Computer Law Commons^™

Corporate Scenarios: Drawing Lessons From History, Madison Condon

Seattle University Law Review

As corporations are increasingly pressed to reveal information about their exposure to climate-related risks, they are often asked to undertake and disclose the outcome of “scenario analysis.” In this exercise, corporations, including financial institutions, examine how their business would fare under different pathways the future may take. One oft-used scenario, for example, is the International Energy Agency’s “Net-Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Energy Sector.” This Essay presents a history of the use of scenarios as a corporate planning tool, particularly in the oil industry, arguing that it is key for understanding our present moment and the role of …

Shareholder Expression In A Time Of Heightened Political Tension, Aaron A. Dhir

Seattle University Law Review

In this article, I provide context for my forthcoming research project on shareholder proposals and racial equity audits. Since the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, progressive shareholder actors have increasingly used the proposal mechanism to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice-related goals. These proposals have frequently gone beyond requesting the usual corporate fare of diversity trainings, intersectionality workshops, affinity groups, etc. Instead, a more ambitious type of proposal asks corporate America to conduct racial equity audits, defined as “an independent, objective and holistic analysis of a company’s policies, practices, products, services and efforts to combat systemic racism …

Corporate Governance Speech, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

The State has always regulated the intra-firm communications that make corporate governance possible, most commonly by mandating disclosures of information by a corporation to its shareholders. Some such laws are labeled “securities regulation,” but securities regulation is a broad category that extends to speech by actors who are outside the corporate enterprise as well. Also, the conventional securities regulation category does not capture all such laws; other examples, including informationforcing mandates, can be found in state corporate law. This Article uses the term “corporate governance speech” to describe the communications among shareholders, directors, and officers through which corporate governance is …

Dark Accounting Matter, Colleen Honigsberg

Seattle University Law Review

Physicists calculate that approximately 85% of the matter in the universe is composed of “dark matter” that “does not absorb, reflect, or emit electromagnetic radiation and is therefore difficult to detect.” The S&P 500 currently trades at a price-to-book value of 4.2, suggesting that book value accounts for less than 20% of the S&P 500’s market value. The remaining 80% appears nowhere in these firms’ balance sheets—it is invisible to contemporary accounting techniques and constitutes “dark accounting matter.”

Some “dark accounting matter” is composed of factors commonly described as components of “ESG.” Human capital, for example, is an intangible asset …

The Employees’ Dilemma: Balancing Internal Reporting, Whistleblowing, And Insider Trading Risks, Geeyoung Min

Seattle University Law Review

The Essay examines how recent developments in insider trading regulations and whistleblower reward programs can lead to unintended and counterproductive results of discouraging employees from using internal reporting channels within corporate compliance programs. While the presence of a robust and well-functioning corporate compliance program is a critical factor both in mitigating the level of public enforcement actions against companies and in protecting corporate managers from liability in private litigation, these programs often provide little incentive for employees to report potential misconduct internally.

Corporate compliance programs are designed to promote the upward information flow within the company, which is essential for …

How The Antidiscrimination Law Of Commercial Transactions Really Works, Helen Norton

Seattle University Law Review

A variety of businesses now cite 303 Creative when seeking First Amendment protection for their refusal to serve certain customers based on those customers’ protected class status. How this litigation will play out remains to be seen. But future courts need not, and should not, repeat the 303 Creative Court’s misunderstanding of how the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions actually works.

Part I of this Essay explains the Court’s longstanding understanding of the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions, and then describes the Court’s failure to engage with this precedent in 303 Creative. Part II then identifies the 303 Creative decision’s …

Policing In Pixels, Lea Cazaudumec Lucas

Journal of Law, Technology, & the Internet

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming border security and law enforcement, with facial recognition technology (FRT) at the forefront of this shift. Widely adopted by U.S. federal agencies such as the FBI, ICE, and CBP, FRT is increasingly used to monitor both citizens and migrants, often without their knowledge. While this technology promises enhanced security, it’s early-stage deployment raises significant concerns about reliability, bias, and ethical data sourcing. This paper examines how FRT is being used at the U.S.-Mexico border and beyond, highlighting its potential to disproportionately target vulnerable groups and infringe on constitutional rights.

