Category: News Feeds

* A University of North Texas lawyer has resigned after using the N-word during a free speech panel at the school. This attorney just learned a valuable lesson in free speech. [New York Post]

* A lawyer set to argue an important case about DACA in front of the Supreme Court is a Dreamer himself. [CNN}

* Hundreds have signed a petition in opposition to Scott Brown’s appointment as president of New England Law. [Boston Globe]

* An attorney from Roswell, New Mexico, is running against President Donald Trump in the New Hampshire primary. His chances of winning are out of this world… [KOAT Action News]

* Lawyers for Representative Tulsi Gabbard are demanding that Hillary Clinton retract allegedly defamatory comments about Gabbard’s relationship with Russia. [The Hill]

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Jordan Rothman is a partner of The Rothman Law Firm, a full-service New York and New Jersey law firm. He is also the founder of Student Debt Diaries, a website discussing how he paid off his student loans. You can reach Jordan through email at jordan@rothmanlawyer.com.

A street vendor displays bond notes before the introduction of new currency in Harare, Zimbabwe [Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters]

Consider the challenges confronting Zimbabwe Stock Exchange Chief Executive Officer Justin Bgoni: a local currency that has crashed more than 80% since a peg to the U.S. dollar was ended in February and annual inflation that the International Monetary Fund estimates at 300%.

While Harare’s Industrial Index is at a record high and market capitalization in local currency terms has surged by 169% from a year ago to Z$31 billion, in dollar terms they have crumbled to the lowest in a decade, at $1.9 billion. In the past, investors have used the stock market as a shelter to ride out economic turmoil in the southern African nation, but its haven status has been shaken by the return of the Zimbabwe dollar and hyperinflation.

“Our market capitalization in U.S. dollar terms — that’s just been worse, we are almost half of what we are normally at,” Bgoni, in the job since March, said in an interview in his office in the capital, Harare. “If it was a normal country, where things are not indexed in U.S. dollars, things wouldn’t be so bad.”

When it comes to assessing individual stocks, hyperinflation skews the picture for traders, said Lloyd Mlotshwa, head of equities at IH Securities, a Harare-based brokerage. While companies are showing significant gains in revenue, actual volumes of products sold are down and overall performance is deteriorating.

“The massive devaluation of the currency has also caused a dislocation in stock market valuations,” said Mlotshwa. “Some firms are trading below the replacement values of their plants. At the same time, sentiment is so negative that this isn’t necessarily being interpreted as a buy signal.”

In February, the 1:1 parity peg between so-called bond notes and the U.S dollar was removed. In June, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube abolished the use of the multicurrency system and reintroduced the Zimbabwe dollar as sole legal tender, almost a decade after it went out of circulation because of hyperinflation. The Zimbabwe dollar on Friday was trading at 15.85 per U.S dollar, compared with the February rate of 2.5 adopted at the end of parity.

Economic conditions in Zimbabwe, its struggling companies and inconsistent government policies all make local stocks less attractive to foreigners, Bgoni said. In terms of market development and options for investors, he estimated the bourse trailed African peers in Botswana, Kenya and Nigeria by about 10 years.

“We are really down on foreign investors and we almost have no new money coming in,” he said.

Foreigners accounted for 15% of trades in October, the lowest in three years, and down from the record 82% in February this year.

“We want foreign investors, especially when you have a devaluation of this sort, because they would be able to see bargains and bring up the prices,” Bgoni said. “But then, they can’t take their money out,” due to foreign-exchange controls and other Treasury regulations, he added.

Both Houses of Parliament Will be Sitting This Week

The 2020 National Budget Presentation will be on Thursday 14th November

The Senate and the National Assembly last sat on Thursday 24th October.  Since then MPs have been occupied mainly with Budget business.  From 30th October to 4th November their time was committed to the Pre-Budget Seminar at the Victoria Falls – an occasion for interaction between MPs and Ministers, particularly the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, and advisers on the priorities and content of the coming 2020 National Budget.  The Speaker of the National Assembly, Hon Jacob Mudenda, opened the Seminar with a thoughtful keynote address [full text available on the Veritas website [link]].

This week it will be business as usual in both Houses on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons – unless the Speaker is ready to clarify two current thorny issues, both of them referred to in Bill Watch 57/2019 of 7th November [link]:

• the penalty he imposed on MDC-A MPs for disrespecting the President at the opening of the session on 1st October [forfeiture of sitting allowances] and
• his ban on MDC-A asking questions during National Assembly Question Time on 23rd October.

