test News CORRUPTION: Bandar Bribery Case Crosses the Atlantic

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Wednesday, June 27, 2007   20:25 GMT

IPS Direct to Your Inbox!  - Global Affairs  - Africa  - Asia-Pacific      Afghanistan      Tsunami  - Caribbean       Haiti  - Europe       Union in Diversity  - Latin America  - Mideast &    Mediterranean       Iraq       Israel/Palestine  - North America       Neo-Cons       Bush at War  - Development       MDGs       City Voices       Microcredit       Corruption  - Civil Society  - Globalisation  - Environment       Energy Crunch       Climate Change       Tierramérica  - Human Rights  - Health       HIV/AIDS  - Indigenous Peoples  - Labour       Decent Work  - Population       Reproductive Rights       Migration&Refugees  - Arts & Entertainment  - ExPress Freedom  - Columns  - In Focus    - Readers' Opinions  - Email News   What is RSS?    ENGLISH    ESPAÑOL    FRANÇAIS    ARABIC    DEUTSCH    ITALIANO    JAPANESE    NEDERLANDS    PORTUGUÊS    SUOMI    SVENSKA    SWAHILI    TÜRKÇE CORRUPTION: Bandar Bribery Case Crosses the Atlantic By Emad Mekay Credit:White House Photo President George W. Bush meets with then Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan at his Texas ranch in 2002. WASHINGTON, Jun 27 (IPS) - The U.S. Justice Department is investigating allegations of bribery by the British defence contractor BAE Systems to Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, a high-ranking member of the Saudi royal family with wide contacts and relations here. The news brings a high-profile investigation initially launched in Britain to the United States, where the political influence of the Saudi royal family is well-known. Although the British government dropped its own probe last December, citing national security considerations, U.S. prosecutors determined that BAE could be investigated under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act because it used U.S. banks to allegedly transfer payments to accounts controlled by Prince Bandar. The Justice Department involvement has had immediate ramifications, with the company's shares losing eight percent of their value Tuesday. "BAE Systems has been notified by the U.S. Department of Justice that it has commenced a formal investigation relating to the company's compliance with anti-corruption laws, including the company's business concerning the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," BAE Systems said in a statement sent to IPS. It is not clear yet what prompted Washington to get involved the case, given its close relationship with both Britain and the Saudis, but the decision comes after weeks of lobbying by some European officials, and development and anti-corruption groups around the world who denounced the decision by the Tony Blair government to close its own investigation. In a letter campaign, they urged Blair to reopen the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) inquiry into allegations of slush funds surrounding the 80-billion-dollar Al Yamamah arms deal between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia, a transaction that dates back to 1985. They argued that future efforts by Britain to prescribe governance and transparency standards for developing countries receiving aid and debt relief are likely to be viewed with scepticism. The anti-bribery committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development had also demanded an explanation from the British government and decided to conduct a further examination of Britain's efforts to combat bribery. The SFO is still examining corruption charges involving BAE contracts in Romania, the Czech Republic, Tanzania and South Africa. Meanwhile, an investigation by the British BBC earlier this month found that BAE paid nearly two billion dollars in bribes to the Saudi prince, a charge that both Prince Bandar and BAE vehemently deny. Many activists say that the British government succumbed to political pressure both from BAE, Europe's' leading defence company, and from Saudi officials who threatened to cancel future lucrative arms deals. Last year, Saudi Arabia signed an expanded military agreement with Britain, including a commitment to acquire at least 24 Eurofighter Typhoons to replace its air force fleet of Panavia Tornado Air Defence Variant (ADV) fighters. They were part of the multi-billion-dollar Typhoon order that would provide the cornerstone of a third phase to the bilateral Al Yamamah arms agreement. This agreement has already covered the delivery and support of 120 Tornado ADV and Interdictor Strike (IDS) aircraft, BAE Systems Hawk and Pilatus PC-9 trainers and other equipment. The 2006 agreement also seeks to further develop Saudi Arabia's national aerospace industry through the transfer of technology from BAE, the main contractor, and the establishment of additional in-country support facilities. BAE says it is in the process of promoting an extensive upgrade of Saudi Arabia's Tornado IDS aircraft in an effort to further boost the value of its Al Yamamah business activities. But the expanded deals are just one factor in the investigation. Prince Bandar wields enormous political clout -- even more so in the United States, where he spent much of his career and developed close relations with many U.S. politicians, including the Bush family. He also recently endeared himself to U.S. foreign policy circles, including the powerful pro-Israel hawks in the U.S. Congress, with a rapprochement between his conservative kingdom and Israel, a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. After he came to serve as Saudi Arabian King Abdullah's national security advisor, he made unprecedented advances towards Israel. In the past, U.S. citizens have reported they were refused a Saudi visa because their passports reflected travel to Israel or indicated they were born in Israel. This has not happened recently. Bandar bin Sultan is also widely credited for forging an unprecedented front made up of his country, Jordan and Egypt, which rallied against Hezbollah in Lebanon during its war with Israel last summer. The position won him praise in Washington and was heralded as a new era in Arab-Israeli relations. Saudi Arabia is also likely to be a major player if the U.S. decides to take military action against Iran over Tehran's nuclear programme. U.S. lawmakers have yet to make a statement on the case. (END/2007)

