Zarine Kharazian, Author at IELR Blog

House GOP Releases Controversial Nunes Memo Alleging DOJ and FBI FISA Abuses During the 2016 Election

February 2, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

On Friday, February 2, 2018, House Republicans, with the approval of the Trump administration, released the four-page Nunes memo. The controversial memo, written by Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, alleges Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses by the DOJ and the FBI during the 2016 election.

The memo focuses almost entirely on the government’s electronic surveillance of a Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page. According to the memo, on October 21, 2016, the DOJ and FBI received a probable cause order under FISA to conduct surveillance on Page. The agencies also received three FISA renewals from the FISC – under 50 U.S.C. §1805(d)(1), a FISA order targeting a U.S. citizen must be renewed by the FISC every 90 days, with each renewal requiring an independent finding of probable cause.

The memo does not explicitly accuse either the DOJ or the FBI of violating the FISA application process. Rather, its primary allegation is that the agencies failed to disclose “material and relevant” information, purportedly because the information in question was “potentially favorable” to the target of the application. In particular, the memo denounces the following omissions:

The DNC’s and the Clinton campaign’s alleged role in funding Christopher Steele’s efforts to compile a dossier with “derogatory information” on the Trump campaign’s Russia ties;
The extent of Steele’s direct contact with media outlets – mainly Yahoo News. The memo claims such contact “violated the cardinal rule of source handling – maintain confidentiality;”
Steele’s alleged “anti-Trump bias,” which the memo claims was documented by senior DOJ official Bruce Ohr as well as in official FBI materials, but not reflected in the FISA application;
A source validation report by the FBI that assed the Steele dossier as “only minimally corroborated;” and
The lack of evidence of cooperation between Page and fellow Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos.

For its part, Democratic leadership has vehemently denounced the memo’s findings as misleading. In a press release, Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, stated the following:

The authors of the GOP memo would like the country to believe that the investigation began with Christopher Steele and the dossier, and if they can just discredit Mr. Steele, they can make the whole investigation go away regardless of the Russians’ interference in our election or the role of the Trump campaign in that interference. This ignores the inconvenient fact that the investigation did not begin with, or arise from Christopher Steele or the dossier, and that the investigation would persist on the basis of wholly independent evidence had Christopher Steele never entered the picture.

In response to the release of the Nunes memo, Schiff on behalf of the Democrats had written a 10-pagerebuttal memo. On Monday, when the House Intelligence Committee voted to release the Nunes memo, it also rejected a motion from Schiff to release the Democratic response at the same time. Schiff has told the media that the Democrats will attempt to force another vote on the release of the response.

For the full text of the Nunes memo, see here.

Coalition for Integrity 2018 Student Essay Contest

February 2, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

The Coalition for Integrity, an anti-corruption and good government non-profit, non-partisan organization, announces an essay contest for students on: “Attacking Corruption and Promoting Integrity in the United States and around the Globe.” Eligibility is open to any student attending a college or university in the United States or any U.S. citizen or permanent resident attending a college or university outside the United States. Contestants may be undergraduate students, graduate students, or students in a professional school. They can have any disciplinary or professional school background relevant to understanding and ameliorating the problem of corruption.

Essays should be written in English and be no more than 10,000 words, although shorter essays are welcome. Writers should include a note from their college or university registrar attesting either to their current student status or to their graduation in 2018. Submissions must be made to administration@coalitionforintegrity.org by midnight on July 31, 2018.

More information about the contest may be found at the following link: 2018-Student-Essay-Contest.

Justice Department Charges Eight Individuals with “Deceptive Trading Practices” on Commodities Markets

January 31, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

On Monday, January 29, 2018, the Justice Department announced charges against eight individuals accused of manipulating U.S. commodities markets for financial gain. Seven of the eight individuals were charged with spoofing. Spoofing refers to a fraud tactic that involves the placing of hundreds to thousands of “spoof orders” – orders that the spoofer does not intend to trade – in order to incentive market participants to buy, sell, or trade at manipulated prices. In doing so, spoofing fools market participants to make their investment decisions based on a false perception of supply and demand.