Budget Presentation on Thursday

On Thursday afternoon the Minister of Finance and Economic Development will present the 2020 National Budget to the National Assembly.  Senators will listen by media link to the presentation in the comfort of the Senate, instead of the usual Thursday afternoon Question Time.

In the remainder of this bulletin we cover the latest developments on the group of Bills passed by Parliament in the last session but not yet gazetted as law.  This will be followed by what is due to come up in both Houses under the heading of business as usual on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Bills Sent to the President for Assent and Gazetting as Acts

Parliament sent three Bills to the President on 5th November, and gave public notice of this action [as required by section 131(5) of the Constitution] in General Notices 2040, 2041 and 2042/2019 published in the Government Gazette of 8th November:

Microfinance Amendment Bill

Maintenance of Peace and Order Bill

Companies and Other Business Entities Bill.

Section 131 allows the President 21 days in which to decide whether to assent to a Bill or to return it to Parliament for reconsideration.

Note: Only one Bill passed by Parliament during the last session still has to go to the President – the Consumer Protection Bill. 

Coming Up in the National Assembly

Lapsed Bills to be restored to the Order Paper

On Tuesday 12th November item 1 on the Order Paper will be a motion by the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs seeking the approval of the House for the restoration of six lapsed Bills to the Order Paper at the stage reached in the last session.  The following list shows the stage reached previously for each of these Bills:

Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency Bill [Committee Stage in National Assembly to be completed, including consideration of amendments proposed by the Portfolio Committee on Industry and Commerce]

Money Laundering and Proceeds of Crime Amendment Bill [for Second Reading stage]

Coroner’s Office Bill [for continuation of Second Reading debate]

Marriages Bill [waiting for Parliamentary Legal Committee [PLC] report]

Freedom of Information Bill [waiting for PLC report]

Education Amendment Bill [waiting for resolution of last-minute disagreement between the Houses, the National Assembly having rejected an amendment made by the Senate]

All these Bills lapsed at the end of the last session because they had not been completed.  Standing Order 161(1) allows the House to approve the Minister’s motion – a means of avoiding wasting work devoted to a Bill by MPs and Parliamentary staff – and the expense incurred in carrying out that work.

Note: The Zimbabwe Media Commission Bill also lapsed at the end of the last session while it was under consideration by the PLC after its First Reading [but is missing from the Minister’ motion]. 

Gazetted Bills Now Ready to be Presented

The following Bills, having been gazetted more than fourteen days ago, all qualify for presentation and First Reading and then automatic referral for consideration by the Parliamentary Legal Committee – which means that presentation may occur this week:

Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill

International Treaties Bill

Constitutional Court Bill

The Veterans of the Liberation Struggle Bill, which was only gazetted on 1st November, does not yet qualify for presentation and First Reading.

International Agreements for Parliamentary Approval

Two international agreements are listed for approval in terms of section 327(2) of the Constitution.  Approval by both Houses of Parliament will clear the way for Zimbabwe to ratify these agreements.

Economic Partnership Agreement between the UK and Eastern and Southern African States

This agreement was signed on behalf of Zimbabwe on 31st January 2019.

Framework Agreement of the International Solar Alliance

This agreement was signed on behalf of Zimbabwe on 17th July 2018.

Motions

Two partly-debated motions are items 4 and 5 on the Order Paper:

• the vote of thanks for the President’s speech at the opening of this session;
• the anti-sanctions motion, debate on which terminated abruptly in great disorder on Thursday 24th October, just as Hon Biti entered the chamber to make his contribution [see Bill Watch 57 of 7th November [link]].

Take note motions on reports

Items 6 to 15 on the Order Paper are motions for the House to take note of various reports including include the report of the Public Accounts Committee [PAC] on Compliance Issues for the Reserve Bank, and a report on the Benchmarking Visit to the Parliament of Zambia by a delegation of some members of the PAC.

These reports will be posted on the Veritas website when they become available, which will be once the take note motions have been moved.

Question Time

This is due to go ahead on Wednesday, Questions Without Notice being allotted the first hour and Questions With Notice the next hour.  Hon Madzimure has 7 questions with notice listed, including asking the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare for details of distribution of food to the elderly in his Kabuzuma constituency and several for the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing seeking information on a large number of allegedly irregular land allocations and transfers in the constituency.  Hon S. Chamisa has 5 questions listed, including some for the same Minister seeking information on progress with issuing of title deeds to Mbare residents and construction of a secondary school in Mbare, and the official attitude towards returning vehicle licensing functions to local authorities to enable them to maintain roads.