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Rodrigo González Fernández
Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
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Legal Blog Watch

Legal Blog Watch

Chambermaid: The Summer Must (Not?) Read When a former law clerk to 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Dolores Sloviter writes a novel that her publisher promises "breaks the code of silence surrounding the clerkship ... and boldly takes us into the mysterious world of the third branch of the U.S. government," lawyers' ears perk up. The novel, Chambermaid, by Saira Rao, is now shipping, and James Grimmelmann at PrawfsBlawg says, I'm Sorry I Read It: "The book is an abomination, one of the worst novels I have ever read, both artistically and morally. The affected style, which runs the gamut from 'cutesy' to 'bench memo,' would be forgivable if the substance weren't so dreadful." Grimmelmann calls the narrator "a raving narcissist" and offers examples of her shallowness drawn from her own words, such as this: "I was suddenly intrigued. A real-life lesbian! And she was my coclerk. I would actually have a lesbian friend! [My sister] had recently convinced me that lesbians were more fabulous than gay men." Others had kinder words for the book. At Above the Law, David Lat says he "thoroughly enjoyed" it. Legal Antics writes: "It really is hysterical! I highly recommend it." And in the New York Law Journal, reporter Thomas Adcock describes the book as "witty" and "suffused with humor." (Adcock is himself the award-winning author of several novels.) Rao, meanwhile, is doing the Q&A circuit. Earlier this month, she spoke with Peter Lattman at Law Blog, who asked her how much of the novel was based on personal experience. Her reply: "While informed by personal observations, this is a novel, this is fiction. If I wrote a memoir it would be pretty damn boring. I clerked in the Third Circuit, the novel is based in the Third Circuit. People can draw their own conclusions." Brett McKay also interviews Rao at his blog, The Frugal Law Student. He asks her that all-important law student question, "How much debt did you incur while in law school?" Her answer: "I did take out loans to pay for half of law school. But I was also deeply lucky to have parents who paid for the other half." She has yet to pay off that debt, she confides, but the second novel she is already at work on may help. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 26, 2007 at 03:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Blawg Review: Double the Hosts, Double the Fun For this week's Blawg Review #114, two bloggers team up as hosts, and the result is an almost double-length collection of citations to the week's best of the legal blogs. Double-teaming for this first Blawg Review of summer 2007 are mediator Stephanie West Allen of idealawg and mentor and lawyer coach Julie Fleming-Brown of Life at the Bar. With Julie already at the beach and Stephanie visualizing herself there, the two offer their summer summary of the sangria and watermelon of the legal blogosphere.  Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 26, 2007 at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Sneak Peek: Top-ranked EDD Vendors As I noted here a year ago, the annual Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey could be called the Consumer Reports of EDD vendors. Based on vendor-provided data, interviews and other research, the survey ranks the top EDD companies and provides information on a number of others. The survey costs $5,000 to purchase, but an abbreviated version will be published in the August issue of Law Technology News. Today at her blog The Common Scold, LTN editor-in-chief Monica Bay has a sneak preview of the report. Among other things, she reveals the survey's 2007 picks for the top-five EDD providers. They are: FTI Consulting. Guidance Software. Kroll Ontrack. LexisNexis. Zantaz Inc. Monica has other peeks at the survey, including the top-ranked providers of EDD software. Read more at her blog and watch for the article in the August LTN. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 26, 2007 at 03:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Cadwalader's Bed Bug Solution Bugs have been found in the New York office of white-shoe law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. They are not of the eavesdropping kind, but of the bothersome, itch-inducing bed bug kind. At the blog Abovethelaw.com,  David Lat has the memo sent yesterday to all New York staff from chairman Robert O. Link Jr. According to the memo, said bed bugs were found not in beds, but in the 33rd floor word-processing department. In a paragraph that could only -- as Lat observes -- have been written by a lawyer, Link advises: "We immediately arranged with Assured Environments, a full-service integrated pest management firm operating in the metro NY area for over 70 years and a specialist in the treatment of bed bugs, to review our problem and make recommendations on both short and long-term solutions." The short-term solution: remove the box from whence said bugs emerged. And remove the person who brought the box. There was a guilty party, the memo suggests, who brought the bed bugs into the firm. That person, Link adds, "is no longer associated with the firm." Link goes on -- again sounding every bit the lawyer: "Bed bugs, while not usually found in a work environment, can cause uncomfortable itching. They do not show themselves during daylight hours, only at night in the dark. ... The best evidence of bed bugs is not the actual bugs but the waste material left behind that is either a dark brown or reddish color." He later concludes: "Other reports of insects -- which we receive periodically in an office environment -- have been carefully investigated and, in each instance, were identified as fruit flies or gnats." So there you have it: short- and long-term strategic planning and solutions, application of the best-evidence rule, and careful ongoing investigation -- all in a day's work for a major law firm responding to a bed bug crisis. Meanwhile, Cadwalader's fruit flies and gnats are resting easy. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 26, 2007 at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
telefono: 5839786
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fROM Legal Blog Watch