The individuals charged are James Vorley, 37, of the United Kingdom; Cedric Chanu, 39, a French citizen; Edward Bases, 55, of New Canaan, Connecticut; John Pacilio, 53, of Southport, Connecticut; Jitesh Thakkar, 41, of Naperville, Illinois; Jiongsheng (“Jim”) Zhao, 30, of Australia; Andre Flotron, 53, a Swiss national residing in Wayne, New Jersey; and Krishna Mohan, 33, of New York, New York. Vorley, Chanu, Bases, Pacilio, Thakkar, and Jiongsheng were charged in the Northern District of Illinois, Flotron was charged in the District of Connecticut, and Mohan was charged in the Southern District of Texas. The spoofers primarily targeted the precious metals and E-mini futures contracts markets.

The charges constitute the largest futures market criminal enforcement action in the Justice Department’s history.

In prepared remarks delivered on Monday, Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan highlighted the assortment of methods used to identify market manipulation and gather evidence in the cases. In addition “traditional law enforcement techniques” and cooperation with the private sector, authorities used data analysis methods to “identify spoofing patterns through sophisticated analysis of market-level data.” Cronan noted that, in the future, the Department expects to make even greater use of data analysis to identify and counter spoofing.

For more coverage and analysis of this enforcement action, see the February 2018 issue of the International Enforcement Law Reporter.

The Latest on U.S. v Microsoft: Microsoft Files Respondent Brief, Still More Amici Curiae Weigh In

January 22, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

On Thursday, January 11, Microsoft filed its brief in the U.S. v Microsoft case set to go before the Supreme Court in the 2017-2018 term. The central question in the case is whether the Stored Communications Act allows the U.S. government to compel an electronic services provider, through a probable-cause-based warrant, to disclose electronic communications stored abroad. For further background on this case, see our past coverage on the IELR Blog here and here.

Microsoft argues that Congress did not envision the Stored Communications Act to apply overseas. In 1986, when the statute was enacted, it was unimaginable that one day governments could secure data from overseas rapidly and inexpensively. Under the presumption against extraterritoriality established by Supreme Court precedent, legislation does not apply extraterritorially unless Congress clearly states or intends otherwise. Thus, the SCA has no extraterritorial application.

According to Microsoft, a warrant that compels the copying and importation of electronic communications stored overseas is an impermissible application of the SCA. The government argues that it is seeking a domestic application of the warrant, because the ultimate disclosure of the emails would occur in the U.S. But the SCA protects the security of “communications in electronic storage,” not “disclosure.” Thus, the Court should interpret the statute to apply to “domestically stored communications,” not “domestic disclosures of communications.” It follows that a warrant seeking to compel the disclosure of communications stored abroad (regardless of where they are ultimately disclosed) is extraterritorial.

Microsoft then scrutinizes the Government’s claim that “a person who complies with a subpoena [cannot] become a government agent simply by collecting and producing evidence in its possession.” Microsoft denounces the claim as misleading; the act of copying and disclosing the email content to the Government would involve the execution of a warrant, not a subpoena.

Interestingly, Microsoft cites the “international discord” over the case as confirmation” that “the warrant entails an impermissible extraterritorial application of the SCA.” Indeed, U.S. v. Microsoft is unusual for the amount of interest and input it has generated from foreign governments, companies, non-profits, and individuals. In a blog post published on January 19, 2018, Microsoft’s President and Chief Legal Officer, Brad Smith, noted that thus far 23 amicus briefs by 289 entities and from 37 countries have been submitted in support of Microsoft. Even more striking is the sheer range of political ideologies among the supporters. U.S. Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Christopher Coons (D-DE), the Chamber of Commerce, the ACLU, Vox Media and Fox News are among the domestic supporters.

See the full list of signatories here.

Case Western Reserve University International Criminal Law LL.M Program

January 22, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

From Michael P. Scharf, Dean of Case Western University School of Law:

As documented by the developments covered in the WCPW e-newsletter, international criminal law has become one of the fastest growing and highest profile areas of law. Taught by leading experts in the field, the Case Western Reserve University LL.M in International Criminal law will provide individuals who hold a degree in law with an in-depth knowledge of international criminal law and procedure, international humanitarian law, and national security law, and will equip them to practice international criminal law before international tribunals or national courts.

