April 2022 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

D&O insurance to counter ESG litigation – new issues for insurers and policyholders
by Gunnar Larson 23 Apr '22

23 Apr '22

*Obtaining insurance coverage in this climate of activist shareholders* The evolving ESG landscape requires companies to plan for claims that did not exist just a few years ago. Shareholders are actively requiring <https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2021/05/29/shareholder-activism-and-esg-wha…> boards to be more transparent and responsive to ESG issues, and regulators are enforcing new disclosure requirements <https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/esg-regulatory-landscape-create…>. Sometimes disclosure alone is not enough: businesses are scrutinized by shareholders and regulatory entities for underestimating their environmental impact, or over promising their efforts to minimize climate change contributions, known as greenwashing. Even companies doing their best in ESG governance face the risk of shareholder and regulatory litigation. These risks can be addressed by directors and officers insurance coverage, which generally protects companies, their directors, managers and employees against claims for a “wrongful act.” Unless excluded as a specific type of claim, companies routinely look to their D&O policies to address shareholder claims and defray the costs of regulatory investigations. https://www.policyholderperspective.com/2022/03/articles/insurance-general/…

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Mitigating Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) Risks Through D&O Insurance
by Gunnar Larson 23 Apr '22

23 Apr '22

In a recent post on the Nickel Report (“Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance: What are the Risks, Really?” <https://www.huntonnickelreportblog.com/2021/03/environmental-social-and-cor…>), our colleagues provide a thoughtful discussion of various risks, trending issues, and emerging concerns arising from environmental, social, and corporate governance (“ESG”). One key takeaway is that ESG-related activity at the federal government is just getting started and that agencies have already begun devoting substantial resources to ESG issues, like the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s recently-announced Climate and ESG task force <https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2021-42> to “develop initiatives to proactively identify ESG-related misconduct.” In addition to traditional legal liability like lawsuits or enforcement actions, ESG-related risks include risks to corporate reputation, risks associated with project financing, risks associated with lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion, risks based on lobbying, and from lack of corporate ESG coordination. Given those emerging risks, this post looks at insurance—particularly directors and officers liability insurance—as a tool to mitigate at least some potential exposures a company and its executives may face if an ESG-related issue arises. The SEC’s Climate and ESG task force is one example of increased exposure implicating D&O insurance. The purpose of the task force is to identify ESG-related misconduct by market participants. Initially, the task force will focus on identifying material gaps or misstatements in issuers’ disclosure of climate risks under existing rules, but it will also examine investment advisers’ and funds’ “ESG strategies” and related disclosure and compliance issues. While the task force is in its early days, we foresee companies and executives who come under scrutiny to seek protection under their D&O liability insurance policies for the substantial costs in cooperating with regulators during informal and formal investigations, responding to subpoenas, and defending against and resolving enforcement actions. ESG issues are also giving rise to increased litigation, from shareholder lawsuits accusing boards of failing to live up to their diversity commitment disclosures to lawsuits focusing on sourcing and supply chain risks implicating human rights and child labor issues. Other ESG-related flash points will continue to emerge as regulators focus on particular areas of concern and companies adjust corporate governance practices and policies in response. Companies should assess what these developments mean for their businesses and how they can protect themselves from potential ESG-related investigations, enforcement actions, and litigation. Unfortunately, even companies that are proactive at addressing their ESG exposure may be unable to avoid regulator or shareholder scrutiny. Accordingly, as part of their ESG strategies, companies should understand what risks are covered under their D&O insurance policies and, if needed, modify existing coverage or procure new coverage tailored to particular ESG exposures. The list of potential D&O coverage disputes over ESG issues is long, but the good news for policyholders is that D&O policies generally provide some protection against enforcement actions or government investigations. While private companies typically will enjoy broader protection for defense and indemnity in ESG-related lawsuits, public companies should ensure they are adequately protected for securities claims focused on alleged misrepresentations or misstatements in ESG-related disclosures. All policyholders, however, should understand the current limits (and sublimits), exclusions, and other limitations placed on these coverages to understand whether they are appropriately covered for emerging ESG risks. As the Biden Administration continues to develop its ESG agenda and regulators provide further direction on enforcement priorities, companies should have more guidance to tailor their ESG risk mitigation strategies. In the meantime, companies should be proactive about addressing any potential exposure internally and creating plans for dealing with scrutiny from the task force, including whether they can seek protection under their D&O policies. https://www.natlawreview.com/article/mitigating-environmental-social-and-co…

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Vineyard Wind raises $2.3B to finance first major US offshore wind farm
by Gunnar Larson 23 Apr '22