Avvo's Ratings 'a Crock' Trust us, Avvo's ratings are a crock. So writes Scott Graham, editor-in-chief of The Recorder in San Francisco and Cal Law, at the blog Legal Pad. With all the controversy surrounding the new lawyer-rating service, Graham decided to see how some of California's most prestigious attorneys fared. He picked some of the top names from Chambers USA's guide to California's attorneys and found that Chambers and Avvo do not always agree. In the bankruptcy arena, for example, here is what Graham found: "L.A. bankruptcy lawyer Kenneth Klee was one of the select few to score a perfect 10. Heller Ehrman bankruptcy partner Peter Benvenutti notched a nice 8.9. But Winston & Strawn bankruptcy sage Patrick Murphy -- identified by Chambers as a 'senior statesman' -- scored only 7.3. And Howard Rice's James Lopes was rated 6.5. What was PG&E thinking putting him in charge of its $12 billion bankruptcy?" Corporate heavyweights met with similarly inconsistent results. For example, Graham writes: "Cooley Godward M&W whiz Keith Flaum was rated 6.5, and O'Melveny heavyweight Warren Lazarow got two ratings, 6.7 and 6.4. Flaum and Lazarow were thus rated lower than ex-Hewlett Packard GC Ann Baskins (6.9), who resigned from the company last year after pleading the Fifth Amendment in regard to the pretexting scandal, and former Mercury Interactive Corp." Graham walks through a number of examples, ending with The Recorder's own attorney, Levy Ram & Olson's Karl Olson, "who has rendered incomparable service to us for more than a decade." His Avvo rating: a "paltry 6.5." Leading Graham to conclude, "the ratings are a crock." (Our legal-affairs podcast Lawyer2Lawyer earlier this week spoke with attorney John Henry Browne, a lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against Avvo. Also on the program were bloggers Denise Howell and my Legal Blog Watch colleague Carolyn Elefant. Avvo representatives declined to participate.) Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 22, 2007 at 02:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) At Legal Tech, Whirlwinds and Shifting Winds Law Technology News editor-in-chief Monica Bay attended Legal Tech West Coast this week, where  her technology barometer found both whirlwinds and shifting winds, as she relates at her blog The Common Scold. The whirlwind, she reports, was the entire show. But she was particularly proud of one program near and dear to her heart: "Green Law: A Leadership Challenge." The program, which Monica moderated, featured presentations by Alvidas Jasin, director of business development at Thompson Hine, who offered a mini version of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth; Bruce Lymburn, partner with Wendel Rosen, Black & Dean, on "The Greening of a Law Firm"; Matthew Heartney, a partner with Arnold & Porter, on developing a green office initiative; and Tony Hoke, global technology purchasing and assets manager at Morrison & Foerster, on the leadership challenge of green law. For those of us who missed the panel, Monica's post includes links to download PowerPoints of the presentations. As for shifting winds, Monica found them at Legal Tech in the way that e-discovery vendors are shifting their postures from defense to offense. She explains: "I just wrote a mini-essay in LTN (p5, July) about a huge trend that I've noticed this spring -- that EDD vendors who are changing from a 'reactive' approach to e-discovery in favor of a 'consulting' approach. (That plus a definite power shift to GCs in determining technology tools.) "Kroll is the latest EDD vendor to announce a new consulting arm -- Ontrack Consulting -- and I'm sure there will be more. Clearly, we're at 'EDD 2.0' -- or maybe 3.0 -- as the focus moves to 'litigation readiness' rather than reacting to a particular lawsuit." This was not the only trend Monica found bubbling to the surface at Legal Tech. For the others, you will have to read her full post. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 22, 2007 at 02:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Report: Labor Laws Systemically Flaunted Laws mean little if not enforced. That is the premise of a study published this week by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law that documents a pervasive workplace culture of noncompliance with basic wage, hour and safety laws. So extensive is this disregard of labor and employment law, argue the authors, that it threatens to become an established way of doing business in the United States. Based on three years of research and more than 300 interviews, the report, Unregulated Work in the Global City, examines conditions in New York City. But the conditions they describe, the authors contend, exist throughout the U.S. economy. "In this report, we describe a world of work that lies outside the experience and imagination of many Americans. It is a world where jobs pay less than the minimum wage, and sometimes nothing at all; where employers do not pay overtime for 60-hour weeks, and deny meal breaks that are required by law; where vital health and safety regulations are routinely ignored, even after injuries occur; and where workers are subject to blatant discrimination, and retaliated against for speaking up or trying to organize. "Such conditions exist here in New York City, in occupations and industries that span the breadth of the city's economy. They are not isolated, short-lived cases of exploitation at the fringe of the city's economy. Instead, the systematic violation of our country's core employment and labor laws – what we call 'unregulated work' – is threatening to become a way of doing business for unscrupulous employers. And yet from the standpoint of public policy, these jobs (and the workers who hold them) are too often off the radar screen." The report was written by Annette Bernhardt, deputy director of the Brennan Center's Justice Program; Siobhan McGrath, former Brennan Center research associate; and James De Filippis, assistant professor of black and Hispanic studies at Baruch College. Based on their findings, they call on federal and state governments to strengthen the labor laws and their enforcement of those laws and to provide equal protection to immigrants in the workplace. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 22, 2007 at 02:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Filling the References Void At Counsel to Counsel blog, Stephen Seckler points to two pieces -- one recent, one older -- that address an often vexing question for job seekers: What to do when you don't have a reference, either because you've had only one job or because you've left a job on unfavorable terms? The first situation -- where the job seeker's current employer is his or her first -- is addressed this week by legal recruiter Ann Israel in her New York Law Journal column, Advice for the Lawlorn. Israel's advice turns on whether a recruiter is involved. "If so, the recruiter should explain to the prospective employer that you will be more than happy to give references as soon as an offer has been extended, accepted and you have given notice. That is normal procedure and how 99.9 percent of the law firms operate." If no recruiter is involved, the job seeker should directly ask the same of the firm. Rarely, a firm will say that it cannot extend an offer until it checks references, Israel says, but this is "utter nonsense." Still, a candidate can always dig deeper for references -- law school professors and internship supervisors, for example. The second situation -- where one has been fired from a job or quit on shaky terms -- was addressed in an August 2006 CareerJournal.com column by Dana Mattioli. First off, writes Mattioli, don't assume that your firing necessarily means you can't get a good reference. "It isn't unusual for managers to put in a good word for employees whom they have dismissed." Second, contact former bosses and use them as references. Third, find other managers from within your former workplace who may be sympathetic to your situation and solicit references from them. Fourth, use former clients or vendors as references. Last, verify your former employment through the HR department, not through your former boss, lest the former boss say something negative. As Ann Israel sums it up: "Not to worry -- every problem has a solution." Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 22, 2007 at 02:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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Rodrigo González Fernández
Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
telefono: 5839786
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Legal Blog Watch