Now in its tenth year, there are seven unique aspects of the Case Western Reserve International Criminal Law LLM, which I’d like to especially call to your attention:

First, Case Western Reserve is known around the world for the strength of its international criminal law program. Program faculty include a former State Department official, a former Senior Counsel at the IMF, the former head of the International Branch in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s International and Operational Law Division, a Senior Counsel for Human Rights First – Law and Security Program, a Senior Coast Guard lawyer, and the senior trial attorney in the Charles Taylor trial before the Special Court for Sierra Leone. Reflecting the strength of our program, in 2005, the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone nominated our War Crimes Research initiative for the Nobel Peace Prize, and in 2008 the Case Western team won the World Championship round of the Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. Based on a survey of international law professors, the 2018 rankings issue of US News and World Report ranked our program among the top twelve international law programs in the nation, and International Jurist magazine ranks our LLM program best in the country.

Second, our International Criminal Law LL.M Program is designed as an elite and intimate program, with enrollment limited to approximately five LL.M students per year. We provide generous scholarships and one of those students may be a full-scholarship “Distinguished Visiting Jurist,” whose presence is designed to enhance the program and facilitate networking. Our last Distinguished Jurist was Duncan Gaswaga, currently a judge on Uganda’s High Court War Crimes Chamber.

Third, among the dozen international criminal law-related courses we offer, you can enroll in the War Crimes Research Lab, taught by former Chief Trial Attorney of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Jim Johnson, in which students write research memoranda at the request of international war crimes tribunals, piracy courts, the Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions, and INTERPOL on cutting edge issues pending before those institutions.

Fourth, as part of the program, our International Criminal Law LL.M students may receive a semester’s worth of credit by interning at one of the international war crimes tribunals, a Piracy Court, UNODC, the General Counsel’s Office of the U.S. Coast Guard, or INTERPOL in the spring semester.

Fifth, our international Criminal Law LL.M students are invited to be editors of War Crimes Prosecution Watch, the e-newsletter that goes out every two weeks to war crimes prosecutors, judges, and more than 15,000 experts in the field.

Sixth, we host several major lectures and an annual international criminal law-related symposium, which bring dozens of leading experts in the field to the Law School each year. Recent speakers have included: Sean Murphy, ILC Special Rapporteur for the Convention on Crimes Against Humanity; Brenda Hollis, Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone; Stephen Rapp, US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes Issues; Hon. Christine Van den Wyngaert, Judge of the ICC; Sir Christopher Greenwood, UK Judge on the International Court of Justice; Prince Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Robert Petit, Chief Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia; Richard Goldstone, former Chief Prosecutor of the ICTY and ICTR and author of the Goldstone Commission Report on Gaza; William Schabas, Commissioner on the International Truth Commission for Sierra Leone; Fatua Bensuada , the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC; and the late Cherif Bassiouni who was known as “the father of international criminal law.”

Finally, we have placed 135 students in externships at the six international war crimes tribunals, and our alumni include individuals who have served as a member of the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, a member of the Office of the Prosecutor of the Cambodia Tribunal; a Legal Adviser to the Chambers of the International Criminal Court; a member of the Office of the Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon; a prosecutor in the Office of Guantanamo Bay Military Commissions; a lawyer at INTERPOL; several distinguished law professors, and the Judge Advocate General of the US Navy Reserve.

To apply for the International Criminal Law LLM Degree, click: http://law.case.edu/Academics/Degrees/LLM/LLM-in-International-Criminal-Law

To sample one of our International Criminal Law courses (offered free on demand by Coursera), click: https://www.coursera.org/learn/international-criminal-law

In Crusade against Cultural Antiquities Trafficking, Manhattan DA Cracks Down on Private Art Collectors

January 15, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

On Friday, January 5, 2018, the Manhattan DA’s office initiated two sets of seizures of cultural antiquities. The first set targeted the New York City residence and offices of Michael Steinhardt, a prominent Manhattan businessman and art collector. The second targeted Phoenix Ancient Art, an antiquities dealership currently operated by Hicham and Ali Aboutaam, and founded by their father Sleiman Aboutaam in 1968. The family-owned dealership operates galleries in New York and Geneva, and the Aboutaams have been implicated frequently in provenance and looting cases, especially those concerning ancient Greek and Roman art.

