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Beginning October 1, 2015, a shift in credit card security and in-store fraud liability could place unwary merchants and business owners at risk.

EMV, which stands for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, is a relatively new form of credit card (in the United States) that utilizes computer chip technology intended to help prevent transactional data breaches and credit card fraud.  In the U.S., most EMV credit cards contain the computer chips as well as the traditional magnetic stripe.  If a merchant does not have a payment processing system that accepts the computer chip, payments may be processed via the magnetic stripe as usual.  However, after October 1, 2015, those businesses that have not upgraded their in-store technology and processing systems to accept the computer chip portion of the card will be at risk.

Prior to the October deadline, depending on the card’s terms and conditions, the payment processor or issuer would typically be liable for consumer losses related to fraudulent transactions.  After the deadline, Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express have announced that the liability for chargeback related costs of fraudulent transactions will shift to party who has not adopted the chip technology.

Generally, the EMV liability shift will have the following impact:

• If the business has upgraded its processing systems, the issuer will continue to bear the responsibility of counterfeit or fraudulent activity.
• If the business has not upgraded its systems and a consumer presents an EMV card, the payment will be processed via the magnetic stripe only, as it had been in the past. Here, the credit card issuer will be relieved of liability and the business will be now held responsible for consumer loss.
• Liability for automated fuel dispensers will remain unaffected until 2017.

EMV use is already widespread in Europe.  Following suit, millions of EMV cards have already been issued to consumers in the United States, with millions more on the way.  It appears that the U.S. will eventually phase out the old magnetic stripes and smart card technology will be the wave of the foreseeable future.  Business owners may be hesitant to shoulder the costs of upgrading their current payment processing systems, but they should be aware that an upgrade now could mitigate exposure connected to EMV non-compliance in the future.

In an era of increasing consumer fraud and data theft, will your business be prepared for the EMV liability shift?

Please join us for a cocktail party in support of Senator Phil Boyle, New York State Senator on Tuesday, September 29^th from 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm at our Ronkonkoma office located at 4175 Veterans Memorial Highway, Suite 400, Ronkonkoma, NY 11779.

To RSVP contact vtringone@cmmllp.com or mtussing@gmail.com.  

PLEASE NOTE THE NEW LOCATION!

September 30, 2015

Execution – the art of getting things done!
Presented by Joe Campolo, Esq.

With the summer behind us and four months left in 2015, it’s time for business leaders to put in the extra effort and make the final push across the finish line.  Join us as Joe Campolo speaks to today’s business leaders, encouraging them to finish the year strong. Following up on his popular “Bleed to Succeed” presentation in which he compels Long Island professionals to set goals and develop plans to reach them, it’s now time to look at the progress you’ve made and what is left to do to complete your plan for 2015.

EVENT DETAILS:

8:30am – 9:00am
Arrival and Breakfast

9:00am – 9:45am
Presenting Speaker

9:45am – 10:00am
Q&A and Discussion

REGISTRATION: All events are FREE but registration is required. Complimentary breakfast will be served.

LOCATION: Courtyard Marriott Ronkonkoma located at 5000 Express Drive South,  Ronkonkoma,  New York  11779. Our meeting will be located in the Fire Island Conference room downstairs.

On November 10, 2015, the HIA-LI will be hosting a executive breakfast event entitled, “A CEO’s Perspective: What it Takes to Thrive in the LI Economy.” Joe Campolo will be moderating the panel of CEO’s who are also recipients of the 2016 HIA Business Achievement Awards. Visit hia-li.org for more details.

By Christine Malafi

Last year, I discussed circumstances under which a volunteer may be considered an employee for the purposes of the Fair Labor Standard Act.  As discussed previously, the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) requires both public and private entity employees to be paid minimum and overtime wages. The question of who qualifies as an “employee” under the FLSA is not as simple as you would expect. Last year, we discussed the 2014 opinion of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Brown v. New York City Department of Education, as to when a public volunteer may be considered to be an employee entitled to wages.

Earlier this month, in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures, Inc.,[1] the Second Circuit Court of Appeals provided some parameters as to when an intern must be a paid employee. The Court opined that the focus should be upon whom is receiving the primary benefit of the internship (the intern or the entity), and laid out seven factors to be weighed and considered in determining whether an intern must be paid as an employee:

1. The extent to which both the intern and employer clearly understand that there is, or is not, an expectation of compensation (any promise of compensation, express or implied, suggests that the intern is entitled to wages);
2. The extent to which the internship provides training that would be similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, including clinical and other hands-on training;
3. The extent to which the internship is tied to the intern’s formal educational program by integrated coursework or the receipt of academic credit;
4. The extent to which the internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitments (i.e, following the academic calendar);
5. The extent to which the duration of the internship is limited to the period in which the intern will receive beneficial learning experiences;
6. The extent to which the intern’s work compliments, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees, while providing significant educational benefits to the intern; and
7. The extent to which both the intern and the employer understand that there is no entitlement to a paid job at the conclusion of the internship.