Legal Blog Watch

How Congress Is Kept Offline Politicians have fallen in love with the Web. Political candidates use blogs, videos and social-networking tools to win votes and fill coffers. But for candidates elected to Congress, their victory means they must curtail their use of cutting-edge technologies. In an op-ed yesterday in The Hill, "Modern World, Ancient Websites," David All and Paul Blumenthal discuss how congressional franking rules restrict members of Congress in their official Web sites. "Due to such restrictions, most member websites function as little more than online brochures, when they could better serve as a place to share information about the member's activities in Congress, or even as a vital community center. Under these rules, members cannot use Google maps to provide visuals for district information important to constituents. Neither can members use non-congressionally provided blogging tools, nor link to other blogs that may be deemed to be of a political nature." The authors, both bloggers, note that the franking rules were created decades ago to restrict the use of snail mail at taxpayer expense. Last updated in 1996, the rules prohibit use of outside Web services and ban links to personal or political Web sites. The harm in this is to the public, the authors say, blocking the free flow of information to constituents and others. They call on Congress to convene a bipartisan task force to review this situation. "The time has come," they write, "to re-imagine the world of the wired elected official." Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 20, 2007 at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) Our Judicial Imperialism Imperialism is a word that suggests power fitting of an empire or of an emperor. An op-ed out of Australia today uses the phrase "judicial imperialism" to describe the U.S. legal system's increasing extension of its power overseas. The term might also have fit a story earlier this week out of Washington describing the increasingly imperial stance being taken by some judges towards the news media. In the opinion piece from The Sydney Morning Herald, Lawyers Without Borders is Justice American-Style, Mark Coultan, the newspaper's New York correspondent, describes how the United States is giving new meaning to the phrase, "long arm of the law." There is Hew Griffiths, the Australian forcibly extradited to a Virginia prison last month even though he never committed a crime on U.S. soil; he is charged with helping to crack copy-protected software and media products and distribute them for free. There are three British bankers -- the so-called Natwest Three -- extradited to the United States for allegedly taking part in a scheme involving former Enron executive Andrew Fastow to acquire ownership of a Cayman Islands investment company at far below worth. "If there was a crime," Coultan writes, "it was committed against a British company, in Britain by British citizens." After citing other examples, he concludes: "The point about this judicial imperialism is not that any of these cases is without merit. In the Natwest case, prosecutors have emails in which the accused refer to the transaction as 'robbery'. "Nor is it that US courts are unfair or unjust. But justice systems vary widely. US prison sentences tend to be longer, particularly for white-collar crimes. "Extending the reach of courts may be the answer to a globalised economy. But we will have to wait and see." In Washington, meanwhile, Legal Times correspondent Tony Mauro writes about the increasing number of libel cases brought by judges. He sets the stage: "Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once said judges should adopt a 'rope-a-dope' posture when criticized, taking the hits passively until their adversaries wear themselves out. "But with 25 judges suing for libel in 2005 alone — nearly 10 percent of all libel suits filed nationwide — that form of judicial restraint is fading, raising questions about the role, and the ethics, of judges and whether they have a right to be as litigious as everyone else." Last week, the news media began to push back, Mauro reports, "questioning when and whether judges should be able to use their own court systems as a tool to retaliate against the media." One leader in that pushback is media lawyer Bruce Sanford, a partner with Baker & Hostetler in D.C. He tells Mauro: "If these suits lead the public to feel that judges are taking care of their own, it will only add to cynicism about the judicial process." No question, judges sometimes find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to the news media. But even Gary Hengstler, director of the Reynolds National Center for Courts and the Media at the National Judicial College, tells Mauro that judges nowadays "are more emboldened to sue." In some cases, it seems to me, this attitude begins to approach imperiousness. Judges themselves differ widely in their dealings with and attitudes towards the news media. But I say Justice Scalia got it right. Becoming a judge opens you to criticism; it does not raise you above it. Judges need to understand that going in. Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on June 20, 2007 at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) A Blawger, a Priest and a Rabbi ... This is no laughing matter. In fact, it is getting darned right serious. At her blog Legal Antics, New York lawyer Nicole L. Black is running a competition to name the funniest law blog. Why? Well, it seems we have our own Carolyn Elefant to blame ... er, thank. Last week right here at Legal Blog Watch, she suggested that other bloggers follow the lead of Jamie Spencer at Austin Criminal Defense Law Blog and poll readers on the best blogs in a given field. (Last November, I had a similar poll on top law blogs at my LawSites blog.) The same day, Black picked up on Elefant's idea and announced her funniest blawg poll. As of today, it is down to 10 finalists, with polling set to close June 25 at 10 p.m. Eastern. Still in the running for yuk-iest law blog are Above the Law, Anonymous Lawyer, Buffalo Wings and Vodka, Legal Antics, Legal Reader, Lowering the Bar, Overlawyered, PhilaLawyer, Quizlaw and Say What? As the deadline nears, the competition heats up. At Above the Law, Billy Merck says he didn't care about it at first, but now urges readers to cast their votes because "we're getting jacked around" (pointing a finger at PhilaLawyer). And Quizlaw, amid rumors of voter fraud and ballot stuffing, says shenanigans have officially been declared. Quizlaw effectively challenged PhilaLawyer to a blogging duel when it expressed surprise at the site's standing, "considering that its 723 votes are probably more than the number of readers the blog actually has, coupled with the fact that I hadn't even heard of the site before this poll." If you're wondering what's at stake to drive otherwise upstanding blawgers to such lengths, this is not merely about crowing rights. The winner gets his or her choice of any item from The Billable Hour.