According to the warrant, the list of antiquities seized from Steinhardt’s possession includes:

A Greek Attic Monumental White-Ground Lekythos (the “White-Ground Lekythos”), circa 420 B.C., purchased in 2006 for $380,000;
A Proto-Corinthian Duck, circa 650-625 B.C., purchased in 2009 for $130,000; and
A Corinthian Bull’s Head (the “Corinthian Bull’s Head”), circa 580 B.C., purchased in 2009 for $60,000.

Among the antiquities seized from Phoenix Art are the following:

A Rhodian Seated Monkey (the “Seated Monkey”), circa 580-550 B.C, valued at $150,000.;
A Attic Female Head Flask (the “Female Head Flask”), circa 500-490 B.C., valued at $80,000 ; and
A Corinthian Sea-Serpent (the “Sea-Serpent”) from the 6^th century B.C., valued at $140,000.

The January 5^th seizures are just the latest in a series of raids conducted by the Manhattan DA’s office of cultural antiquities from private collections.

Cultural property theft is usually prosecuted by federal authorities rather than state authorities, because it often involves transfer over state lines, and because determining provenance of ancient art requires specialized knowledge. Under the leadership of DA Cyrus R. Vance Jr. and assistant DA Matthew Bogdanos, however, the Manhattan DA’s office has mounted a particularly robust campaign against antiquities theft. The office has both the resources and expertise to do so. While serving in the Marine Corps in 2003, Bogdanos led the investigation into the lootings of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad.

The Association for Research into Crimes against Art (ARCA) blog reports that the office has recovered more than $150 million worth of antiquities since 2012.

U.S. Private Investigative Firm Kroll Releases 2nd Report on the 2014 Moldovan Bank Scandal

January 3, 2018 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

On December 22, U.S. private investigative firm Kroll published its second report on the 2014 Moldovan bank fraud scandal. This blog post provides background on the scandal, as well as commentary on the contents of the report.

Background: The 2014 Moldovan Bank Scandal and the First Kroll Report

In November 2014, more than $750 million disappeared from three Moldovan banks over just two days. The three banks – Banca de Economii, Unibank and Banca Socială – declared bankruptcy that month, prompting the National Bank of Moldova to bail them out with $870 billion in loans. The bailout reportedly created a government deficit equivalent to roughly one-eighth of the entire country’s GDP.

In January 2015, the National Bank of Moldova commissioned the U.S. investigative firm Kroll to conduct a confidential investigation of the fraud. The Kroll report, which the speaker of the Moldovan Parliament, Andrian Candu, leaked to the public in May 2015, revealed what investigators believed to be a “co-ordinated effort within the banks to deliberately disguise” the nearly billion dollars’ worth of transactions and their beneficiaries. The investigators tie nearly all of the transactions to Ilan Shor, a Moldovan millionaire businessman and politician, or companies either directly owned by or connected to him.

According to the first Kroll Report, between 2012 and 2014, the three banks paid out more than three billion dollars in loans to companies linked to Shor. The funds were funneled through a convoluted international money laundering scheme that primarily involved using UK limited partnerships with Latvian bank accounts as “shell” companies.

The Second Kroll Report

In their second report, Kroll investigators provide more details on the profiles of the scheme’s beneficiaries. They report that at least 77 companies make up what they term the “Shor Group:” a group of companies linked to Ilan Shor all of which documentary evidence suggests participated to some degree the coordinated fraud effort.

Over a period of two years, the companies reportedly increased their ownership stake in the three banks, thereby increasing their control over the loan approval process within each bank. Loans are approved by the Board of Directors of each bank. Kroll reported that its investigators contacted two government-appointed members of the board for one of the banks, BEM, and both members stated that had not been invited to any board meetings in November 2015, and were not informed of any loans granted during that month.

In November 2014, the companies comprising the Shor Group concentrated their loan exposure, which had up until then been spread across the three banks, into one bank – BEM. According to the Kroll report, this move “allowed the Three Moldovan Banks to pool their liquidity into BEM and enabled BEM to increase lending.”