The paper provides an overview of …

The Generation Of Maladies: The U.S. Tech Giants, David Vladeck

Loyola Consumer Law Review

No abstract provided.

Green Dividends: A Case Study In Green Dividends And The Conditions For Private Ordering Solutions, Anne M. Tucker

Seattle University Law Review

This Essay introduces a novel private ordering solution to facilitate corporate investments in pro-social and environmental initiatives: Green dividends. Green dividends are an optional increase in shareholder dividends that are returned to the company to be reinvested in environmental initiatives or kept by a shareholder.

Green dividends pose an alternative to the current gridlocked debate that corporations can’t, won’t, shouldn’t, and shouldn’t even try to act in pro-social or environmental ways. Turning the common refrains on their head converts each narrative into an element for a successful private ordering solution: authority, accountability, shareholder buy-in, and government- backed enforcement. With Green …

Does Climate Disclosure Work To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions? Emerging Evidence Suggests Cautious Optimism, Cynthia A. Williams

Seattle University Law Review

Significant regulatory resources have been spent developing global, voluntary climate and sustainability disclosure standards, such as the TCFD, TNRD, and ISSB’s Sustainability and Climate Disclosure standards, or domestically required disclosures, such as in the EU and in the U.S. Thus, it is important to evaluate whether this disclosure, particularly voluntary, qualitative disclosure, will have the power to shift the allocation of capital, will have a significant effect on the management of climate risk within firms, and ultimately will reduce climate change risk and biodiversity loss.

In this Article, several interrelated questions will be discussed. First, what does the empirical evidence …

From Cigarettes To Cereal: Analyzing The Rise, Peak, And Fall Of Ultra-Processed Foods And The Legal Battle Against Industry Food Deception, Charlotte F. Baird

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

This Comment explores the legal, regulatory, and public health dimensions of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) in the United States and abroad, revealing the urgent need for comprehensive reform. It traces the historical evolution of UPFs, exposing how Big Tobacco strategically pivoted into the food industry after facing public backlash and regulatory crackdowns with cigarettes and tobacco products. Using the same research tactics, behavioral manipulation, and aggressive marketing practices once employed to sell cigarettes, Big Tobacco companies repurposed their corporate expertise to engineer food designed for potential addiction, overconsumption, and profit, while often targeting children and marginalized communities. This Comment critically examines …

Incremental Innovation, George Horvath

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

Transformative innovations—the ones that use new technologies to disrupt the world—command our attention. But most new products are the result of a more mundane process of incremental iterative innovation, evolving through a long series of small modifications of existing technologies. Although both kinds of innovation can result in improved safety and utility, both can also create new dangers. We tend to be more aware of this in trans- formative innovations (as current worries over artificial intelligence show); by contrast, dangers created by incremental iterative innovation often go unrecognized, because the process itself is easy to overlook. Policymakers and regulators need …

Shutting Down The Supply Chain Pipeline Of Counterfeit Goods Running From Alibaba To Amazon, Daniel C. Chow

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

An immense supply chain pipeline constantly funnels millions of counterfeit goods from Alibaba’s e-commerce sites in China to third party sellers who sell these goods on Amazon to U.S. consumers. Amazon has acknowledged that it has a problem with counterfeits on its e-commerce sites, but its current responses to counterfeiting are primarily performative and intended to pacify disgruntled brand owners and frustrated consumers. Amazon’s responses will likely have little or no effect on counterfeits on its websites. This Article sets forth a direct and straightforward method for shutting down or seriously disrupting this pipeline based on using China’s existing laws. …

