Yearly Archives: 2015

Recap: “Venture Capital Speaker Series: Stephanie Brecher, General Counsel of New Enterprise Associates”

By Claire Oxford, J.D. Candidate 2018 | Posted on

How does a Berkeley Law graduate end up as the General Counsel of one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital firms? What does a day in the life of a General Counsel look like and what are the best steps to take to reach a similar prestigious career?

On September 29, Stephanie Brecher, a 1993 U.C. Berkeley Law graduate and General Counsel of New Enterprise Associates (“NEA”), addressed these questions and others to a group of law students in Boalt Hall on the U.C. Berkeley campus.

Ms. Brecher discussed her path from Berkeley Law to NEA. In the start of her career, she described herself as an “accidental tourist” in corporate law. After graduation, Ms. Brecher held a clerkship in the Central District of California. Upon completion of her clerkship, she decided not to take the position she had initially planned on, and instead she accepted a position as an associate at Steptoe & Johnson in Washington, D.C., where she hoped to work in international law, but was placed on the corporate team. After this position she worked as in-house counsel in Silicon Valley and spent nearly a decade at Nortel. Following her time at Nortel, Ms. Brecher returned to work at a law firm and became a partner at Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton before she acquired her position at NEA.

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SEC Cracks Down on Hidden Mutual Fund Fees

By Sean Pinckney, J.D. Candidate 2018 | Posted on

In what could be the tip of a legal iceberg, the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filed proceedings on September 21st against First Eagle Investment Management, a $100 billion asset manager. The SEC alleged that First Eagle illicitly charged its investors nearly $25 million more in marketing fees beyond the limits allowed by the firm’s 12b-1 plan. The action against First Eagle is the first case of its kind arising under the SEC’s “Distribution-in-Guise Initiative,” an investigation into whether mutual fund managers are improperly disguising certain expenses as those that should be borne by investors and not the funds themselves. First Eagle reached a settlement with the SEC for over $40 million without admitting or denying the findings and will be returning the unlawfully charged fees to affected investors.

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Definitely, Maybe: Fed Chair Reiterates Plans to Raise Interest Rates….Eventually

By Martin Salvucci, J.D. Candidate 2018 | Posted on

Nearly one week after the Federal Reserve, once again, declined to raise its benchmark interest rate, Chairwoman Janet Yellen reiterated her expectation that the Fed would raise interest rates by the end of the calendar year. Speaking at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Yellen sought to quell lingering unease within the financial markets by underscoring her commitment to a timely departure from the present near-zero interest rate environment. Yellen conceded that unmet expectations for economic growth could delay the Fed’s long-planned increase until 2016, but indicated that domestic economic indicators, rather than market turmoil abroad, would dictate their timeline.

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Unicorn Valuations and the Silicon Valley

By Alan Parker, LL.M Candidate 2016 | Posted on

Unicorn valuations and the problems related thereto are in the spotlight in Silicon Valley. Basically, this term is used when referring to invested start-up companies with a pre-money valuation (i.e., before a venture capital investment) equal to or greater than one billion dollars. This is in a context where, by nature, it is extremely hard to accurately determine the value of a start-up, as most of them do not have any operational background.

When a venture capital investor agrees to invest and acquire shares in a start-up with such a hefty valuation, it will most likely ask for several contractual guarantees aiming to ensure a minimum return on its investment, and that’s when problems may arise between investors and the founding shareholders.

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Justice Department Files Antitrust Lawsuit to Block GE-Electrolux Merger

By Kevin Jones, J.D. Candidate 2018 | Posted on

On July 1, 2015, the Department of Justice filed suit under federal antitrust statutes in the U.S. District Court for District of Columbia against AB Electrolux for its attempt to acquire General Electric for $3.3 billion, halting the potential buyout. The Department of Justice alleges that the multinational corporation’s buyout of GE would combine the two largest appliance manufacturers of ranges, cooktops, and wall ovens, effectively diminishing vital market competition.

Deputy Assistant Attorney General Leslie C. Overton of the Antitrust Division announced that the lawsuit “seeks to prevent a duopoly in the sale of major cooking appliances,” since allowing the merger would leave Electrolux and competitor Whirpool with control over 75% of U.S. sales. The DOJ contends the lack of competition would leave millions of American citizens and families vulnerable to major price increases in two major ways: directly for homeowners and indirectly for property lessees who will pay higher rents as a result of commercial builders passing off the costs of higher unit costs.