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
telefono: 5839786
santiago-chile

 

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APRENDAMOS CON ENRIQUE DANS; el Departamento de Asesoría Jurídica

A la calle con el Departamento de Asesoría Jurídica

Posted: 16 Jun 2007 09:26 AM CDT

¿Cuántas "takedown notices", cuantos "cease and desist" tienen que demostrar su ineficacia como para que las empresas se den cuenta de que no deben hacer caso a sus trasnochados Departamentos de Asesoría Jurídica mientras éstos no se reciclen y aprendan un poco de "la ley de la red"? En esta ocasión, la víctima vuelve a ser Dell, una empresa que ya las ha tenido de todos los colores en la red y que gracias a ello hizo sus deberes de manera muy satisfactoria, la que cae en la trampa de tener un Departamento de Asesoría Jurídica con el gatillo demasiado rápido: envían una takedown notice a The Consumerist, un sitio de altísima popularidad, porque había publicado una entrada en la que un antiguo director de uno de esos pequeños quioscos de venta que la marca tiene en galerías comerciales en Estado Unidos contaba sus "22 Confessions Of A Former Dell Sales Manager", veintidós "secretos" que van desde el puro sentido común hasta revelaciones sobre políticas de precios y descuentos, consejos sobre si pagar o no las garantías extendidas, etc. cuya revelación la marca opinaba que iba en contra de sus intereses.

Nos hallamos, una vez más, ante la paradoja de la discusión moral. Podemos pasarnos horas discutiendo si la entrada constituye o no un delito de revelación de secretos, sobre si debe o no ser objeto de denuncia o constituye en modo alguno un acto punible… pero sería completamente irrelevante. Lo único que importa es que, por el hecho de haber enviado la takedown notice, publicada automáticamente por The Consumerist según hicieron clic en el mensaje, la entrada tiene ahora más de ciento y pico mil lecturas, está en la portada de Digg, y ha aparecido incluso en Dell IdeaStorm, el sitio que Dell tiene para que sus clientes hagan y voten sugerencias para la marca. Impresionante "éxito de crítica y público" que debería ser celebrado con la ejecución en la plaza pública de Tracy Holland, la persona del Departamento de Asesoría Jurídica que tuvo la obviamente estúpida idea de enviar la takedown notice. En una empresa como Dell, que asimiló de manera rapidísima las lecciones de su Dell Hell desarrollando sus propios blogs y filtros sociales, que controla sus watchlists, que se comunica con los bloggers de manera directa, el pecado de un Departamento de Asesoría Jurídica anquilosado en las prácticas tradicionales del siglo pasado resulta si cabe todavía más sangrante.

