RopesTalk

In this episode of the R&G Tech Studio, asset management counsel Ed Baer sits down with technology, media & telecommunications co-lead Ed Black to discuss his journey from private practice to in-house counsel (and back again), and shares his thoughts on the future of exchange-traded Bitcoins.

In this Ropes & Gray podcast, asset management and tax attorneys Isabel Dische, Adam Dobson and Dan Kolb discuss some considerations for institutional investors who are contemplating a secondary sale and some steps they can take to facilitate a portfolio rebalancing. Their discussion covers, among other things, a brief explanation of why an investor may want to pursue a secondary sale, typical deal processes and certain considerations LPs will want to keep in mind, how to reduce deal execution risk and certain key tax considerations.

In this Ropes & Gray podcast, health care partner Stephanie Webster and litigation & enforcement partner Jane Willis discuss a recent announcement by the DOJ Antitrust Division and the Office of Inspector General of Health and Human Services that the two enforcement agencies will increase their efforts to collaborate in connection with investigations of health care providers. They address how this announcement is part of a broader effort by the Biden Administration to aggressively enforce the antitrust laws, including using exclusion from federal health care programs as a remedy.

In this episode of the R&G Tech Studio, data, privacy & cybersecurity partner Fran Faircloth sits down with technology, media & telecommunications co-lead Ed Black to discuss how she counsels clients on a wide variety of privacy and cybersecurity concerns, including cyberattacks and data breaches, and how it’s helpful that she has a couple FBI agents on speed dial that she can contact whenever needed.

In the latest installment of our Ropes & Gray podcast series addressing emerging issues for fiduciaries of 401(k) and 403(b) plans to consider, Josh Lichtenstein, head of the ERISA fiduciary practice, Ellen Benson, benefits consulting group principal, and Sharon Remmer, ERISA and benefits counsel, analyze the Department of Labor’s (“DOL”) recently amended regulation governing ERISA investment duties and its application to environmental, social, and corporate governance (“ESG”) considerations and proxy voting. The amended regulation generally adheres to the re-proposal the DOL introduced over a year ago, in that it removes the anti-ESG bias of the Trump Administration’s prior rule. Instead, the final regulation adopts a more neutral stance which recognizes that ESG factors may be relevant to a risk-and-return analysis to the same extent as any other relevant factor. This shift in policy, as well as the changes that the regulation makes with respect to exercises of shareholder rights, is likely to have important consequences on fiduciary decision-making and behavior. In addition to monitoring these developments on the federal level, Ropes & Gray is proud to have launched an interactive website, Navigating State Regulation of ESG Investments, offering resources for monitoring the rapidly evolving legal and regulatory landscape concerning what role, if any, ESG factors should play in managing public retirement plan assets, and other related developments. To receive future, periodic updates, please be sure to sign up for our dedicated state ESG mailing list on this website.

In this episode of the R&G Tech Studio, data, privacy & cybersecurity co-lead Ed McNicholas sits down with technology, media & telecommunications co-lead Ed Black to discuss how his time as a litigator on the investigations team in the Clinton White House led him to a career in data privacy, and shares his insights on how the value of data continues to increase as technologies evolve.

This episode of Ropes & Gray’s podcast series Non-binding Guidance examines the regulatory landscape for drug compounding and how it has evolved over the last 10 years since a 2012 nationwide fungal meningitis outbreak caused by contaminated drugs from the New England Compounding Center (NECC) rocked the industry and led to a legislative overhaul. Listen to FDA regulatory partner Josh Oyster and associate Becca Williams as they discuss the continuing ramifications of the outbreak, the challenges faced by FDA and drug compounders, the opportunities presented to investors in the life sciences industry, and key areas of regulatory development to watch.

In this Ropes & Gray podcast, health care partners Margaux Hall and Stephanie Webster and counsel David Ault explore drug pricing reforms and limits on agency action. In the months leading up to the midterm elections, we saw a flurry of activity around drug pricing, and now, in the wake of midterms, we see heightened bipartisan interest in the topic. Listen in to hear about some of the key recent events and a discussion on the fundamental question of how far agencies can go in regulating drug pricing.

In this episode of the R&G Tech Studio, technology and intellectual property transactions partner Regina Sam Penti sits down with technology, media & telecommunications co-lead Ed Black to discuss her practice and how she, as an MIT-trained engineer, leverages her background to counsel clients on technology transactions.

In many cases, ITC investigations are not stand-alone proceedings—Section 337 complaints are often accompanied by complaints filed in federal district court. These parallel complaints often are based upon the very same unfair acts underlying the alleged Section 337 violation, such as patent infringement, trademark infringement, or trade secret misappropriation. In this episode of Talkin’ Trade, Ropes & Gray IP litigators Matt Rizzolo, Matt Shapiro, and Brendan McLaughlin explore the issues created by such parallel complaints, including the potential for litigation on two fronts and the possible preclusive effect—or lack thereof—of Commission determinations.