Disenchanting Consent, Ruifeng Song

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

Despite being criticized as a flawed mechanism for data protection, con- sent has witnessed a revival in the recent wave of state privacy statutes. One factor that contributed to the revival may be the widely held belief that con- sent constitutes the “cornerstone” of data privacy laws. This Article conducts a comparative historical survey to examine the validity of this belief. The findings are twofold. First, contrary to what many believe, consent has been playing a limited role in global data privacy laws. Second, consent is an inherently defective mechanism for data protection. Some of its problems have existed since …

It Is Our Flaws That Make Us Humane: How Technology Ruined Judicial Craft, Shai Dothan, Gregor Maučec

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

There is ample evidence that people are not completely rational. They suffer from a series of biases that limit their abilities to make the best decisions and to stick to them. Judges are a unique group of people. They go through many years of training that counter some of these biases, but not all of them. In fact, there is a whole field of research dedicated to predicting how judges, with their human flaws, are going to behave. But today, judges can use an increasing number of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to assist with their craft, particularly with research and …

Regulation To Reinforce The Evidentiary-Science Base Of U.S. Medicine In The Age Of "Omics", Michael J. Malinowski

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

United States’ technology transfer law and policy (TTLP) integrates government, academia, and industry—a “triple-threat” research and development (R&D) methodology—and harnesses commercial incentives to stimulate market application of federal government-funded invention. TTLP, which has proven a potent catalyst for remarkably prolific biomedical R&D since Congress enacted its cornerstone legislation in 1980, is transforming U.S. medicine to molecular medicine—to personal genome medicine (PGM)—in real time. A genomics (gene function in the context of an organism’s entire genome, meaning its full set of genetic instructions) complement to the Human Genome Project (HGP) emerged in the 1990s. Genomics has given rise to a portfolio …

Top Ten Biotechnology Patent Cases Of 2024: Loper Bright, Federal Circuit Turmoil, Patent Term Adjustment, And Naturally Occurring Nucleic Acids, Kevin E. Noonan, Andrew W. Torrance

SMU Science and Technology Law Review

A pivotal year for biotechnology patent law, 2024 was marked by consequential court rulings and evolving legal frameworks. This article surveys the ten most significant judicial decisions impacting biotech patents, highlighting major themes and trends in policy, litigation, and regulation. Courts at all levels grappled with core patentability requirements in the life sciences, from the Supreme Court’s continued laissez-faire stance on subject-matter eligibility to the Federal Circuit’s stringent enforcement of disclosure sufficiency rules.

Lipstick On A Slaughtered Piggybank: Civil Rico Against “Pig Butchering” Cryptocurrency Investment Schemes, Samantha B. Larkin

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Faking It: A Proposed Solution To Counter Nonconsensual Pornographic Deepfakes, Rena Song

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

2024 Louise A. Halper Award Winner for Best Student Note.

Deepfakes have become popular due to their user-friendly nature and accessibility, allowing anyone to create one by installing deepfake software programs on their phones or laptops. Deepfake software programs allow creators to create hyper-realistic multimedia featuring anyone whose image they can find. Some industries have drawn positive uses from deepfakes; however, deepfakes also create harms that can have detrimental effects on people’s mental health, employment, and reputation. Women and children, including those without a large online presence, have become the target for nonconsensual pornographic deepfakes. Congress has yet to pass …

Fair-Enough Ai, Jane R. Bambauer, Tal Z. Zarsky

UF Law Faculty Publications

AI is unfair. It can be inaccurate (in several ways), biased (in several ways, and to several groups), disproportionate, exploitable, and opaque. The policy world is awash in AI-governance frameworks, ethical guidelines, and other policy documents, but these lack concrete standards and provide little guidance on how to select between competing versions of (un)fairness. In other words, they abdicate the responsibility of setting priorities among values. At the same time, many of the policy documents harshly criticize AI and algorithmic tools for deficiencies in some particular aspect of fairness without considering whether alternative designs that fix the problem would make …