Author: TSA Press

• Building on the longstanding engagement in Zimbabwe based on a relationship of trust and mutual respect with all stakeholders, together with the UN Country Team in Zimbabwe – I look forward to supporting the Government and the people of the Republic of Zimbabwe to build a peaceful and inclusive society for sustainable development and inclusive economic growth.
• Having just arrived, it is immediately clear to me that there is a need to help change the narrative of Zimbabwe, recognizing the need for reforms but also the progress made that we can continue to build upon.
• As a result of unprecedented climate and economic shocks, the humanitarian needs have unfortunately increased in Zimbabwe. The UN is working closely with the Government and the humanitarian partners to meet the priority life-saving multi-sectoral needs of the most vulnerable people affected by the humanitarian situation.  The development partners have demonstrated great solidarity, and the Revised Humanitarian Appeal is 51% funded with USD 240 million mobilized to date. Equally important is to continue building the necessary linkages between humanitarian and development support in which the United Nations has been delivering over USD 400 million annually (representing over 60% of Official Development Assistance to the country) under 2016 -2021 Zimbabwe UN Development Assistance Framework in a form of various development projects in social services, HIV, food and nutrition security, gender equality, good governance, and poverty reduction.
• I recognize the ambitious and difficult economic reform measures undertaken by the Government under the Transitional Stabilisation Programme and the IMF Staff-Monitored Program. I also recognize the critical importance of social safety net for the vulnerable groups to cushion the impact of the economic austerity measures.  The UN is jointly working with the Government to strengthen the social safety net – including the provision of basic services in health and education – and scale up social protection programmes as well as efforts to build the resilience of at-risk communities.
• I commend the Government for inviting several Special Rapporteurs to assess different human rights issues in Zimbabwe. I look forward to supporting the Government to take forward the recommendations resulting from these Special Rapporteurs’ visits, as well as continued support to the implementation of the Universal Periodic Review recommendations.
• I recognize that the national development planning process provides an important opportunity for convergence of national visioning through dialogue and inclusive citizen participation. Together with partners, the UN stands ready to support the preparation of the next five-year National Development Plan (2021-2025) that is also fully aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals.

Brief Bio of Ms. Maria Ribeiro

The Secretary General has appointed Ms Maria do Valle Ribeiro (Ireland) as United Nations Resident Coordinator for the Republic of Zimbabwe, with the host country’s agreement.

Ms Ribeiro brings to the position over 30 years of humanitarian and development leadership experience in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean with the United Nations and International NGOs.  She served as UN Deputy Special Representative UNSMIL, January 2017 until September 2019.

Prior to joining UNSMIL, Ms. Ribeiro served as the Deputy Special Representative in Guinea-Bissau and was the United Nations Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Angola and Mauritania.

Ms. Ribeiro held various senior positions with United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), including Regional Chief of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation in the Regional Office for West and Central Africa from 2006 to 2008; Representative for Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago from 2004 to 2006, Deputy Representative in Algeria from 2002 to 2004 and Chief of Planning in Angola from 2000 to 2002.

Prior to entry in the UN, Ms Ribeiro worked extensively with INGO’s, namely Save the Children UK in Liberia, Burkina Faso, Angola and the Caribbean and with Concern in Bangladesh and Mozambique.

Born in Portugal, Ms. Ribeiro holds a Master of Economic Science degree in Development Policy and Planning from the University of Wales (United Kingdom).

Post published in: Featured

Cramming for the CCPA

Cramming for the CCPA

Axiom & Above the Law

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Which Columbia Law graduate brought global attention throughout the 1940s to a song from a 1935 Chinese film called “March of the Volunteers”? Due in part to its worldwide popularity based on these performances, the song would go on to become China’s national anthem in 1949 and was personally performed by this law school grad at the World Peace Conference.

Hint: The song’s translated English lyrics were so popular that it was part of the canon of American elementary school musical education until everyone decided it was too Communist… which wasn’t a problem for this famous performer, who would be targeted during the McCarthy era.

See the answer on the next page.

As of last Thursday, Tesla was the second most shorted stock on Wall Street, right after Apple Inc. Short sellers had $10.5 billion bet against Tesla.

