Marisa Anne Pagnattaro

University of Georgia | UGA · Terry College of Business

The explosion in intellectual capital coincides with a growing understanding of the importance of human capital to the firm. This book examines the pressing legal issues that arise at the intersections of intellectual property law, employment law, and global trade, such as the use of employment contracts to protect intellectual property, ownership...

Protecting ‘know-how,’ or trade secrets, is a vexing problem for companies doing business in China. Primary threats to the disclosure of proprietary information include deliberate actions of current and former employees, as well as loss of trade secrets in the context of joint ventures or other business arrangements. Because China continues to...

This article presents a contract negotiation exercise is designed to facilitate students’ learning international contracts for the sale of goods, including considering all of the issues that might arise from the factory to the playroom. In this exercise, buyers from Mattel design an 'action figure' and enter into an agreement with Shenzhen Union Ki...

In the aftermath of an array of economic failures, there is a growing movement to reform executive compensation. Concerned that executive compensation structures reward inappropriate risk taking and create a short-term perspective, the United States and the European Union are taking steps to reform the ways executives are compensated. Part I analyz...

What is a “reasonable expectation of privacy” in the context of an employee’s off-duty conduct? What information does a private employer have a right to know about an employees’s off-duty activities? When should an employer be able to use off-duty conduct as the basis for an adverse employment decision? With these questions in mind, this paper look...

This article explores the circumstances in which an affiliated company can be held liable for failing to comply with the WARN Act and proposes a test for determining liability. Part I provides an overview of the existing conflict in the courts about what standard should be used to determine if an affiliated company is an “employer” within the meani...

This essay builds on the article “’The Google Challenge’: Enforcement of Noncompete and Trade Secret Agreements for Employees Working in China,” and discusses new developments in Chinese laws for the protection of trade secrets, which are designed to addresses concerns of corporations doing business in China. Part II details the requirements of the...

This article addresses issues related to the enforcement of non-compete agreements and the protection of trade secrets for employees working in China. Part II analyzes the problem in the context of litigation in the United States between Microsoft Corporation (Microsoft), its former employee, Dr. Kai-Fu Lee, and Google, Inc. (Google). Concerned tha...

This article presents a business case developed to encourage business students to consider the legal and ethical ramifications of Pfizer’s handling of three drugs in the international context. Part I of this article consists of a case study involving actual issues confronting Pfizer. The case is structured around key events regarding the use of thr...

Reports about defective and dangerous food and drugs manufactured in China are a regular occurrence. The growing complexity these supply chains present legal liability and risks to the suppliers, manufacturers, retailers and, ultimately, to consumers. Part I of this paper describes two examples, milk and heparin, illustrating the problems with food...

Cambridge Core - Law: General Interest - International Sales Law - by Larry A. DiMatteo

This article details China’s the growing body of labor and employment laws. Specifically, this research analyzes major labor and employment law developments in China, including the newly adopted Labor Contract Law, employment discrimination sexual harassment, wages, workplace health and safety, worker privacy, and dispute resolution. The ramificati...

For several decades now, publicly-held corporations have been adopting codes of conduct or corporate codes of ethics to further both federal law, as well as corporate goals and mandates. The implementation of such codes, however, is creating a legal conundrum for those firms seeking to operate transnationally and, in particular, in the European Uni...

This book is the product of extended research by five scholars working in the area of private international law. It provides a comprehensive review and analysis of the jurisprudence surrounding the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). As of 1st January 2004, 62 countries have adopted the CISG as their c...

This article reviews the U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG), a body of uniform rules for international sales of goods but which also accounts for different social economic and legal systems among the countries, all in order to promote the development of international trade. The authors survey the many CISG provi...

Both federal and state laws provide for reemployment rights for returning military and National Guard members (collectively “service members”). The most comprehensive protection is afforded by federal law under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA). This article discusses the major provisions of USERRA and v...

The female is continually obliged to seek survival or advancement through the approval of males as those who hold power. You think me "uncontrolled"—I have no Tribunal. Emily Dickinson: Is she "a helpless agoraphobic, trapped in a room in her father's house" (Gilbert and Gtibar 583), a lesbian in love with her sister-in-law (Martha Nell Smith 25),...

Federal anti-discrimination statutes are designed to address workplace harassment that involves discriminatory treatment of employees. What is less recognized, however, is the growing body of state law in which employees are seeking redress for workplace harassment based on the common law tort of intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED)....

As evidenced by widely adopted international agreements, treaties and conventions, the law of nations encompasses core labor rights. This paper advocates for the use of the Alien Tort Claims Act as a way of raising international labor standards, while also acknowledging its limitations. Part I reviews the history of the ATCA and the developing juri...

The U.S.-Central American-Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is the second-largest free trade zone in Latin America for exports from the United States, which will certainly significantly affect U.S. trade with El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. Much of the vocal opposition to CAFTA was c...

This article explores the workplace ramifications of the ever-increasing access to genetic information. Section I describes the Human Genome Project, including its accompanying broad ethical, legal and social issues; Section II focuses on genetic monitoring and screening in the workplace; Section III reviews the current existing but limited federal...

This article explores the legal ramifications of the use of radio frequency identification chips (“RFID”) by employers. RFID is an automated data-capture technology that can be used to identify, track and store information contained on a tiny computer chip, which uses electromagnetic energy in the form of radio waves to communicate information. The...

This article details China's the growing body of labor and employment laws. Specifically, this research analyzes major labor and employment law developments in China, including the newly adopted Labor Contract Law, employment discrimination sexual harassment, wages, workplace health and safety, worker privacy, and dispute resolution. The ramificati...

Organized and sponsored by the Dean Rusk Center for International Law and Policy and the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business, along with the Business Law Society and Graduate Business Association, The Future of International Trade was a daylong conference exploring issues related to the business aspects of international trade, future...

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick claims that the “administration’s trade policy promotes economic growth at home and abroad, while improving labor...conditions overseas.” Defending recent trade agreements he asserts that to “continue producing results that improve lives home and abroad, we need to extend not a clenched fist but a helping h...

Typescript. Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Georgia, 1998. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 235-266). Photocopy. UMI number: 9920075.

Reports about defective and dangerous food and drugs manufactured in China are a regular occurrence. The growing complexity these supply chains present legal liability and risks to the suppliers, manufacturers, retailers and, ultimately, to consumers. Part I of this paper describes two examples, milk and heparin, illustrating the problems with food...