Coming up in the Senate

The Senate will continue debating the motion for a vote of thanks to the President for his address opening this Parliamentary session and the anti-sanctions motion.  Both debates started during the first working sittings of the Houses on 22nd, 23rd and 24th October.

As already noted above, the Senate’s usual Thursday afternoon Question Time will not take place.  Instead, Senators will remain in their own chamber to listen by media link to the 2020 Annual Budget presentation in the National Assembly.

Veritas makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take legal responsibility for information supplied.

Post published in: Featured

At least 200 elephants have already died at two other parks due to lack of food and water, along with scores of buffalo and antelope, Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks) said on Monday.

“They will continue (to die) until the rains come. The biggest threat to our animals right now is loss of habitat,” Zimparks spokesman Tinashe Farawo told Reuters.

The El Nino-induced drought has also taken its toll on crops, leaving more than half of the population in need of food aid.

Farawo said Zimparks and private partners planned to move 600 elephants – as well as giraffe, lions, buffalo, antelope and spotted wild dogs – from Save Valley Conservancy in southern Zimbabwe to three other national parks.

“This is the biggest translocation of animals in the history of wildlife movement here because we are talking of distances of more than 1,000 kilometers,” said Farawo.

It will start once the summer rains come. Those are expected to start this week, which would offer major relief for the stricken animals and for farmers who are preparing for the 2019/20 planting season.

The migration will also help to save the conservancy’s ecosystem by depopulating it because the animals “are now becoming a threat to their own survival,” Farawo said

Zimbabwe is home to some 80,000 elephants, around a fifth of Africa’s total, conservationists estimate. Overall numbers have declined sharply in recent years, mostly due to a combination of poaching, illegal hunting and drought.

Farawo said Zimparks, which does not receive government funding, requires $40 million annually for conservation efforts but only generates half the amount.

Zimbabwe, together with South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, unsuccessfully lobbied the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species for controlled sales of their ivory stocks at a meeting in August.

Trade in ivory is banned to deter poaching. Zimparks says its ivory stockpile is worth $300 million, money it can use for wildlife conservation.

Zimbabwe has also exported nearly 100 elephants, mainly to China, earning $3 million, Zimparks statistics show.

Post published in: Featured

Many of Africa’s best known kinds of wild animals are dying from lack of food and water in Zimbabwe’s Mana Pools National Park.

The 2,196- square-kilometer wildlife reserve gets its name from the four nearby bodies of water that the flooding Zambezi River fills every rainy season. The area is home to elephants, zebras, hippopotamuses and many other kinds of wildlife.

But the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority reports that at least 105 elephants have died in Zimbabwe’s wildlife areas recently. Most of the deaths have been in Mana and the larger Hwange National Park in the past two months, the agency said.

Many animals are moving out of the parks and into nearby communities in search of food and water.

Mana Pools is a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Site known for its beauty. The area experiences hot, dry weather at this time every year. But this year, the dry conditions have been much worse. Even the river’s flow has reduced.

The drought hitting southern Africa is also affecting people. The World Food Program reports that hunger threatens an estimated 11 million people in nine countries. The organization is planning large food distribution projects. The countries of southern Africa have experienced normal rainfall in only one of the past five growing seasons, the group says.

Hopes for rain

Each morning, Munyaradzi Dzoro, a parks agency wildlife officer, hopes for rain.

“It’s beginning to be serious,” he told the Associated Press, standing next to the remains of a dead elephant and buffalo. “It might be worse if we fail to receive rains” by early November.

The last major rainfall came in April, he said.

Mel Hood works with the Feed Mana project, which is providing food support to animals in the area. She said an early end to a “very poor rainy season” has limited the growth of plants the animals need.

The area’s once dependable water resources have turned dangerous for the animals. Many have gotten stuck in the soft soil or clay while trying to reach Long Pool, a five-kilometer-long watering hole. It is one of the few remaining water resources in the park but is only five percent of its normal size.

There are more than 12,000 elephants in Mana’s flood plains. Lions, buffaloes, zebras, wild dogs, hyenas, 350 kinds of birds and many water animals live in the park, the parks agency reports.

“We used to say nature should take its course,” Dzoro said of the park’s normal policy of not getting involved and letting the ecosystem find its own balance.

Now, he said, officials are getting involved to avoid losing animals and maintain population sizes.

Local plant life such as acacias, as well as other trees and grasses, provide most of the food for big animals like elephants and buffaloes. But the lack of rain has severely reduced the amount of plant life, so officials began bringing food to the park in July.

Mel Hood says The Feed Mana project has been asking for “urgent” donations of animal feed such as soy bean hay and grass.