These vampires, er, I mean noble champions of marketplace accountability who are in no way systematically draining the platelets out of what remains of capitalism, took a collective bath to the tune of $1.4 billion last Thursday morning, when Tesla’s stock price skyrocketed by 17 percent. Tesla shares continued their upward trajectory as they crept steadily higher on Friday, to end the week at just above $328 per share.

Tesla stock closed out 2018 at a price of $332.80 per share, so as of the end of last week, the short sellers who hung on for the ride these last 10 months are still just barely in the black year-to-date. But given the reasons for Tesla’s precipitous October climb, it’s not looking good for those betting against the electric automaker.

After hours last Wednesday, Tesla reported a profit of $1.86 per share, crushing the anticipated loss of 42 cents per share predicted by analysts. Tesla also posted a cash balance increase to $5.3 billion, and CEO Elon Musk promised continued advancements in self-driving technology and the 2020 rollout of a more affordable Tesla SUV model. With production of Model 3 sedans set to begin in the near future at Tesla’s new Shanghai factory, and another Gigafactory in the works in Europe, Tesla certainly has costs to control, but also a growing platform for continued expansion.

Normally, there is no shortage of Tesla and Elon Musk critics, including here at ATL and its sister sites. But they were comparatively quiet late last week.

It makes sense that short sellers want to trash Tesla at every chance they get. They make money when Tesla does poorly, just as Tesla shareholders (like me) make money when Tesla does well. Huge, profitable industries which would be threatened by the success of an electric vehicle maker and clean energy proponent also seem to be unoptimistic about Tesla — analysts at the three biggest banks funding development of fossil fuel resources are, not surprisingly perhaps, pretty negative about Tesla’s prospects. People’s loudly expressed viewpoints tend to gravitate in the direction of their financial interests.

And maybe none of this would be a problem if we just all let go of the illusion that we have to base our decisions on what any of these people say. If you think I’m full of shit and that Tesla sucks, well, then don’t buy any Tesla stock. Likewise, if you think that continuing to burn ancient plankton to go places is the wave of the future, just keep at it. I myself will be looking into a Tesla as soon as I’m done driving my old Chevy into the ground (unless GM or one of the other automakers can convince me otherwise, by coming up with something pretty compelling in their own EV department, which is kind of what capitalism is supposed to be all about in the first place).

Theoretically, the existence of short selling has its benefits. Providing more independent research than the analysts at those big investment banks we were talking about (or at least research biased in the opposite direction), encouraging (inciting?) more vigorous debates in the financial markets which promote transparency, and being more diligent about uncovering corporate fraud have all been touted as services short sellers afford the markets (albeit only as side effects of the pursuit of their own self-interest). Benefits notwithstanding, we still don’t have to like short sellers, short selling, or pessimism.

In my view at least, unlike so many of the other ticker symbols building little mountains and valleys in our brokerage accounts, Tesla is not just a money-making machine. Tesla aims to change something fundamental about our society, for the better, and it has to get consistently profitable to do it. When the first U.S. railway was chartered to transport passengers and freight commercially in 1827, there were plenty of skeptics who said a steam engine could never work along steep, winding grades. As construction commenced, there was probably some guy from the livery stable yelling that this whole railroad thing was doomed to fail. But investors didn’t listen to the naysayers then, and they shouldn’t now. Sometimes progress is built on a little faith. And especially in light of last week’s earnings report, Elon Musk still has mine.

Jonathan Wolf is a litigation associate at a midsize, full-service Minnesota firm. He also teaches as an adjunct writing professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, has written for a wide variety of publications, and makes it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.

Last week’s Clio Cloud Conference offered another opportunity for innovators from across legal technology to come together to meet with users and compare notes.

It’s also an opportunity for the legal media to come together to discuss trends and what they’ve been seeing both at the show and throughout the year. Legal Talk Network’s On the Road podcast gathered a few of us together at the show to chat. In addition to me, the panelists were:

• Keith Lee of Lawyer Smack;
• Gregory Pang of Legal Cut Pro;
• Chelsey Lambert of Lex Tech Review; and
• Cathy Kenton of Legal Tech Media Group.