Resulta también muy interesante pensar sobre las posibles alternativas de actuación. Una cosa así, un episodio en el que un "disgruntled employee" revela información sobre una compañía, es algo que ha pasado muchas veces antes y después de existir Internet, y que sin duda pasará muchas más. ¿Cómo debe una compañía reaccionar en esos casos? ¿No dando importancia a dicha filtración, así sea en un medio tan seguido como The Consumerist? Francamente, no resulta fácil saberlo. Lo que sí está claro es que una takedown notice coloca a la compañía en la peor de las situaciones posibles: con la información supuestamente considerada crítica habiendo alcanzado una visibilidad infinitamente mayor, y con escasas posibilidades de obtener una reparación del daño producido. Y era algo, además, completamente previsible por cualquiera con un mínimo de cultura de Internet, algo que se debería suponer en el caso de Tracy Holland, firmante de la takedown notice, y que resulta ser coautora de una publicación titulada "The Corporate Response To Discovery: Surviving Litigation and Discovery in an Electronic Age" (2005). Desconozco en qué estaba pensando cuando envió el mensaje. Lo que sí sé es que, en términos de reputación e imagen, me temo que ha hecho un muy flaco favor a la compañía que paga su salario…

cease and desist, Consumerist, Dell, Dell Hell, Dell IdeaStorm, Digg, legal affairs, legal counseling, legal department, takedown notice

 

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Rodrigo González Fernández
Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
telefono: 5839786
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chilean trade- association -complementation agreements

Trade Agreements
Free Trade Agreements China United States Canada Mexico South Korea Central America European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Association Agreements UE New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, and Chile (P4) Complementation Agreements Argentina Bolivia Colombia Ecuador Mercosur Peru Venezuela

Saludos
Rodrigo González Fernández
Consultajuridicachile.blogspot.com
Renato Sánchez 3586
telefono: 5839786
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'WITNESS/Global Voices Human Rights Video Hub wins One World Media award '

'WITNESS/Global Voices Human Rights Video Hub wins One World Media award '
by Georgia Popplewell

Yesterday evening (June 14) , the WITNESS/Global Voices Human Rights Video Hub pilot took the award for best New Media project at the One World Media Awards in London.

Conferred annually by the One World Broadcasting Trust, the awards "encourage excellence in media coverage that supports a greater understanding of the vital issues of international development. . . [and] recognise the unique role of journalists and film makers in bridging the divide between different societies, and communicating the breadth of social, political and cultural experiences across the globe."

Global Voices and WITNESS were represented at the ceremony by South Asia editor Neha Viswanathan and former Video Hub editor Sameer Padania (now director of the Video Hub project at WITNESS), respectively. The Human Rights Video Hub beat out BBC's Tribe and the farming charity web site Cowforce for the award.

According to the citation, e-mailed to us this morning by Sameer, the One World jury
decided to award the Human Rights Video Hub Pilot because, although a pilot, it was felt that it enacted and focussed on the potential power of the contemporary participatory web. It has been built around some of the most compelling new media trends we are only starting to witness - the explosion of video sharing online and mobile technology. Making it easy for those without a computer to share human rights violations with global audiences in is potentially transformative. It was agreed that this site sets a benchmark that others must meet in using technology and digital media to bring to light injustices that would not usually be brought to a global public eye, and therefore had the potential to effect real change. It shows how the power of collaboration, distribution and aggregation can amplify the plight of others in an unequal society. It clearly fulfilled the One World Broadcast award judging criteria and it was felt that it provided a much needed portal, space and context, with the support of ethical and thoughtful editorial content, to put the spotlight on global cultures through different lenses.The WITNESS/Global Voices Human Rights Video Hub pilot, which curates human rights video from around the world, was launched at the Global Voices web site in September 2006. The pilot is the first step in a larger WITNESS project designed to curate video, provide educational tools, and be a resource for activists, journalists and others interested in deterring human rights violations "through community-enabled advocacy, using visual imagery as a catalytic force".

As Sameer Padania writes in this morning's e-mail: "I know people say this all the time, but the award really does belong to the brave, committed, talented people on the ground - bloggers, human rights advocates, journalists, lawyers, filmmakers, citizens - who fought to bring these stories to light, and without whom we genuinely would have had nothing to say or show."

You may view the latest post at
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/06/15/witnessglobal-voices-human-rights-video-hub-wins-one-world-media-award/

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Rodrigo González Fernández
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