No one factor is primary to determining whether the intern must be paid under the law for his or her work. Every factor need not point in the same direction, and the courts may consider other relevant evidence (beyond the above seven factors) in determining who is the primary beneficiary of the relationship, and hence, whether wages to the intern are required.

The decision in Glatt serves as an important victory for employers, as private employers now have been given parameters under which to determine whether an intern must be paid under the FLSA.

[1] Nos. 13-4478-cv, 13-4481-cv (July 2, 2015).

By Joe Kellard, Long Island Business News

When discussing one of the most popular programs attorneys attend for continuing legal education, Mary Ann Aiello, dean of the Nassau Academy of Law, painted an image of a seasoned lawyer in court shuffling through hundreds of legal papers, while his younger counterpart pulls up the same documents with a quick search on his laptop or iPad.

Of the 160 programs the academy provides for attorneys to acquire the New York State-mandated credits they must earn every two years, courses on technology and social media have become the rage. While the academy, an arm of the Nassau County Bar Association, has noticed a need for more skill-based and practice management programs, Aiello said, increasingly more lawyers are asking for and attending tech and social media programs related to all areas of their profession, from criminal cases to electronic discovery to online office policies.

“A lot of attorneys feel that they don’t have the updated electronic skills that many young people have,” said Aiello, an attorney who organizes programs for the academy.

Even recent law school graduates are taking these programs, if only to keep up with the latest developments and their applications to law, Aiello said.

Patrick McCormick, a partner at Campolo, Middleton & McCormick in Ronkonkoma and an officer and CLE lecturer at the Suffolk Academy of Law – the educational branch of the Suffolk County Bar Association – also finds that a diverse cross-section of lawyers are taking many technology and social media programs. These technologies impact every facet of law, he said, from lawyers selecting juries to juries on break using Google to investigate the case.

“It used to be if we had a law suit, I would ask the other side to give me all the paperwork you have on it, and he’d ask the same of me and we’d move on,” said McCormick, who has practiced law for 28 years. “Now you have privacy issues: what to do with a person’s cell phone and text messages and the posts they put on Twitter and Instagram, and that area of law is developing almost every day. So there’s a need for it and lawyers are asking for it.”

Before they retain a client, more lawyers are asking what on their social network pages may come back to undercut or destroy their case. Aiello recalled a case when she was retained to represent a woman whose under-aged niece claimed she pushed her down a flight of stairs. Within a day of her fall, the girl took to social media and made accusations.

“The girl who made the accusation posted on her Facebook account: ‘I’ll show my aunt, that (expletive.) I told the police she pushed me down the stairs even though she was nowhere near me when I fell,’” Aiello recalled. “So attorneys have to be aware of and advise their clients of this, because, we’re really living in a fish bowl now.”

The state deems it essential that attorneys earn CLE credits to continue to practice law, to gain the necessary knowledge and skills to competently represent their clients and to comply with the New York State rules of professional conduct. While state rules do not mandate that attorneys have any level of technological knowledge, the New York State Bar Association declared in its recently revised guidelines that knowledge of how social media works should be a core skill for a state attorney.

“A lawyer cannot be competent absent a working knowledge of the benefits and risks associated with the use of social media,” the instructional guideline states.
Newly admitted attorneys are generally required to take at least 16 credits in each of the first two years of practice, after which they are mandated to take a minimum of 24 credits every two-year cycle. At least four credits must pertain to law and professionalism.

Omid Zareh, a chair of the Nassau County Bar Association’s ethics committee, recently presented a CLE program entitled “Avoiding Ethical Problems in the Internet Age,” which he said was well attended and sparked a lively, spirited discussion on acting ethically online.

“There’s been a tremendous amount of interest for these types of things,” said Zareh, who suggested the ubiquitous uses of smart phones are primarily driving this trend.

Among the issues raised at CLE programs that Zareh has hosted pertain to the appropriate professional use of Facebook and Twitter and representing oneself as a specialist, when there are specific guidelines about this.

“If you’re saying you’re a specialist without actually having gotten a specialty from a recognized entity, then you’re really just saying: I think I’m a specialist and I’m just going to tell you I am,” he said.

Another hot topic is third-party endorsements on LinkedIn, the professional networking site, and whether attorneys should leave or take down those that don’t pertain to what they do. The state bar’s other new or expanded guidelines posit that attorneys should take responsibility for the accuracy of third-party endorsements posted on their social networking profiles and to correct misleading or inaccurate information.

“A lawyer may not passively allow misleading endorsements as to her skills and expertise to remain on a profile that she controls, as that is tantamount to accepting the endorsement,” the report reads.

http://libn.com/2015/07/06/lawyers-are-taking-to-tech/

Joe Campolo, Managing Partner at Campolo, Middleton & McCormick, LLP talks with LI News Radio 103.9 FM host Jay Oliver about his latest Op-Ed piece published in the Long Island Business News, “Six leadership lessons I learned in the Marine Corps.”

Watch a clip of the interview here.