The Core Laundering Mechanism

A series of companies were then established. These companies held a total of 81 bank accounts at two Latvian banks. The majority of the accounts were held either by UK limited partnerships or offshore companies registered in offshore tax jurisdictions, such as Belize and Panama. Investigators believe most of these accounts were established solely for the purpose of laundering money. The report describes the primary laundering mechanism in detail:

The laundering mechanisms included the frequent transfer of funds between linked accounts, the splitting of funds and layering through other accounts, simultaneous issuing and repaying of an overdraft by two linked companies to disguise the onward flow and the frequent and apparently arbitrary switching of currencies between accounts.

The investigators consider both the complexity as well as timing of the laundering mechanism to be indicative of a “highly coordinated professional laundering operation.” At one point, they point to “numerous examples” in the operation where money “flowed through a series of accounts within seconds.”

Fore more commentary on the 2nd Kroll report, see the upcoming January 2018 issue of the International Enforcement Law Reporter.

The Latest on WannaCry: North Korea Decries Accusations; U.S. Comments on Marcus Hutchins’ Arrest

December 27, 2017 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

At a White House press briefing on December 19, 2017, President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert publicly attributed the destructive WannaCry cyberattack to North Korea.

Over a period of several days in May 2017, the WannaCry ransomware crippled hundreds of thousands of personal and corporate computer networks in over 150 countries, until a UK computer security researcher, Marcus Hutchins, inadvertently discovered a “kill-switch” in the malware’s code that disabled the attack. Until Tuesday, the attack had not been publicly attributed to any particular state or non-state actor.

“After careful investigation, the United States is publicly attributing the massive WannaCry cyberattack to North Korea,” Bossert said during the briefing. “We do not make this allegation lightly. We do so with evidence, and we do so with partners.”

Bossert went on to praise corporate partners, in particular Microsoft and Facebook, for their role in disabling North Korean hacking and cyber operations directed towards the U.S. “Last week, Microsoft and Facebook and other major tech companies acted to disable a number of North Korean cyber exploits and disrupt their operations as the North Koreans were still infecting computers across the globe. They shut down accounts the North Korean regime hackers used to launch attacks and patched systems.”

Bossert then introduced Jeanette Manfra, Assistant Secretary for the Office of Cybersecurity for DHS. Bossert and Manfra went on to repeatedly stress the importance of public-private sector cooperation in cybersecurity matters. “In many ways, WannaCry was a defining moment and an inspiring one,” Manfra said. “It demonstrated the tireless commitment of our industry partners, a moment that showed how the government and private sector got it right; that our preparation, our investments in cybersecurity, keeping our systems up to date, and sharing information paid off.”

The Assistant Secretary also called for strengthening international cooperation with regards to cyber: “To prevent another attack like WannaCry, we are calling on all companies to commit to the collective defense of our nation. And this commitment does not end on our borders… it is only through international partnerships that the United States had time to prepare.”

On December 26, 2017, North Korea’s envoy in charge of U.S. affairs at the UN, Pak Song Il, demanded that the U.S. prove that the North Koreans were behind WannaCry. North Korea’s state-controlled media denounced the U.S.’s allegations as “reckless.”

Comments on the Recent Indictment of Marcus Hutchins

During the briefing, a reporter asked Bossert for comments on the recent DOJ indictment of Marcus Hutchins on unrelated computer fraud charges in early August. The DOJ has charged Hutchins for his alleged involvement of the Kronos banking Trojan, which experts believe was created in 2014 and distributed via the now-defunct cryptocurrency exchange AlphaBay. Hutchins is currently awaiting a court date, and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Bossert declined to comment on the ongoing criminal prosecution. He did acknowledge Hutchins’ role in disabling WannaCry, saying that “we… had a programmer that was sophisticated, that noticed a glitch in the malware, a kill-switch, and then acted to kill it. He took a risk, it worked, and it caused a lot of benefit. So we’ll give him that.”

Bossert did not give Hutchins all, or even most, of the credit, however. “[I]t wasn’t luck — it was preparation,” he clarified. [I]t was partnership with private companies, and so forth.”

Hutchins’ indictment had come as a shock to the cybersecurity community, which considered him somewhat of a hero for his role in disabling WannaCry. Immediately following his arrest, many of his colleagues took to Twitter to voice their skepticism of the charges. In September, however, Brian Krebs, an American investigative reporter and cybersecurity blogger, published an in-depth investigative piece titled, “Who is Marcus Hutchins” on his popular cybersecurity blog, KrebsonSecurity. In intricate detail, complete with screenshots of his process as well as a mindmap of his data points, Krebs excavates the dozens of online pseudonyms, email addresses, and posts in hacker forums linked to Hutchins’ early online accounts. He manages to link Hutchins to several online personas involved in selling malicious software on hacker forums.

