All posts by Paul E. Paray

Use Your Existing Providers to Reduce Litigation in 2010

It should come as no surprise that our current deep recession has been  boosting corporate litigation.  According to a CFO article published earlier in the year, “[l]egal wrangling is erupting across the board as aggrieved plaintiffs battle over breached labor contracts, unwarranted executive layoffs, dubious financial disclosures, broken supply chains, ailing strategic partnerships, ravaged 401(k) plans, unjust competitive practices, intellectual-property infringements, and curtailed credit lines.”  In fact, New York State’s courts will close out 2009 with 4.7 million cases – the highest tally ever – so the general litigation climate could probably not be any worse. 

Finding ways to cost-effectively manage this uptick in litigation can be a great challenge for shrinking or non-existent in-house departments.   You should tap into your existing service professionals.  It is never too late to use your existing providers – whether in insurance, law or accounting – to assess and implement loss control and prevention techniques and initiatives, advocate on your behalf with claims adjusters regarding existing claims, and coordinate existing litigation with outside counsel.  Much of this work should be included in your current service contracts or should be at a minimal additional charge.

Virtualization Security Risk

If you are a larger middle-market company, another “below the radar” IT risk factor that may be impacting you may be driven by the cost savings inherent in using virtualized servers and desktops.  A security breach in a virtualized environment can have greater consequences than the same breach in a traditional IT environment because it is much more difficult to localize or isolate a virtualized IT environment.    This report gives further detail regarding the security threat and astutely points out that no one really understands where the real security problems can be found; and therefore, is the real problem.