No Vaccine, No Work?

September 24, 2021
CNN in New York recently fired three employees who violated company policy by reporting for work unvaccinated against the Covid-19 virus. [1] CNN chief Jeff Zucker reportedly said the media outlet has a zero-tolerance policy on requiring employees reporting onsite to be vaccinated. In other news, United Airlines will also require its more than 67,000 US-based employees to be vaccinated by no later than October 25 of this year or risk termination. [2] Unlike gender or race, a person’s vaccination status is not presently a legally-protected characteristic or classification under US Federal or State laws. Yet, the prevailing sentiment in the US is that employers can legally make employment decisions based on the vaccination status of their employees. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) of the US has, in fact, issued guidelines providing that businesses generally may require workers who report onsite to be vaccinated without running afoul of the country’s anti-discrimination laws. However, due consideration and reasonable accommodations must be afforded to employees who refuse a vaccine for religious or medical reasons. To address this conundrum, some States have already proposed legislation prohibiting discrimination in the workplace and elsewhere based on vaccination status. In contrast, the Philippine government, through the Department of Labour and Employment (DoLE), issued on March 12, Labour Advisory No. 03, Series of 2021 (Guidelines on the Administration of Covid-19 Vaccines in the Workplaces) proscribing the adoption and implementation of a “no vaccine, no work” policy. In the advisory, “covered establishments and employers shall endeavor to encourage their employees to get vaccinated. However, any employee refusing or failing to be vaccinated shall not be discriminated...

Singapore Ready to Become Global Arbitration Hub

September 21, 2021
Singapore has overtaken London as the “global upstart” of international arbitration and is well-placed to deal with the emerging technology trends in dispute resolution, according to observers. In the latest White & Case and Queen Mary University of London 2021 International Arbitration Survey, Singapore tied with London as the most popular seat of arbitration, ahead of Hong Kong, Paris and Geneva. Given that the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) has only existed for 30 years, its meteoric rise is an “amazing achievement”, said 39 Essex Chambers barrister Karen Gough. “London has been a hub for international trade for centuries and a global center for arbitration. But while London has an excellent reputation – not least because of its legal infrastructure and facilities to accommodate arbitration hearings – there have been no new developments lately to encourage arbitration in London,” she said. London’s institutional rules were formed a long time ago. For example, the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA) was established in 1982 while the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) began in 1919 and its rules first published in 1922. On the other hand, SIAC’s arbitration rules were produced in 1991 and are now in their sixth edition. These rules are, as with all things Singaporean, leading the way with an inclusion of provisions embracing recent legal developments and the practice of international commercial arbitration. The Singaporean courts are also well equipped to deal with arbitration matters, Gough said.   As Singapore’s arbitration environment continues to upgrade both its technological and procedural systems, it will be in a good spot to fix some lagging inefficiencies in arbitration. National University of Singapore...

Shenzhen Introduces China’s First Legislation on Arbitration

September 19, 2021
On 26 August, 2020, the Standing Committee of the Sixth People’s Congress of Shenzhen Municipality reviewed and approved The Provisions on the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration, which came into force on 1 October, 2020. This made the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration (SCIA) the first arbitration institution in China to be regulated by legislation approved by the local people’s congress. As the first arbitration institution in the world to implement the statutory body governance mechanism, the SCIA has carried out the statutory body reform since 2012 and established a Council-centered corporate governance structure, with an international Council standing as the decision body of the SCIA The Provisions is intended to continuously promote institutional innovation under the framework of the Arbitration Law of the People’s Republic of China, and is also an important measure taken by the SCIA to build an independent, impartial and innovative international arbitration institution. The Provisions are divided into seven chapters. These include the General Provisions, the Council, the Executive Body, Rules and Panels, Management of Finance and Human Resources, Supervision Mechanism and Supplementary Provisions and comprise 37 articles in total. Major contents and institutional innovations include: 1. Establishing a long-term corporate governance system: the SCIA will adopt a council-based corporate governance system to achieve organic unity of decision-making, execution and supervision. This will eliminate the parties’ doubts about local protection, administrative intervention and insider control of the arbitration institution and other aspects. 2. Promoting the structure of the Council and arbitrators in line with international standards: at least one third of the Council members or the arbitrators engaged by the SCIA in the panels...

