Kavitha Gupta's blog

How to scope your internal investigations: another debate on privilege Newsletters May 23 2017 | Contributed by RPC Only months after its decision in Re the RBS Rights Issue Litigation , (1) the High Court has provided another landmark judgment reaffirming the narrow scope of legal professional privilege. (2) In proceedings between the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Limited (ENRC), ENRC unsuccessfully attempted to protect documents created during internal investigations into suspected bribery and corruption, claiming legal professional privilege. Facts While expanding its operations into Africa in 2009/2010, ENRC became aware of unsubstantiated allegations of corrupt practices by target companies that it sought to acquire and the individuals behind those entities. Accordingly, it instructed DLA Piper LLP (DLA) and then Dechert LLP to investigate allegations of "corruption and financial wro...

Reselling Microsoft SPLA & Cloud    https://youtu.be/Fb8xYuAM9KY Software Audit Defense | A Legal Perspective    Understanding Autodesk Software Audits - what you need to know.    Published on Feb 14, 2016 http://www.SoftwareAuditLawyers.com If you have received a letter from Autodesk asking your company to submit to a “voluntary” self audit, you should watch this video from start to finish. This video will help you understand the ins and outs of how Autodesk and their attorneys handle software infringement cases. The legal and reputational risks to your organization cannot be understated. You could be facing damages from $750-$150,000 for “willful infringement” of copyright software. Your company, and its officers and directors may be labelled or accused of being a “software pirate” and if a federal copyright lawsuit is filed, serious damage to the goodwill of the business is at stake, and these can possibly emerg...

BSA Software Audit Updates: Membership Changes and Impact on Audits by Keli Johnson Swan in Blogs , BSA Audits BSA| The Software Alliance (the “BSA”) is an organization that acts on behalf of software publishers to enforce copyrights. The membership of the organization may undergo changes, which can impact an existing software audit if a member leaves during the course of the audit and the BSA no longer has power of attorney to enforce the copyrights. The BSA has lost of a few members recently, including Parametric Technology Corporation (“PTC”), Minitab, and TechSmith Corporation. Some publishers choose to enforce their own copyrights, while others elect to engage competing organizations such as the Software & Information Industry Association (“SIIA”) or Software Compliance Group.  Recently, the BSA also gained new members, including DataStax, Salesforce, Splunk, and Workday. The changes to the BSA’s membership may affect the scope of the audit,...

Managing Audits to Prevent Unauthorized Disclosures by Technology Teams by Keli Johnson Swan in Blogs , Software Audits Disputes involving software usage are on the rise for businesses of all sizes. In some cases, technical teams respond to a software publisher’s or a third party’s audit request and provide significant amounts of data without notifying anyone on the corporate governance or the legal teams.  It is critical for those teams to evaluate the publisher’s legal ability to audit, and to identify the data the publisher is entitled to request. It is not uncommon for the legal team to discover the existence of a software audit or license verification after the company has received a demand for damages arising from alleged over-usage of software. Often, employees responding to an audit request do not understand the request and provide inaccurate or incomplete information. Once this information is disclosed, it can expose the business to a damages...

UK Court rules licence fees payable for "indirect" use of software By Emily Parris | March 2, 2017 13:57 A recent judgment from the UK's Technology and Construction Court highlights how important it is for businesses to audit their use of third party software on a regular basis and to review licence terms before implementing systems changes that could impact use of existing applications.   Over-use or use outside the scope of the licence can lead to claims against the customer for retrospective licence fees and/or damages.  In this latest case, the court ruled that under the terms of its licence, drinks company Diageo should have paid licence fees to SAP for "indirect" use of SAP software by Diageo's sales staff and customers.  This "indirect" use occurred when Diageo's sales staff and customers used new systems developed for Diageo on a Salesforce.com platform to interface with SAP software.  The judgment establishes th...

Avoid Overpaying for Software Settlements by Keli Johnson Swan Jan 19, 2017 Most software audits initiated by the software publisher or a third party entity authorized to pursue copyright infringement claims on behalf of the software publishers, such as the BSA| The Software Alliance (“BSA”) or the Software & Industry Information Association (“SIIA”), are resolved outside of a courtroom.  Many of the settlements require payment of a monetary penalty as part of the resolution. There are many factors that precede the negotiation stage and affect the total payment. Once a company decides to participate in the audit and submits audit results, the BSA or SIIA identify any gaps in software licensing, according to the auditing entity’s rules. These gaps may range from a deficiency of licenses to acquiring the incorrect license for the software installed. Once the auditing entity determines the number of gaps, it calculates a total settlement based on the information p...