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IRS Names New International Tax Official

January 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The Internal Revenue Service announced Wednesday that Michael Danilack has been named deputy commissioner for international tax matters.

Danilack joins the IRS from the Washington, D.C., office of tax boutique Burt, Staples & Maner. The 15-lawyer firm also has an office in London, with a roster of clients including Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Euroclear and UBS.

Prior to joining the firm, Danilack worked as a principal at Deloitte Tax, focusing on cross-border tax matters. From the mid-1990s to 2000, he served as IRS associate chief counsel (international) overseeing the legal staff responsible for the interpretation, enforcement and litigation of all international provisions of the U.S. revenue laws.

via IRS Names New International Tax Official.

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Feds Want More Corporate Data | Law.com

January 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The U.S. Treasury and Justice departments want to require states to collect more information about the owners of corporations and limited liability companies to help crack down on domestic shell companies that launder money and help finance terrorists.

That effort is putting law enforcement officials at loggerheads with state treasurers, the business community and the American Bar Association.

Besides imposing new duties on the states, legislation introduced in the Senate also could bring lawyers and others who are compensated for helping to form corporations and LLCs under federal anti-money laundering requirements as well as potential criminal penalties for providing false information. About 2 million corporations and LLCs are formed each year in this country, according to various official estimates, and the states generally do not obtain the names of the people who will control or benefit from those companies.

“States that offer corporations to individuals without insisting on information on beneficial ownership undermine the efforts of law enforcement to prevent crime, recover stolen assets and collect tax,” said former Senate investigator and financial crime expert Jack Blum, a Washington, D.C., solo practitioner who has testified in support of legislation. “We grant corporations the privilege of limited liability and, in return, the state tells the people exactly what the corporation is doing. Secrecy is not and never has been the real purpose of corporations.”

via Law.com – Feds Want More Corporate Data.

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Across the Divide: Successfully Navigating Safe Harbor Law | Georgetown Law

December 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Across the Divide:  Successfully Navigating Safe Harbor

The 2009 Conference on Cross Border Data Flows, Data Protection and Privacy, entitled:  “Across the Divide: Successfully Navigating Safe Harbor” was held in Washington, D.C. from November 16-18, 2009.  The conference was organized by the United States Department of Commerce with the participation and cooperation of the European Commission and the Article 29 Working Party on Data Protection.

This year’s conference examined Safe Harbor Framework developments in the areas of cross-border electronic discovery, binding corporate rules, privacy compliance, and information security.  Other themes included cross border data sharing during pandemics, privacy by design, strategic information management for the enterprise, social network service providers and behavioral advertising in cloud computing, and global privacy standards.

[continued] Georgetown Law – E-Discovery Law Blog.

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Can Tech Shows Boost a Firm’s Bottom Line?

December 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

You can't help but wonder about an Am Law 200 firm that significantly cut or eliminated IT and litigation support staff attendance at this year's LegalTech and ILTA '09 conferences. The reasons vary, from “it wouldn't look right” to “we just have to cut expenses everywhere.”

Good thing these shows weren't held in Las Vegas. No firm would have sent its IT folks there for a week of blackjack and “Texas Hold-'em” parties. Not a chance. It just wouldn't send the right message; what with the layoffs, frozen salaries, and the elimination of bonuses. But these shows weren't in Vegas, and despite the beliefs of some (dare I say, many?), they aren't paid vacations for the technology staff.

Last year, law firms sent 1,320 people to the ILTA conference in Dallas. Of those, 735 came from firms with more than 250 attorneys. A year later, at a site near Washington, D.C., that for millions is a train ride away, law firm attendance dropped 47 percent, to 704 full-conference attendees. Firms with more than 250 attorneys sent only 376 folks, a drop of nearly 50 percent. These numbers don't include the attendees from corporate law departments, law schools, or the government, with ILTA's total attendance down 38 percent from the prior year.  And ILTA wasn't alone — almost all conferences in the legal arena suffered a drop in attendance due to the economy. LegalTech's double-digit growth over the last few years was arrested this year. According to Henry Payne Dicker, vice president of ALM Events, attendance for the New York show was down slightly from previous years.

We don't have data on what percentage of a firm's technology budget was saved by not sending some of its IT staff to this conference, but with ILTA's $1,025 fee (which included meals), and a deeply discounted hotel room, it couldn't have been much. And, there are firms (mine included) that will improve their bottom line by a lot more than what they spent on attendees of the ILTA '09 conference — because they realize that surviving (and hopefully flourishing) in these economic times is as much about exploring new efficiencies as it is about cutting costs.

[continued] Law.com – Can Tech Shows Boost a Firm’s Bottom Line?.

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U.S., Russian Antitrust Officials Sign Agreement

November 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

It doesn’t exactly rival the fall of the Berlin Wall, but here’s another indication of how much the world has changed in 20 years: On Tuesday the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice signed an antitrust memorandum of understanding with Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service.

After all, just two decades ago, the Soviet Union was one big, state-run monopoly. Now, the United States and Russia are pledging closer cooperation and communication when it comes to antitrust enforcement.

The memorandum was signed in Washington, D.C., by FTC chairman Jon Leibowitz, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust Christine Varney and FAS head Igor Artemyev.

via U.S., Russian Antitrust Officials Sign Agreement .

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