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

When a Biglaw firm is embroiled in a scandal involving sexual assault allegations, you kinda expect there to be a he said / she said tussle in public. But I’m not sure we expected the wild back and forth that’s gone down in the DLA Piper case that has been rocking the Biglaw world this month.

For those who may not be fluent in all the details, earlier this month, DLA Piper partner Vanina Guerrero released an open letter to the firm, and filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that the co-managing partner of the Silicon Valley office, Louis Lehot, repeatedly sexually assaulted her after she’d been recruited to the firm in 2018. She asked the firm to release her from their mandatory arbitration agreement so she can pursue her claims in court. The firm has been conspicuously silent on the forced arbitration agreement — despite the attention their arbitration stance in this case has garnered, but, they did announce that Lehot had been let go from the firm. But the firm also put Guerrero on administrative leave, saying they’d uncovered allegations against her unrelated to Lehot during their investigation of her claims. Lehot released a statement contesting the allegations against him and saying Guerrero was “exploiting” the #MeToo movement. Then a second woman, an anonymous HR manager, came forward with her own allegations against Lehot, saying he made her “physically afraid,” and further alleging the firm let her go when she complained about Lehot. Then a third women, Leah Christensen, came forward with her own stories of Lehot’s bullying and name calling.

Now, in a newly filed 122-page response to the EEOC, DLA Piper alleges Guerrero “orchestrated” her relationship with Lehot to further her career:

Ms. Guerrero’s own emails show that she was not subject to abuse or assault by Mr. Lehot. In fact, dozens of emails and messages show that Ms. Guerrero was a willing participant in a lengthy emotional flirtation with Mr. Lehot that she orchestrated to advance her career.

As noted by Law.com, DLA Piper’s filing — penned by their attorneys at Gibson Dunn — included a stream of consciousness email Guerrero sent to herself using her DLA account. The email contains ruminations on her relationship with Lehot, containing thoughts like: “Louis: This man will help me / Control him: friendship w/o anything.” And: “Cannelize [sic] the energy – get me to where I need professionally,” and “Don’t open up to him / Leverage it for me…” The firm’s response also calls attention to what Guerrero didn’t say:

The Gibson Dunn attorneys note that the email, which is published in full, includes a number of other candid statements about her professional goals and references to her sexuality, and it does not describe Lehot as “abusive, bullying, or controlling”—in contrast to her EEOC claims.

As further evidence of what it characterizes as Guerrero’s duplicity, the Gibson Dunn team representing DLA Piper pointed to her omission of a March 2019 trip she took with Lehot to Machu Picchu from her EEOC charge and her other public statements.

The trip came after the fourth and final allegation of sexual assault, during which Guerrero claimed she made it clear to Lehot that she would never be in an “intimate relationship” with him, allegedly prompting Lehot to threaten her job, position at the firm and compensation, telling her “their working relationship would never be the same.”

The firm also counters the allegation Guerrero was retaliated against, saying Lehot and Guerrero disagreed over the optimal place to spend firm resources and the deal she was pulled off of was allegedly at the request of the client.

DLA Piper’s response also took aim at Leah Christensen, the ethics counsel who came forward in support of Guerrero’s claims. The firm says as Christensen was based in another office than Lehot, she wouldn’t know about Lehot’s alleged behavior. Additionally, given Christensen’s role at the firm, DLA Piper says her statements violated ethics rules:

“Christensen’s letter to this Commission, as well as her public statements, are in direct violation of her duty of confidentiality and her duty of loyalty, among other ethical and tortious transgressions,” the letter said.

Unsurprisingly, Guerrero’s attorney, Jeanne Christensen of Wigdor LLP, had something to say about the filing:

“DLA Piper, a global law firm, has managed to reach a new low in the how to smear women that speak out about sexual assault playbook—a low that even Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly and Matt Lauer did not reach.”

We will be following all the latest in this case as it develops.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

I don’t think the press gets Billy Barr.

First, he is a PR genius compared the rest of these dopes (thank you whatever anon source still gets treated with credibility, and also Kerri Kupec). But he also knows that PR can corner him, legally.

— emptywheel (@emptywheel) October 30, 2019