Jones Day Talks

Institutional investors are redefining investments in “hard assets,” such as real estate, energy, and infrastructure into a combined “real assets” category. This change is driven by numerous factors and presents significant opportunities and challenges, which will be examined by Jones Day partner Brian Sedlak and his colleagues from across the Firm in an extended series of Jones Day Talks programs. In this kickoff episode of “Real Assets Roundup,” Brian, along with partners Vica Irani and Kit Rockhill, discuss the new definition of “real assets” and talk about the issues, themes, and legal considerations to be addressed in subsequent programs.

Artificial intelligence presents so many opportunities, but there are still so many questions in relation to copyright law. What constitutes fair use? How much human input satisfies the human authorship requirement? Can federal or state legislation address the "deepfake" problem? And what makes adjusting to AI adoption so challenging? Listen to partners Meredith Wilkes and Emily Tait talk about the current legal landscape and the practical implications companies face when bringing AI to the workplace.

Corporate fraud remains a persistent and potentially damaging threat to companies across industries, sectors, and borders. The risks are substantial and the penalties are daunting. Jones Day partner Jeff Schenk, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney who led the prosecutions of Theranos executive Elizabeth Holmes and Pacific Gas & Electric, gives a first-hand account of those high-profile trials, and explains what corporate counsels need to know about keys issues involving corporate fraud investigations.

The challenges and mechanics of growing a new venture are complex, and when the competing interests of different investor classes are considered, trouble and conflict are possible. As part of a continuing series of podcasts on early stage and venture capital investing, Jones Day partners Tim Curry, Taylor Stevens, and Alex Wibaux discuss the “five pillars” Series A and later investors should understand to ensure their rights and interests are protected.

Though rare, cases of prosecutorial misconduct do occur in cases at all court levels and across jurisdictions. Partner Neal Stephens, co-author of Prosecutorial Misconduct: A Practical Guide for Criminal Defense Lawyers, recently published by the American Bar Association, talks about what defense lawyers must know and do to protect their clients at every stage of a criminal case. Read the full transcript.

Finishing law school is just the beginning. The transition from law student to lawyer comes with its own set of challenges and opportunities. Tiffany Lipscomb-Jackson and Josh Pittman share stories, insights, and practical advice for law students and new lawyers leaving school and embarking on their career paths.

Down round financings recently reached their highest levels in 15 years, leaving investors, growth-stage companies, and other venture capital market participants searching for guidance and clarity. Jones Day partners Tim Curry, Taylor Stevens, and Alexandre Wibaux explain how down rounds work, and talk about what affected parties need to know as we look toward 2025. Read the full transcript.

“First Gen” law students and lawyers often face challenges different than those encountered by their peers. In this edition of Perspectives and Pathways, Jones Day partner Rasha Shields and associate Eli Jones talk about their backgrounds, discuss making the move from law school to life as a lawyer, and share tips for students and new lawyers coming from similar circumstances. Read the full transcript.

Jurisdictions are requiring large corporations and other entities to report on the environmental risks they face and how their business operations impact the climate. In the second in a series of JONES DAY TALKS® podcasts regarding significant climate disclosure rules, our panel discusses the SEC’s rules announced in early March, the European Union’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and the State of California’s Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act and Climate-Related Financial Risk Act. Read the full transcript here.

On Friday, March 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit granted an administrative stay of the SEC’s final Climate Disclosure Rules, adopted just over a week earlier. All of the challenges to the Rules filed in various courts will be coordinated for review before one court. As written, the Rules will require publicly traded corporations to make significant, new climate-related disclosures. In the first of a series of JONES DAY TALKS® programs examining the new Rules and related topics, Amy Pandit and Olga Gidalevitz discuss key implementation considerations for affected companies. Read the full transcript here.

Corporate Venture Capital, or CVC, continues to play a major role in investment and deal activity across numerous growth industries. Jones Day partners Tim Curry and Taylor Stevens discuss who's investing, the opportunities they're targeting, and the special factors to consider in a corporate venture investment. Read the full transcript here.

As business and investment activity in Asia surge, multinational corporations operating in the region face continually evolving and challenging compliance obligations and risks. Jones Day lawyers Lillian He, Hiromitsu Miyakwa, Zac Sharpe, and Simon M. Yu, all with broad experience advising corporate clients in Asia, discuss the current compliance and regulatory landscape, key enforcement agencies, and the attention in the region to ESG, data privacy and cybersecurity, anti-corruption, and sanctions. Read the full transcript here.

A federal district court held in Thaler v. Perlmutter that an AI-generated image, "A Recent Entrance to Paradise," cannot be copyrighted due to the lack of sufficient human contribution to its creation. Jones Day partners Emily Tait and Carl Kukkonen talk about the implications of the decision, the questions that remain, third-party complications, and what GenAI users need to know. Read the full transcript here.

As part of a series of programs covering class action laws in jurisdictions around the world, and to supplement content found in Jones Day’s recent publication, Class Actions Worldview: Part I—United States and the European Union, this edition of Jones Day Talks focuses on Class Actions in Spain – or as they’re known – Collective Actions. Antonio Canales and Gonzalo Hierro, both based in Madrid, talk about the current Collective Actions landscape. They also discuss the Spanish Preliminary Draft Law, and share their thoughts on settlements, third-party funding, and more.

Antitrust enforcement in labor markets continues to escalate worldwide. Jones Day partners Kevin Hart and Philipp Werner talk about the continuing crackdown on anticompetitive labor practices in the U.S. and across the EU, review recent developments in case law, and explain what employers need to know. Read the full transcript here.

Across every industry and every region of the world, corporate compliance programs have increasingly become an integral part of a company's operations and procedures—and the trend shows no signs of slowing. In the first in a series of Jones Day Talks programs addressing topics related to corporate compliance programs, Jones Day lawyers Henry Klehm, Toni Citera, and Paloma Valor discuss the history of corporate compliance programs, the changing role of the compliance officer, challenges for multinational companies, the importance of technology, and how the compliance function can effectively partner with other parts of the organization to help mitigate risk and achieve business objectives.

Each lawyer who is the first in their family to attend law school (and, in many cases, college) forges a unique path to a legal career. In this podcast, the Firm's Rasha Gerges Shields, Abe Hester, and Stephen Scott share stories from their journeys as “first-generation” lawyers.

Although class actions have been common in the United States for decades, they have not been as widely used in the rest of the world. The situation and risks remain in flux, however, as more countries have renewed momentum to enact class actions or class action-like procedures. The Firm is producing in-depth, multipart series of publications on class actions that will spotlight a wide array of jurisdictions worldwide. The first installment in the series, released in August 2023, focuses on the United States and European Union. In this podcast, also the first in a series, partners Ozan Akyurek and Becky Kcehowski discuss recent trends and developments in U.S. and UK class actions.

The growing carbon credit and related derivatives markets continue to attract the attention of regulatory agencies and law enforcement. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has just announced that it is looking for whistleblowers on potential fraud or manipulation in the carbon credit markets, which is a major enforcement development in the ESG space. Jones Day partners Josh Sterling and Howard Sidman talk about the CFTC’s ramped-up enforcement focus and what it means for participants in the carbon markets.

As its potential uses soar, Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to attract the attention of multiple regulatory agencies. A recent high-profile U.S. Senate hearing made it clear that the use of AI must be consistent with federal laws pertaining to fair lending, housing, employment, and similar situations. Jones Day’s Dorothy Giobbe and Alexander Maugeri discuss the legal implications of introducing artificial intelligence to decision-making processes and how users should prepare for increased scrutiny.