Features January 2019

The Department of No. If you’ve ever worked for a corporate legal division, or so much as shared the same building, chances are you’ve heard the adage—that backhanded nod to the legal function’s joyless, fundamentally defensive posture. Truth be told, no is a word Alice Davidson is more than happy to use. So long as […]

Specializing in enterprise solutions and business analytics, with a unified communications (UC) management platform that’s become a bona-fide best-in-class, Vyopta’s clientele is a who’s-who of Fortune companies: Astrazeneca, Comcast, UPS, the list goes on. And yet, with $6 million on the line—a drop in the bucket for any of these enterprises—Vyopta’s general counsel and co-founder, […]

Employing 70,000 people and operating 55 casinos around the world, along with dozens of accompanying hotels and restaurants, the name of this behemoth is synonymous with nightlife and weekend getaways, as well as a growing presence in interactive virtual reality. Taken together, the legal landscape of Caesars Entertainment Corporation (CEC)—a $4.5 billon enterprise so dynamic […]

It may not be among the more emotional cases that the U.S. Supreme Court is taking up, but it bodes significant consequences for the liquor industry. It also commands the attention of Brian Chevlin in his role as general counsel for the North American operations of the French vintner and distiller, Pernod Ricard. For Tennessee […]

It’s called PAMA, as in the Protecting Access to Medicare Act of 2014, but may entail unintended consequences. For while the 2014 law seeks to prevent cuts to the federal insurance program for senior citizens and some of the disabled, it means lower reimbursement rates for some of the most cost-efficient clinics so necessary in […]

For most first-time general counsels, the in-house learning curve can feel like scaling a building. Luckily, George Melo was still wearing his climbing gear. After nearly two decades in the world of private practice, much of it spent working in a “pseudo-GC capacity” of outside counsel for market sector leading commercial and business clients, Melo […]

Even at 16 years old, while most of his peers were simply trying to survive the trials of teenage-hood, Gustavo Cruz was setting his sights on grander things. Like starting a democratic turnaround in his native Colombia. Well, sort of. During his final year at Gimnasio de los Cerros in Bogotá, the city’s school board—which […]

It’s a disturbing fact of economic life that approximately 40 percent of adults can’t cover a $400 emergency without selling property or taking out a loan, 30 percent have poor or bad credit, and millions more are credit invisible, making it difficult to secure financing. Not impossible, that is. Subprime lenders abound, especially online, willing […]

For generations of kids and kids-at-heart, the name conjures up instant memories of giant plush bears and light-up keyboards played with dancing feet—Tom Hanks’ iconic scene in “Big” foremost among them. So, when iconic toymaker FAO Schwarz launched a new flagship retail space in Rockefeller Plaza this past November, three years after closing its original […]

He’s orchestrated a major spinoff for one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies and navigated complex and evolving regulations for a global leader in the pet and livestock medicine sector, all while building out its Latin American operations. He’s worked for GM, Colgate, Citi and Philip Morris, among others. Now, Juan Pablo Malfavon says he’s […]