Author: TSA Press

A long-time Zimbabwean coffee grower, Muganyura almost gave up on the crop when prices slumped to as low as U.S. 20 cents a pound at the turn of the millennium, and foreign buyers took flight after land seizures drove out more than 120 white commercial coffee farmers under the banner of post-colonial reform.

But with companies like Nestle’s Nespresso arm now willing to pay a premium for Zimbabwe’s beans, small-scale farmers like Muganyura are returning to a sector that was all-but destroyed under former President Robert Mugabe.

Coffee output in Zimbabwe was 430 tonnes in 2018, a 10% increase over the previous year. This year production is set at 500 tonnes, according to industry officials.

Zimbabwe was never among the world’s top producers: output peaked at around 15,000 tonnes in the late 1990s. But its Arabica coffee is prized for its zesty and fruity tones, and the sector once provided a livelihood for more than 20,000 poor farmers.

Nespresso, which started buying Zimbabwean coffee last year at a 30%-40% premium above international prices and pays farmers in U.S. dollars, is helping to drive the modest revival.

It bought 200 tonnes from 450 small Zimbabwean farmers and two large estates in 2018 and wants to attract more growers, said Daniel Weston, who heads Nespresso’s corporate affairs division.

Its limited edition “Tamuka muZimbabwe” (“We Have Awakened in Zimbabwe”) coffee, launched in 16 countries in May, sold out in three weeks, he said.

“What we are hoping to achieve over time is to increase the volume of coffee coming initially from the smallholder farmers we are working with and also to encourage other smallholder farmers to join the program,” Weston told Reuters.

‘HUGE APPETITE’

Nespresso has teamed up with international non-profit Technoserve to offer training to small farmers in the growing techniques needed to achieve the high quality it demands.

“The market has a huge appetite for Zimbabwean coffee,” said Midway Bhunu, Technoserve’s farmer trainer. “The world was about to lose one of the world’s best coffees.”

Muganyura, a father of eight, received the training in 2017 and managed to more than triple output from his 2-hectare plot to 700 kg last year. This year, he expects to harvest 1.5 tonnes, a personal best that will earn him more than $10,000.

“This is only introductory to a stage where we will get real money,” Muganyura told Reuters during a visit to his plot in the eastern Honde Valley, about 360 km from the capital, Harare.

The dollar payments have enabled Muganyura to hire labor, install solar power at his homestead, buy farming inputs, pay school fees for some of his grand-children and medicine for his diabetic wife – which he struggled to do in the past.

This year, he aims to buy a car, a lifelong dream.

Because of his success, he said, neighbors are inquiring about growing coffee. He plans to add another half a hectare of coffee trees.

Zimbabwe outlawed the use of dollars and other foreign currencies last month, ending a decade of dollarization.

Nespresso said it was still assessing what that would mean for its dollar payments to farmers.

The Honde Valley is one of four districts that together had about 2,000 small coffee farmers at the turn of the millennium. But most quit and started growing bananas.

Just two white-owned commercial coffee farms remain in Zimbabwe. Robert Boswell, 50, owns one of them. His family lost two other farms to land seizures in 2000 and cut the area under coffee production by 46%.

Boswell said he felt more confident after President Emmerson Mnangagwa replaced Mugabe in 2017, promising to restore property rights and revive the ravaged economy.

Boswell, who had been selling coffee to roasters in Germany and Canada, started delivering to Nespresso in 2018. This year he will expand the area under coffee by 25% to 60 hectares, he said during a tour of his Crake Valley estate in the scenic Vumba hills, 140 km south of the Honde Valley.

Commercial growers have an average yield of more than 2 tonnes per hectare.

Tanganda Tea Company, owned by diversified group Meikles Limited, is Zimbabwe’s biggest coffee grower but its 134 hectares are a far cry from the more than 1,000 hectares it used to grow two decades ago.

Tanganda had largely abandoned coffee due to poor prices and started to grow avocados and macadamia nuts. But it too started selling to Nespresso in 2018 and plans to add another 40 hectares of coffee this year, according to a statement on its website.

Post published in: Agriculture

Why Law Firms Are Moving to the Cloud

Why Law Firms Are Moving to the Cloud

Clio

Joe and Elie are off for the Independence Day holiday but wanted to leave you with something to listen to while you enjoy your holiday. Last year, we spoke with Vanderbilt Law School’s Associate Director of Career Services Nick Alexiou to discuss the on-campus interviewing process. A good guide for those of you preparing for the interview of your lives.

Which Biglaw firm was ranked #1 in Vault’s 2020 practice area rankings in the area of media, entertainment, and sports?

Hint: The firm represents almost every major sports league in the country. Some would say that its name is synonymous with “sports law.”

