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Will Cyber War Come to a Contract Near You?

Client Alert | 1 min read | 02.01.12

Cyber war has arrived: Sec. Panetta warns of a "digital Pearl Harbor," the Stuxnet cyber missile penetrates Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility, and cyber attacks shut down power grids in other countries, as discussed in David Bodenheimer's article "Cyberwarefare in the Stuxnet Age: Can Cannonball Law Keep Pace with the Digital Battlefield?" in the ABA's SciTech Lawyer. Focusing on what cyber warfare means for the private sector, this article explains how government contractors supporting offensive or defensive cyber operations (or even just standing by) face unprecedented and potentially ruinous legal liability for cyber weapons gone awry, multi-billion-dollar class actions for assisting federal agencies in authentication efforts to track down covert cyber adversaries, and huge economic losses when private information networks must be disconnected, shut down, or disabled due to foreign cyber infections or botnets, leaving the private sector to ask who foots the bill.

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Client Alert | 3 min read | 09.13.24

SEC Disbands its Climate and ESG Enforcement Task Force

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reportedly recently dissolved its Climate and ESG Enforcement Task Force (the Task Force). The Task Force was part of SEC Chair Gary Gensler’s broader push to increase investors’ access to environmental, social, and governance (“ESG”) information about public companies and registered investment companies. The dissolution of the Climate and ESG Enforcement Task Force comes after three years marked by industry resistance and a mixed record in the courts. Prior to the Task Force’s dissolution, the agency removed ESG from its annual Examination Priorities Report, which provides areas of particular focus during SEC examinations. While the Task Force has been dissolved, the SEC is still pursuing a number of its proposed ESG and climate-related rules....