Today’s Federal Register.
The Wall Street Journal today shows in this article–“Massive Blackout Retreats Stubbornly in U.S., Canada: ‘Cascade’ of Problems Appears To Be the Worst Since 1996“–that Pennsylvania was affected by the power outage. But fortunately, we did not experience any outage here. I am sure that many of my readers did.
Also on the power outage, Renee Deger for the Recorder via Law.com reports: “Zapped by Outage, Firms Scramble to Cope.”
On pension funding, the Wall Street Journal today reports: “Gloom Lifting for Pension Plans.” The article discusses how the “sudden summer upturn in interest rates, combined with the improving stock market” has had a powerful effect on pension plan funding. The article reports that a “one percentage-point change in long-term yields easily can shrink or inflate a company’s pension liability by 10% or more” and that the “bellwether 10-year Treasury note has soared nearly 1.5 percentage points since June.”
Who will pay for this $4 million tab? The retirement plans or Enron? “Payment sought for pension work: At question is who pays the $4 million for plan management“: Eric Berger for the Houston Chronicle reports.
There are quite a few articles today covering developments in the attorney-client privilege arena:
“IRS Case tests Attorney-Client Privilege“: the Washington Post reports. The article quotes Lawrence J. Fox, a Philadelphia lawyer and former chair of the American Bar Association’s ethics committee, as saying, “It is my view that any time the identity of the client carries with it more information than [just] the identity of the client, then there is an obligation on the part of the law firm to refuse to turn it over.” Mr. Fox, according to the article, called the Jenkens & Gilchrist summonses “the very worst form” of that since it is clear that obtaining the names would allow the agency to identify potential audit targets.
Accountingweb.com also reports: “IRS Strikes Blow Against Attorney-Client Privilege.”
Steve Pearlstein for the Washington Post had this to say about recent developments regarding the attorney-client privilege: “[T}here are real downsides in terms of erosion of the attorney-client privilege in requiring or allowing lawyers to rat on their clients except in the rarest of circumstances. I’m not sure the costs in terms of that erosion are offset by the marginal benefits you get when you go from reporting up to reporting out.” You can access his comments here.
Another op-ed for the Nashville City Paper–“Attorney-client privilege quickly slipping away“–makes the point that the old cliche of “throwing the baby out with the bath water” might well apply here.