Patterson Belknap Publishes Guide on Cybersecurity Governance

Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP today announced the publication of its guide on cybersecurity governance. This new publication, Cybersecurity Governance: A Guide for Corporate Officers, Directors and General Counsel, is part of Bloomberg Law’s Privacy & Data Security Practice Portfolio Series. An excerpt of the guide is available to download: here.

Patterson Belknap’s treatise is written as a practical guide for corporate leaders, board members, and others within an organization tasked with the governance of privacy and data security risks. With a continually changing legal and regulatory data security landscape, growing reliance on data in all aspects of business and society, and new and more sophisticated threats emerging each day, effective cyber-governance is now mission-critical.

Patterson Belknap’s practice guide takes a “deep dive” into the complexities and nuances of key cybersecurity oversight issues, including the responsibility and liability of directors, what a board of directors needs to know, a board’s role in response to a data security incident, the key legal concepts that every corporate leader should understand, applicable laws and regulations, public company disclosure requirements, the importance of privilege, cybersecurity insurance, and cyber governance for tax-exempt organizations. The guide is organized into chapters drafted by Patterson Belknap lawyers who concentrate their practices on data privacy, governance, and litigation. While many sections in the treatise refer to public companies, the same general principles apply to leadership teams in private and nonprofit organizations.

“We have witnessed massive data breaches in virtually every sector of the American economy,” said Craig A. Newman, a partner at Patterson Belknap and chair of the Firm’s Privacy & Data Security group. “The legal and regulatory landscape, too, is changing almost constantly. Government regulators and legislators have created sweeping, and at times daunting, new legal and regulatory environments. Private litigants have also taken aim at organizations with class action and shareholder derivative lawsuits in cases of large-scale data breaches. At the center of all of this is corporate leadership – members of a company’s executive leadership team and its board of directors – responsible for the management and oversight of an organization’s cybersecurity risk.”

Newman spearheaded the publication of the guide with Patterson Belknap counsel, Peter A. Nelson, who has significant experience in privacy and data security.

Newman also serves as the Editor-In-Chief for the Firm’s Data Security Law Blog (www.datasecuritylaw.com), which provides the latest news, analysis, and thought leadership in the critical area of privacy and cybersecurity law.

“The cyber threat has transformed the business landscape for corporate America, and corporate officers and directors are now charged with overseeing their organizations’ management of this emerging and multi-dimensional business risk,” said Starbucks Corporation Chairman, Myron E. Ullman III, who authored a foreword to the publication. “Patterson Belknap has distilled the complexities of cybersecurity oversight into a must read for corporate leaders, board members, and chief legal officers.”

The practice guide, authored by Patterson Belknap and published by Bloomberg Law, is available online to Bloomberg subscribers here.

“This new Bloomberg Law treatise is an invaluable resource for executive leadership teams and boards of directors,” said Joe Breda, President, Bloomberg Law. “In the face of a continually changing legal and regulatory data security landscape — and with mounting threats emerging that could imperil businesses — this portfolio provides business leaders a wealth of valuable intelligence on a range of topics from key legal concepts and applicable laws and regulations to the role of the board and what it needs to know. We’re very grateful for the opportunity to work with esteemed legal professionals such as Craig Newman and the team at Patterson Belknap to develop and deliver this one-of-a-kind resource.”

Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP is a New York City based law firm with more than 200 lawyers. The Firm is included on The American Lawyer’s 2018 “A-List” of the 20 leading law firms in the United States. Patterson Belknap delivers a full range of litigation and commercial law services. For more information, please visit www.pbwt.com.

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