets a bit slipper in nervous litigators’ “sweaty palms’ in trial.

Maclitigator saw victory in the case, as well as in using his iPad.

via The iPad set to solve ‘mega-litigation’ problem – The New Lawyer.

The term refers to securities class action litigation in which the investors are foreign, the issuers are foreign and the fraudulent conduct took place on foreign soil. And yet, because of some company tie to the United States, large or minuscule, they end up in U.S. courts, where plaintiffs usually can do a lot better than if the suits were filed abroad.

Six years after the moniker was first coined, a foreign-cubed suit has made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear the case, Morrison v. National Australia Bank, today. Foreign investors accused Australia’s largest bank of fraud involving a Florida subsidiary, but the bank insists all of the disputed activity took place in Australia. So far, the bank has won.

Foreign companies and countries have flooded the Court with friend of the court briefs, signaling the importance of the case worldwide. Even parties litigating over the Toyota safety meltdown are watching; several securities class actions have been filed in federal courts against the company, which trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, based on statements made by Toyota officials in Japan.

The case comes to a Court that has grown increasingly skeptical about U.S. courts exerting extraterritorial jurisdiction. In the 2007 case Microsoft v. AT&T, a 7-1 majority spoke approvingly of the presumption that “United States law governs domestically but does not rule the world.” Three years earlier, in Hoffman-LaRoche v. Empagran, a unanimous Court said extending the reach of American antitrust laws too far into foreign situations would be “an act of legal imperialism.”

via Law.com – Justices to Consider a Border Battle Over Lawsuits.

In an effort to counter such trends, overcome the difficulties with Australia's federal system and in a bid to promote Australia as a centre for international arbitration and dispute resolution, the International Arbitration Amendment Bill 2009 was introduced into Parliament on 25 November 2009, following the Commonwealth Government's year long review of international commercial arbitration in Australia.

via Legal update: Australia’s position as an International arbitration centre to be enhanced – Deacons.

The Australian Centre for Commercial International Arbitration (ACICA), the Institute of Arbitrators & Mediators Australia (IAMA) and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Australia (CIArb) have signed a memorandum of co-operation in which they plan to promote the use and education of arbitration in the Asia-Pacific region.

The agreement was struck following amendments to the International Arbitration Act 1974 (Cth) introduced into Parliament by Attorney General, the Hon Robert McClelland.

Australian Centre for Commercial International Arbitration president Douglas Jones told The New Lawyer the reform is long overdue.

He said new legislation would encourage both Australian and non-Australian parties to have their international arbitrations held in Australia.

“We as a country have got significant advantages I think, with a well developed legal system and very competent practitioners to take advantage of that,” he said.

“Arbitration is a multi-billion industry in other places – in SIngapore, Hong Kong, London, all of them see that it adds huge value to the local economy in a range of areas,” said Jones.

The global financial crisis has seen an increase of commercial disputes but because

international investors want to avoid the uncertainty of litigation in a foreign court

system, the ACICA said.

via Lawyers gear up for new rules on arbitration – The New Lawyer.

“In India, Singapore, China, and Australia, managing content published on the Web is the top role played by CM software,” said Ridhi Sawhney, market analyst of Asia/Pacific Software Research at IDC. “Managing content with ever-increasing volumes of information, mounting regulatory pressure, and disparate applications with isolated data repositories, remains a big challenge. There is continuous demand for content management software from legacy businesses and developing countries as organizations endeavor to transition from manual overlay systems to automated systems.

CM market in the region is expected to grow steadily at a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.42 percent, reaching US$ 308.42 million by 2013.”

[continued] IDC: Document management software a priority in Asia Pacific | ComputerWorld Hong Kong.