The Time for Innovation in the Legal Sector … Was Yesterday

August 30, 2021
For the last decade, the phrase “digital disruption” has loomed like a specter over many industries, but the legal world seemed to mostly escape technical innovation. It’s not as though lawyers are still using paper notepads and quill pens. They have deployed the Microsoft software suite and other IT software just like every other sector. But aside from a handful of intriguing apps, the sector hasn’t really experienced the “digital disruption” that sowed chaos through the rest of the economy. Lawyers are quietly happy about dodging the disruption. After all, no one enjoys being made redundant, especially by a machine. But there’s always some satisfaction in deploying a digital tool that makes the workday faster and boosts productivity. The sector can hide, but changes are coming. Imminent technological advances will bring benefits to clients in the form of lower prices and greater ease of use of legal services, along with increased access to justice. But they may also herald tough times for firms as they square up to the challenge. According to the Altman Weil 2020 Law Firms in Transition survey, 62% of law firms now include innovation initiatives in their strategic plan while 60% have created special projects to test ideas. According to the Altman Weil 2020 Law Firms in Transition survey, 62% of law firms now include innovation initiatives in their strategic plan while 60% have created special projects to test ideas. On the other hand, 18% of firms had partnered with a technology company to build new digital solutions and only 18% had appointed an Innovation Director or assigned a specific person to the task of encouraging...

An Atrium, Legal-Tech, In-House Mash Up

August 23, 2021
The global legal technology industry finally appears to be entering the maturation stage of industrial development. Entrepreneurs are learning that legal services aren’t the low hanging fruit they first viewed them to be and that disruption of legal services requires more thoughtfulness, than simply blue-sky sessions with friends about the next killer app. Gone (thankfully!) are the days of throwing any sort of technology ideas at legal to “see what sticks.” The spectacular failure of US-based legal services provider Atrium serves not only was a fitting end point to legal technology’s wild adolescence, but it was also an inflection point toward a better, more helpful and sustainable industrial future. In 2017, Justin Kan, best known for making an obscene amount of money by creating Twitch, a technology that allows people to watch other people play video games, announced the creation of Atrium, and promptly raised US$10.5 million in seed funding. Justin later admitted this funding request was based on a short and shallow power point presentation. In effect, he was banking on his reputation to get funding, not a thoughtful and robust presentation. The buzz in Silicon Valley and among many in the global legal technology/ innovation community at the time was that if anyone can disrupt legal, it was Kan. Expectations hit a fever pitch in Autumn of 2018 when Atrium raised the absurd sum of US$65m in Series A funding from venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz. Atrium was awash with money and one could hear Silicon Valley “bros” chest bumping from all parts of the globe. After all, no new law firm on the planet had ever...

A Few Thoughts About IP and Company Value

August 16, 2021
As the value of intellectual property (IP) becomes an important part of many company’s valuation, interest grows in how IP can affect a company’s share price or ability to attract financing. If a company’s value is connected to its IP, its loss can result in stock price changes. For example, shares for drug companies Moderna and Pfizer dropped after US President Joe Biden voiced support for waiving patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines. Another example of IP impacting a company’s value is when a firm acquires another for its IP, as when Amazon bought MGM Studios for US$8.45 billion to gain access to its movie catalog. A Convoluted Connection However, establishing a connection between IP and valuation is not straightforward given the myriad legal, business, environmental and technical factors influencing the value of IP and thus the value of the whole company. Businesses and academics have studied prosecution data and other statistics to better understand the connection between valuations and patents. A growing number are questioning the common wisdom that patent volume is a good proxy of a company’s innovation. Not surprisingly, a cottage industry of service providers are now analyzing company patents and following patent grants to predict technology or product trends. But patent-focused analysis tends to be relevant only to those involved in technical industries who rely on patents to protect their IP, such as IT, biotechnology and the like. Is It The Combination That Counts? A small number of academics, and even two legally-trained professionals in Hong Kong, note that gross figures (the total numbers of patents owned by a company) offers an incomplete picture about whether...