By Sean W. Fernandes

Weeks after the FTC fined Facebook $5 billion and the company entered a $100 million settlement with the SEC, Facebook has once again made significant privacy law news—this time on the other side of the Atlantic.

On July 29, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued a significant opinion in the Fashion ID case regarding the use of social media plugins such as the Facebook “like” button.

Although the ruling interprets GDPR’s predecessor, the EU Data Protection Directive, it contains some important takeaways for websites subject to GDPR.

Background

The Fashion ID case arose when a German consumer advocacy organization asserted a claim against online fashion retailer Fashion ID regarding its use of a Facebook “like” button on its website. The claim alleged that the “like” button automatically transmitted personal data from Fashion ID website visitors to Facebook, regardless of whether the visitor had a Facebook profile or clicked on the “like” button, and that Fashion ID failed to obtain the visitors’ consent to, or to notify them about, Facebook’s processing.

In response, Fashion ID argued that it could not be held responsible for data transmitted through the use of the “like” button, as it had “no influence either over the data transmitted by the visitor’s browser from its website” or over whether and how Facebook used that data.

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By Thomas McCall and Emily Doll

Originally published 24 October 2018 by Law360. Updated by the authors March 2019.

In May 2010, the International Bar Association (“IBA”) adopted the IBA Rules on the Taking of Evidence in International Arbitration—a revised version of the original 1999 IBA Rules which, in turn, had replaced the IBA Supplementary Rules of 1983.  The IBA Rules serve as a resource to parties and arbitrators setting forth the procedures by which evidence is gathered and presented in international arbitration proceedings.  The IBA Rules were drafted in an effort to bridge the gap between “the procedures in use in many different legal systems,” which is “particularly useful when the parties come from different legal cultures” (IBA Rules, Forward).  By all accounts, that effort has been hugely successful.  Since their inception, countless arbitral tribunals—both commercial and investment—formed by members from different legal cultures—both civil and common law—have relied upon and applied the IBA Rules.  However, that success has not come without criticism, the loudest of which is the perceived dominance of the common law tradition over the IBA Rules.

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By Christine Savage, John C. Richter, J. Michael Taylor, Shaswat K. Das, Patrick J. Togni and Clinton R. Long

This enforcement action underscores the risks of sourcing products without comprehensive supply chain due diligence.

On January 31, 2019, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (“OFAC”) of the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced that e.l.f. Cosmetics, Inc. (“ELF”) agreed to pay a $996,080 settlement arising from 156 apparent violations of OFAC’s North Korea Sanctions Regulations (“NKSR”).  According to OFAC, between 2012 and 2017, ELF imported 156 shipments of false eyelash kits worth a combined total of over $4.4 million into the United States from two Chinese suppliers – importantly, however, those Chinese suppliers sourced materials for the kits from North Korea.  Upon discovering the apparent violations, ELF voluntarily disclosed them to OFAC.  The statutory maximum civil penalty amount for the apparent violations was $40,833,633, but OFAC agreed to settle with ELF for $996,080 as a result of ELF’s immediate disclosure and cooperation, among other mitigating factors.

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