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Last week I went to the 2019 Global Ethics Summit in New York and sat in on a panel of in-house counsel discussing ethics in the supply chain. One thing that stuck with me as a great concern for Hershey GC Damien Atkins is climate change.

He said tariffs and geopolitical situations are of concern sometimes, but it's climate change that's staying on his mind.

“I spend more time thinking about near-term issues like climate change because that will drive a lot of geopolitical instability,” Atkins said.

He said if the average temperature goes up by 4 or 5 degrees, the whole source of chocolate could be under stress.

“We're looking at things like indoor farming,” Atkins said. “You have to think about ways of how you actually get that product when your core supply could disappear.”

The core of Hershey's product is the cocoa bean so it makes sense that the company would be thinking of new ways to get its core ingredient when that ingredient is unable to grow.

“We're really good at managing business for the next year, the next three years. Climate change is one of those things that is a slow velocity but high impact. Those are the worst things to plan against,” Atkins said.

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What's Happening

Out Of School And (Maybe) Into The Big House

Speaking of ethics, there seems to be a lot of people, including lawyers, who forgot that it is not ethical to pay to have your kids' college entrance exam scores fixed. The scandal has kept Law.com reporter Sue Reisinger pretty busy.

Last week, she found the University of Texas has named its vice president of legal affairs, Jim Davis, to conduct a review on how its tennis coach became involved in the scandal. The coach, Michael Center, is accused of accepting bribes to help children of wealthy parents get into the school.

Sue further found that because of the scandal, the top lawyers of the schools involved will be on the lookout for civil suits. Christine Helwick, the former general counsel for the California State University system, told Sue that “someone will probably fashion some claim for liability.”

Snooping

Unlawfully looking at patient data out of curiosity, known as snooping, leaves hospitals open to liability. Law.com reporter Kristen Rasmussen spoke to health care data privacy experts on the ramifications on this lesser known kind of data breach.

▶ No private cause of action. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, famously known as HIPAA, does not allow private causes of action. So the claims a hospital faces are likely some kind of state law action such as medical malpractice or breach of a professional duty.

▶ Go above and beyond. Health care attorney Helen Oscislawski said hospitals and health care facilities make sure their staff know the repercussions of snooping at a patient's medical records. If there is electronic access to the records, she adds then a pop-up window should be available where a doctor verifies his/her identity before getting access to records.

▶ Sanctions and enforcement. Besides the offender, the hospital can be on the hook if it is found to not have protected medical records. “There is a compliance piece that puts the hospital on the hook, and failure to fall short of reasonable and appropriate safeguards and best practices on that would open [providers] up to potential at in.

What I've Been Reading

What does one of the top lawyers to a newspaper like the New York Times do exactly? Good question. This week NYT deputy general counsel David McGrawspoke to the editor of the Times' book review to promote his new book. He explained that aside from helping to provide security services to reporters abroad, he spends much of his time suing the federal government and state and local governments for freedom of information violations. Sort of surprisingly, he explained that he spends very little time during the course of a week vetting stories.

Don't Miss

Wednesday, April 10 – The Global Leaders In Law will be hosting a Changing Corporate Culture event at Scotts in London. The organization will also host a Be the Change event on Thursday, April 25 at Dangleterre in Copenhagen. GLL is an invitation-only membership group offering general counsel a global platform for in-person collaboration to exchange ideas and receive advice and guidance from peers. For more information, contact Meena Heath at [email protected].

Monday-Wednesday, April 15-17 - The Association of Corporate Counsel Foundation will be hosting a Good Lawyers to Great Lawyers event in Orlando, Florida at The Ritz Carlton. Speakers will include Dorothy Capers, executive vice president and general counsel of National Express; Wendy Webb Williams, chief legal officer of SaraLee; and Jason Brown, general counsel of GE Appliances.

Thursday-Saturday, April 25-27 - The High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara Law will be hosting the Fourth Annual In-house Counsel Institute. The program is for in-house counsel to learn to better serve the needs of their internal clients. Speakers will include Dorian Daley, general counsel at Oracle; Jeremiah Chan, director and assistant general counsel of patents at Facebook; and Aradhana Raj, director and senior counsel of global policy at PayPal. For more information email [email protected].

On The Move

✦ Coupang ✦ Jay Jorgensen, the former global chief ethics and compliance officer of Walmart has been made the general counsel of the South Korean e-commerce company. Jorgensen left Walmart in December and began his role at Coupang earlier in March.

✦ Harvard University ✦ Diane Lopez has been named the next general counsel of the university. She replaces Robert Iuliano who left the school to become the president of Gettysburg College. Lopez joined Harvard's legal department as a university attorney in 1994.

✦ Spyglass Media Group ✦ Cheryl Rodman is the first chief legal officer of the new media company. She previously worked as deputy general counsel at Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.