23 Apr '22

Developers of the 800-MW Vineyard Offshore Wind Project said Sept. 15 that they closed on $2.3 billion in senior debt from nine banks, allowing for construction to begin on the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm approved in the United States. U.S. institutions Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. put up funds, as well as Banco Santander SA subsidiary Santander Bank NA and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, both of Spain. Scottish bank NatWest Group PLC got in on the deal; it is majority owned by the Economics and Finance Ministry of the United Kingdom, HM Treasury. Three French banks — Crédit Agricole Group subsidiary Crédit Agricole SA, Groupe BPCE subsidiary Natixis SA and BNP Paribas SA — are also lenders. https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-he… ------ JPMorgan Chase served as Joint Lead Arranger for more than $2 billion in financing for the 800 megawatt Vineyard Wind project, the first offshore wind farm in the United States capable of generating power at utility scale and the country’s largest source of offshore wind power. The project is expected to supply enough energy to serve the needs of 400,000 Massachusetts households and businesses and avoid 1.68 million metric tons of carbon emissions annually. https://www.jpmorganchase.com/ir/news/2022/jpmc-releases-2021-esg-report

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Trump Organization ordered to pay $290,000 after losing battle against Scottish wind farm
by Gunnar Larson 23 Apr '22

23 Apr '22

The Trump Organization has agreed to pay $290,000 to the Scottish government, ending a multiyear legal battle in which Donald Trump tried and failed to block an offshore wind farm from being built in view of one of his Scottish golf courses. The agreement to pay the government’s legal fees ends the company’s bitter public dispute with the Scottish government. Over the years, Trump repeatedly criticized former Scottish first minister Alex Salmond about the wind farm and warned that it would cause “almost total destruction” of the country’s tourism industry. A Scottish government spokesman said that the settlement — first reported by the Scotsman newspaper — removed the need for an independent auditor to determine expenses to be paid by the Trump Organization. “Expenses amounting to [$290,000] will now be paid to Scottish Ministers by the Petitioners,” the spokesman said in a statement. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-organization-ordered-to-pay-2…

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These whales are on the brink. Now comes climate change — and wind power.
by Gunnar Larson 23 Apr '22

23 Apr '22

With only about 300 left <https://www.andersoncabotcenterforoceanlife.org/blog/right-whale-population…>, the North Atlantic right whale ranks as one of the world’s most endangered marine mammals <https://www.worldwildlife.org/species-categories/marine-animals/species/dir…>. Nearly annihilated centuries ago by whalers, the slow-swimming species is said to have earned its name because it was the “right” whale to hunt. Old-fashioned harpoons have yielded to other threats. Humans are still killing right whales at startlingly high numbers <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/two-percent-of-the-worlds…> — but by accident. Waters free from whalers now brim with ships that strike them, and ropes that entangle them. But Amy DiSibio, a retired stock trader who has vacationed in Nantucket for three decades, said many are turning a blind eye to noise and other ecological impacts of the energy project simply because it is branded green. “Wind farm sounds really nice,” she said. “It’s a power plant. It really is.” Her group, Nantucket Residents Against Turbines, accuses <https://dockets.justia.com/docket/massachusetts/madce/1:2021cv11390/237553> the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which approved <https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/05/11/interior-department-approv…> the turbines, of failing to protect the right whale in its lawsuit. The effort has attracted support from many conservatives. David Stevenson, a former member of Donald Trump’s presidential transition team, has helped Nantucket Residents Against Turbines with publicity. And the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a right-wing think tank based in Austin, is representing <https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/61618082/seafreeze-shoreside-inc-v-uni…> fishing groups that oppose turbines being built where they work. “If we were talking about an oil and gas platform,” said Robert Henneke, the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s executive director and general counsel, “there’s absolutely no way that the federal government would be allowing that kind of a construction project in this area.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/04/21/right-whales-…

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[ot][spam][crazy][rambling]
by Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many 23 Apr '22

23 Apr '22

sqrt(pi) = ? simplify challenge. addition is generic concept number system . : :. :: :': :': . :': : :': :. :': :: :': :': -- ten two fives make ten

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[ot][spam][wrong] Nerd Snipes
by Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many 23 Apr '22

23 Apr '22

Interested in disproving the halting problem and the incompleteness theorems. Idea for halting problem: an algorithmic system that can predict the behavior of everything in the universe, with sufficient advanced preparation time, can always predict when a process will halt, because it will always be able to outpredict a pathologic example via its own pathological counterbehavior and advance preparation. Idea for subproof of universe predictability: The universe is made of statistical processes based on measurable metrics. Probability trees are predictable. I'm more interested in the logic challenges than formal proof, because I don't have the math. But maybe the nerd sniping can learn me some math. I got to godel's incompleteness theorems from xkcd. I have a lot of math to learn.