A Look at the European Commission’s Amicus Brief in United States v. Microsoft Corp

December 15, 2017 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

On December 13, 2017, the European Commission filed an amicus brief in the United States v. Microsoft Corp case set to go before the U.S. Supreme Court in the 2018 term. The case concerns the U.S. Justice Department’s access to an individual’s private emails stored at Microsoft’s Dublin data center. In December 2013, the DOJ served Microsoft a warrant compelling it to disclose the private communications of an individual the government had reason to believe was engaged in criminal drug activity. When Microsoft turned over the account information stored on its U.S. servers, but refused to disclose the information stored at its Dublin center, the legal battle ensued.

At Issue: The Extraterritorial Application of the Stored Communications Act’s Warrant Provisions

The Stored Communications Act (SCA) – which is part of the broader Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) of 1986 – allows the government to require that an electronic communications provider disclose information about a particular communication upon being served a probable-cause-based warrant. At issue in this case is whether the warrant provisions of the Stored Communications Act (SCA) apply extraterritorially, such that they compel Microsoft, an electronic service provider, to produce private electronic communications stored on servers in Ireland for the United States government.

The European Commission’s Brief

While the Commission stresses that the EU takes “no position on the ultimate question of the Stored Communication Act’s proper construction under U.S. law,” it nevertheless implores that the Supreme Court consider EU data protection laws, particularly the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set to go into effect in May 2018, when making its decision. The Commission argues that the GDPR applies in this case because the actions Microsoft must take to fully comply with the Justice Department’s warrant constitutes data “processing” to and from the European Union.

Chapter 5 of the GDPR explicitly addresses the transfer of data from the EU to a non-member state. The GDPR specifies two main circumstances under which personal data may be transferred from the European Union to a non-member state:

Article 47 allows transfers in cases in which the Commission has ruled that the third party’s data protection laws provide an “adequate level of protection.” In determining the adequacy of a particular data protection regime, the Commission examines the third party’s rule of law and the presence and functioning of relevant regulatory authorities, among other elements.
In the absence of the provisions in Article 47 being satisfied, Article 48 allows transfers to a third party if the data controller or processor has ensured “appropriate safeguards,” which many include standard data protection clauses, binding enforcement authority, and legal recourse for data subjects, among other guarantees.

In cases that do not resemble either of the above circumstances, Article 49 outlines “derogations for specific situations.” In its brief, the Commission identifies two provisions that are most relevant to the case at hand:

When a transfer is “necessary for important reasons of public interest;” and
When a transfer is “necessary for the purposes of compelling legitimate interests pursued by the controller which are not overridden by the interest or rights and freedoms of the data subject.”

With regards to the first provision, the Commission concedes that the Justice Department’s request for data generally would be seen as meant to further an “objective general interest:” the “fight against serious crime, a well as “criminal law enforcement and international cooperation in that respect.”

With regards to the second provision, however, the Commission is vaguer. It remains an open question whether the interests, however legitimate, underlying the Justice Department’s request for data override “the interests or rights and freedoms of the data subject.” Thus, while the Commission abstains from siding with either party explicitly, its implication is clear: should the Court rule in favor of the U.S. Justice Department, the U.S. may run afoul of the EU data protection regime, and face EU states’ national regulatory authorities’ ire.

The Commission’s brief: European Commission Amicus Brief in Support of Neither Party

An Update on the IELR Media Presence: Connect with us on Facebook!

December 8, 2017 by Zarine Kharazian Leave a Comment

After 32 years and 33 volumes, the International Enforcement Law Reporter is delighted to have vamped up its online presence! We just launched a Facebook page, where we will be regularly posting updates and exclusive offers. You can check out our Facebook here.

In addition to following our new Facebook page, here are all of the ways you may now connect with the IELR online:

Our website, http://ielr.com/, provides analysis on the latest developments in the international enforcement law field. This companion blog supplements that analysis.

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