“Although it may not be enough to stave off all the hunger…it is certainly giving these animals a chance to survive until conditions improve,” Hood said.

I’m ­Pete Musto.

Farai Mutsaka reported this story for the Associated Press. Pete Musto adapted it for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter Jr. was the editor. We want to hear from you. How do officials protect endangered animals in your country? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

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Words in This Story

reserve – n. an area of land where animals and plants are given special protection

drought – n. a long period of time during which there is very little or no rain

distribution – n. the act of giving or delivering something to people

plain(s) – n. a large area of flat land without trees

take its course – expr. to permit something to happen without trying to control it

ecosystem – n. everything that exists in a given environment

stave off – p.v. to keep someone or something away usually for a short time

George Guvamatanga, secretary of Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, said the Zimbabwean government met a delegation from China Eximbank in October to review current and future projects.

Thousands gather in Zimbabwe for Mugabe’s funeral

Cramming for the CCPA

Cramming for the CCPA

Axiom & Above the Law

“Are pilots running airlines?” asks Lourdes Slater, the CEO of Karta Legal, a woman-owned consultancy firm with a focus on legal process improvement. “Lawyers are skilled at their art but many not possess the business know-how or time transform their practices,” she says. 

Lourdes’s mission is simple — to innovate the practice of law following this sequence: People, process, and then technology. She uses design thinking and business process improvement tools such as Lean Six Sigma and Agile Legal Project Management to get you there. So, how do you teach the proverbial old dog new tricks? Lourdes shared three insights.

Why v. Way: Identify Your Challenges

“The first step is to identify the nature of the barrier to innovation,” Lourdes says. She continues, “We collaborate with our clients to determine if the barrier is a lack of will — not being sold on the ‘why’ — or not knowing the ‘way’ — lacking the know-how to get there.” According to Lourdes, those are different challenges that should be addressed differently.

Shift From Warrior to Business Mentality

If motivation is intertwined with reward value and reward value is influenced by past experience, we can easily see why lawyers need a reboot. “Lawyers traditionally have been rewarded for perfection. The ‘leave no stone unturned’ approach is taught early and forcefully. Mistakes are frowned upon, a missed legal authority in a brief is not easily forgiven, and the consequences can be serious.” Lourdes observes. 

She explains, “We are never taught efficiency, but the opposite. Early on with the Socratic method in law school, what we are taught are the virtues of resiliency and over preparation. Generally speaking, lawyers don’t see themselves as business people but as warriors.” Lourdes believes that lawyers must shift their mindset from warriors to business professionals, who get rewarded on efficiency and value creation.

A Third-Party Facilitator May Be a Perfect Reality Check

According to Lourdes, “For innovation to take hold in your organization, we need to make the business case loud and clear and present the innovative behavior as rewarding.” She explains, “There are many ways we can accomplish this depending on the type of innovation and organization implementing it. In every instance, however, you have to start at the top of the chain. Without ‘the will’ of the owners and stakeholders, your initiative will fail.” 

She recommends, “If you are neither the owner or the stakeholder, but are tasked with change management at your organization, because the owner/stakeholder has heard this is the ‘thing to do,’ not because they are truly ‘willing’ to change, seek outside help to facilitate the engagement and commitment of the key players, owners or stakeholders of your organization.” According to Lourdes, a facilitator with the experience and ability to communicate the reason for the “will” and the path for the “way” to your owners and stakeholders may be the key to success.

Pilots, in fact, do not run airlines. Likewise, in the era of the Digital Revolution, lawyers can’t afford to run firms and departments in the same way we have been doing in the past. We need to bring strong business and operational skills into the mix. With that in mind, Lourdes’s mission is to work with organizations to facilitate innovation. Finding the obstacles, whether internal or external; changing the mindset, from warrior to business person; and assisting you to get the buy-in you need to get you there. 

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Olga V. Mack is the CEO of Parley Pro, a next-generation contract management company that has pioneered online negotiation technology. Olga embraces legal innovation and had dedicated her career to improving and shaping the future of law. She is convinced that the legal profession will emerge even stronger, more resilient, and more inclusive than before by embracing technology. Olga is also an award-winning general counsel, operations professional, startup advisor, public speaker, adjunct professor, and entrepreneur. Olga founded the Women Serve on Boards movement that advocates for women to participate on corporate boards of Fortune 500 companies. Olga also co-founded SunLaw, an organization dedicated to preparing women in-house attorneys to become general counsels and legal leaders, and WISE to help female law firm partners become rainmakers. She authored Get on Board: Earning Your Ticket to a Corporate Board Seat and Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security. You can email Olga at olga@olgamack.com or follow her on Twitter @olgavmack. 