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Volkswagen Braces for “Dieselgate” Fallout

By Madisson Goorman, J.D. Candidate 2018 | Posted on

On September 19, 2015 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) called for a recall of almost 500,000 Volkswagen (VW) diesel powered cars, after finding these cars contain software that manipulates results for standard emissions tests. In its report, the EPA states that this software “allowed Volkswagen vehicles to spew as much as 40 times the pollution allowed under the Clean Air Act.”  On Tuesday, VW disclosed that 11 million cars have this software, suggesting that there is a possibility for a global recall.

Since this announcement there have already been 16 class actions filed against VW in the United States. These suits “include claims for breach of warranty and fraud by concealment as well as various state consumer protection laws.”

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4chan Sold: Can Web Forums Be Profitable?

By Joyce Li, J.D. Candidate 2018 | Posted on

Last week, Christopher Poole, founder of the anonymous image-based web forum 4chan, sold the site to Hiroyuki Nishimura, founder of earlier anonymous forum 2channel. Neither Poole nor Nishimura commented on the terms of the acquisition, but the sale comes at a time of growing venture capital investment in traffic heavy websites such as 4chan and Reddit.

4chan holds only a fraction of Reddit’s nearly five million daily page views, however it is not yet clear whether either site can utilize its traffic to produce scalable ad revenue. The growth of sites such as Reddit is attributable in large part to the freedom they afford their users, but the selfsame hands-off policies that have fueled their popularity are often in direct conflict with monetization strategies.

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Recap: “The Life of a Start-Up Attorney”

By Alejandro Almodovar, J.D. Candidate 2017 | Posted on

So what does a start-up attorney actually do? If you are like me, when I first heard the term I had no idea what the practice entailed. On September 13, 2015, Jay Purcell of Goodwin Procter and Morgan Sawchuck of Fenwick & West, two experienced and successful start-up attorneys, discussed their practices and their typical day to a full room of interested UC Berkeley Law students. The event was hosted by the Berkeley Center for Law, Business and the Economy.

Start-up attorneys have the ability to help their clients achieve success. Typically, the clients they represent have great ideas, but many do not know how to run a company, let alone how to start one. These attorneys assist clients with the entire range of legal issues facing young companies, such as forming the companies themselves. Steve Jobs, for example, was once one of these clients. With the help of his start-up attorneys, he was able to turn his garage-operated company into one of the largest and most well-known corporations in the world.

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Ex-Morgan Stanley Adviser Pleads Guilty in Connection with Data Breach

By Patrick Atchison, J.D. Candidate 2018 | Posted on

A former financial advisor for Morgan Stanley, Galen Marsh, pleaded guilty last week to one count of unauthorized computer access in connection with one of the largest data breaches of a private wealth management company.

Between 2011 and 2014, Marsh uploaded sensitive financial information—including names, addresses, bank account numbers, and investment information—of over 350,000 Morgan Stanley clients to his private computer.

In late 2014, data from 900 Morgan Stanley clients appeared online at Pastebin.com, an open file sharing website known for leaking confidential information, including the hacking of Sony Pictures. The breached data did not include “critical” information such as social security numbers or account passwords, but cyber security expert Darren Hayes of Pace University told the Wall Street Journal that it could provide an “important first step” for identity thieves to create duplicate identities. According to Morgan Stanley, there have been no reports of financial loss from the breach.

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Antitrust Regulators Take Aim at Google

By Yu Tanebe, J.D. Candidate 2017 | Posted on

Technology giant Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is facing mounting scrutiny from antitrust regulators across several continents.

Last month, Google received a preliminary report from the Competition Commission of India who, after a three-year investigation, voiced concerns about the company’s dominant position in search and online advertising, and its anti-competitive behavior.

More recently, Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service, the country’s antitrust regulator, found Google guilty of “abusing its dominant market position.” The agency’s probe began in February 2015 after Yandex NV, Russia’s biggest internet firm, accused Google of unfair practices with respect to how the company bundles apps with its Android mobile operating system. While the probe did not find the company guilty of “unfair competition practices,” the agency was expected to issue a full ruling on the case later this month.

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