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[spam][joke] How a Lightbulb is Installed
by Undiscussed Horrific Abuse, One Victim of Many 23 Apr '22

23 Apr '22

A large warehouse with a socket in the ceiling. A lightbulb is about 10 feet from the ground, held by a large screw-like contraption. Large poles extend from the light-bulb holder. Hundreds of burly men push on the poles, slowly turning. Elephants, mules, tractors, are affixed to these poles, pulling and pulling on the workings of slowly lifting the light bulb toward the ceiling. A bit off, scientists and engineers are studying lightbulb installation. Dust build-up. Alignment factors. Material stresses. Datacenters crunch numbers, burning killowatts of electricity and turning the flow of a nearby river to steam for cooling. Printers constantly print reams of numbers and charts, and flunkies review them in depth, traveling to and fro between the scientists and the laborers to adjust details around the process of raising the lightbulb toward the ceiling. Often everybody is asked to stop. "Ohmygod." "We did it again!" "Reverse 1 foot and 3.17 inches." "Everybody about face!" "Those are my toes!" "Get your derrick away from my giraffe!" "On 3 now!" "One ...!" "Two .." And the light bulb shakes. Under rare conditions, it is possible to change a lightbulb.

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Re: Web scraping is legal, US appeals court reaffirms
by punk 23 Apr '22

23 Apr '22

On Fri, 22 Apr 2022 22:34:01 +0000 enlight <enlight(a)riseup.net> wrote: > what?, are you a pussy? don't cry here. > > Let me remind you, in the world there is not only NSA, gone are those > days US used to be world superpower, now there are multiples like > People’s Republic of China. The US still has control of the vast majority of arpanet infrastructure, hardware manufacturing-backdooring, 'software engineering' etc etc etc. As a matter of fact, at first sight it's pretty obvious that the power of the jew-US mafia keeps increasing by the day. The chinese government may have their own surveillance state, but it doesn't operate worlwide, UNLIKE the US mafia. jewnazi companies like joogle, fukerbook, microshit, ubershit, shitflare, shitbase, crapple, starshit, etc, etc, etc, they are all INCREASING their power and they are fucking the whole world. Now, it might be the case that the jewnazi US empire is reaching its peak and will fall but that's speculation at best. > there are 195 countries in the world, and public data is scraped by > everyone today including GCHQ, NSA, MSS, Stasi, AIVD, FSB, AW, Mossad, > etc See above. And one other thing. You mostly missed the point, though admitedly I wasn't fully clear as to what my point was. > The one who thinks otherwise is a fool, like you. your outcry here wont > do anything my son, but pollute my inbox. > If you continue being a fool like before, i, hereby, warn you that your > mailing list subscription will be cancelled. OK, so here's my point : "Good news for archivists, academics, researchers and journalists: Scraping publicly accessible data is legal" That's good news for scumbags 'working' for the surveillance 'industry', it's not good news for the victims of surveillance. Something like linkedin and all the rest of 'private' spies shouldn't even exist, and so the 'legality' of the data they wouldn't be collecting would be moot. > > regards, > Ministry of State Security > > ------ Original Message ------ > From: "punk" <punks(a)tfwno.gf> > To: cypherpunks(a)lists.cpunks.org > Sent: 21/04/2022 22:27:08 > Subject: Re: Web scraping is legal, US appeals court reaffirms > > >On Thu, 21 Apr 2022 15:26:07 +0000 (UTC) > >jim bell <jdb10987(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > >> https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/18/web-scraping-legal-court/ > > > >> "Good news for archivists, academics, researchers and journalists: Scraping publicly accessible data is legal, according to a U.S. appeals court ruling. > > > > > > 'scraping of public data' means of course total govcorp NSA surveillance. You have to be a complete piece of fascist NSA shit like jim bell to spam the propaganda that bell just spammed. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >

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Elon Musk's SpaceX Fast Response To A Russian
by jim bell 22 Apr '22

22 Apr '22

https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-pentagon-russian-jamming-at… SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Starlink, the satellite-based internet provider, is a division of SpaceX. REUTERS/Mike Blake - Elon Musk's SpaceX Starlink rapidly fought off a Russian jamming attack in Ukraine, a Pentagon official said. - The official said it would have taken the US military longer to counter the attack. - Starlink is helping Ukrainians stay online during Russia's invasion.

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