When it comes to trademarks, descriptiveness is not good thing.  It makes sense — when a term or phrase describes some ingredient, quality, or characteristic of the goods or services in question, it does not lend itself to being a source identifier.  When terms or phrases are so descriptive that they cannot function as a source identifier, then such terms or phrases are deemed “generic.”  For domain names that operate as trademarks, this begs the question: Can the addition of a generic top-level domain extension (such as .COM) to an otherwise generic term create a protectable trademark?  This seems to beg the question presented to SCOTUS in United States Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B.V.

The facts here are quite simple. Amsterdam-based Booking.com (a division of Booking Holdings, Inc.) is a travel aggregator website operating as a metasearch engine for hotel reservations.  The website began using the name back in 2006 and began its journey for federal trademark protection in 2011.  To make a long story short, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rejected the applications claiming that the term “booking.com” was generic for hotel booking services.  For example, the USPTO did not mince words in its final Office Action refusing the trademark application Ser. No. 79122365, claiming that the addition of the .COM top-level domain to “the generic wording adds no source-identifying significance but retains only its significance as a TLD,” thereby failing to serve as a source identifier.  The refusal was affirmed on appeal to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, and the matter proceeded to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

This is where things get bit interesting — the district court sided with the company.  Although the district court recognized that “the term ‘booking’ is generic” for hotel reservation services, the district court held that top-level domains (such as “.COM”) “are generally source identifying and that a mark composed of a generic [second-level domain] and a [top-level domain] is a descriptive mark eligible for protection upon a showing of acquired distinctiveness.” Yep — the district court basically relied upon favorable survey evidence to conclude that the trademark had acquired secondary meaning.  The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the finding, and now SCOTUS has granted certiorari to hear the case.

This case is interesting because it goes to the heart of whether generic terms can shed their “genericness” by the addition of a top-level domain and acquire secondary meaning over time.  We are not talking about merely descriptive terms here that describe the nature, quality, ingredient, or other characteristic of the term for the class of goods or services that are not inherently distinctive but can, in some cases, acquire secondary meaning in the marketplace. Unlike such merely descriptive terms, generic terms go a step farther.  Generic terms are common names that an ordinary consumer understands primarily as describing the family (or “genus”) of the trademark applicant’s goods and/or services.  By definition, such terms cannot indicate the source of goods and/or services, and cannot qualify for federal trademark registration.  This makes sense — the terms “corn flakes” or “restaurant” describe a general type of goods or service, not whose goods or services from which they emanate.

So what gives here?  As evident from the petition for certiorari to SCOTUS, it seems that the Fourth Circuit “concluded that BOOKING.COM, taken as a whole, is not generic because the relevant public would primarily understand the term to indicate [Booking.com’s] brand… [relying] in significant part on [the] Teflon survey, rejecting the USPTO’s argument that such survey evidence is irrelevant to the question whether BOOKING.COM is generic.”

Although the appeals court acknowledged that a term previously held to be generic cannot have that designation changed by subsequent consumer recognition of the term, the court nevertheless held that such a rule only applies where “a prior court” held the term to be generic or was “previously commonly used” by the public. In essence, a term that has been held generic or is otherwise commonly used by the public will not qualify for registration, but somehow miraculously does not qualify as generic (and can acquire secondary meaning) if it does not meet those criteria?  If you are scratching your head, rest assured, I am too.

At first glance, the district court and Fourth Circuit seem to have been persuaded by survey evidence that weighed in favor of the company.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that survey evidence can render a generic term like “restaurant” registrable.  Perhaps that is the point — the term “booking” may be a term well-known in the hospitality industry for placing a reservation, but maybe the term is not really generic.  For example, the term “booking” is not solely relevant to the hospitality industry; it arguably operates as a term of art in law enforcement for placing an arrestee into the criminal justice system.  I guess reasonable minds will differ. Let’s just hope that SCOTUS provides some much-needed clarification in the process.

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Tom Kulik is an Intellectual Property & Information Technology Partner at the Dallas-based law firm of Scheef & Stone, LLP. In private practice for over 20 years, Tom is a sought-after technology lawyer who uses his industry experience as a former computer systems engineer to creatively counsel and help his clients navigate the complexities of law and technology in their business. News outlets reach out to Tom for his insight, and he has been quoted by national media organizations. Get in touch with Tom on Twitter (@LegalIntangibls) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/technologylawyer), or contact him directly at tom.kulik@solidcounsel.com.