See the answer on the next page.

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Last week, we talked a little about the importance of information governance and how critical it is to get stakeholders to the table. We asked why fully 40 percent of companies do not have a formal information governance policy and why half of organizations do not have a dedicated individual assigned to lead information governance.

This week, we look at that leadership function, the executive support that is needed to get an information governance initiative off the ground, and some specifics for implementing an IG program.

Data managers are repeatedly asking questions like who is creating data, where is it stored, and how are people accessing it? Additionally, they want to know who owns or controls the data, if it is needed and for how long, and how do they maintain and secure the data.

Talk to any CIO or IT director and they will tell you that their challenges lie in one or more of these questions.

But with everything else they have on their plates, it should surprise no one that many IT leaders have neither the money nor the time to formally implement an information governance program. And this says nothing about all the other potential obstacles they face.

An information governance program sounds like a big deal, after all. Some might argue that it’s okay to back-burner such plans in favor of more pressing needs. Done right, however, and IG plan can solve many of the issues facing IT leaders today.

First, get the right stakeholders involved. It starts, frankly, with legal operations. As the principle risk managers for the organization, lawyers and legal ops professionals should be leaning in heavily to press executive leadership for funding and resources. But that’s just the beginning.

Every business unit leader needs to be involved in the IG conversation. Because one of the first questions (i.e., who is creating data?) reaches across the enterprise, each leader must be engaged. Data silos that previously existed need to be broken down and centralized.

And there needs to be a formally appointed leader who is empowered to direct and manage the IG program moving forward. Some organizations have CIGO or CISO roles, others have less attractive titles. It really does not matter what the role is called, just that it exists.

The IG leader not only needs authority, they also need to be a strategic thinker. Realistic IG solutions involve coordinating a lot of moving parts, including people, processes, and software tools. The goal is to make the process as seamless as possible; it’s difficult to do in a bureaucratic and siloed setting.

Second, it is necessary to take an organization-wide inventory. From every business unit, it is necessary to answer each of the initial questions data managers repeatedly ask. What tools are they using? Where is data stored? How are they using the data?

Next, consider using data classification tools. Data classification is a relatively new term to some, but large organizations have been classifying data for many years. In order to properly manage data, it is essential to understand precisely what data is under management.

Fourth, determine the organization’s legal obligations to retain information. This is typically a broad undertaking, but a retention schedule should apply to all information under management. And, perhaps most critically, if data is not needed it should be subject to disposition.

Every organization is different, but once the stakeholders are engaged, and scope of the data and the need to retain it are understood, the next step is to begin focusing one at time on the other substantive issues, like security (device and user access, data loss protection, intrusion prevention), regulatory and compliance (privacy, corporate governance, GDPR and reporting), and legal requirements (legal holds, data preservation and collection, eDiscovery).

Information is the soft tissue that holds an organization together. Many executives don’t see it that way. Things like eDiscovery have almost invariably been called a nuisance by top management. That is, until a litigation event hits or there’s a failure to preserve data. The point is that through a strategically thought-out process, that is implemented functionally and with all the proper stakeholders involved, organizations can easily reap the benefits of information governance and everything that comes with it.

Mike Quartararo

Mike Quartararo is the managing director of eDPM Advisory Services, a consulting firm providing e-discovery, project management and legal technology advisory and training services to the legal industry. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery. Mike has many years of experience delivering e-discovery, project management, and legal technology solutions to law firms and Fortune 500 corporations across the globe and is widely considered an expert on project management, e-discovery and legal matter management. You can reach him via email at mquartararo@edpmadvisory.com. Follow him on Twitter @edpmadvisory.

On the streets of Harare, locals say they’re worried about a decision to make Zimbabwe’s interim currency its sole legal tender.

The government has introduced an interim currency, the RTGS dollar, in a bid to end a decade of dollarization. On June 24 it renamed the new currency the Zimbabwe dollar and declared it Zimbabwe’s sole legal tender.

For many Zimbabweans, the name Zimbabwe dollar brings unpleasant memories of 2008, when the local currency was wrecked by hyperinflation of 500 billion percent, which wiped out pensions and savings and forced authorities to adopt the U.S. dollar and other foreign currencies the following year.

Godfrey Mupanga, a member of the group Zimbabwe Lawyers For Human Rights, petitioned the court to reverse the decision to ban other currencies.

In his court application seen by Reuters, Mupanga said the decision by the national treasury and central bank was “grossly unreasonable” and should be declared unconstitutional.

The court did not immediately set a date for a hearing.

In banning foreign currencies, Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube used regulations under emergency presidential powers, which lapse in six months unless parliament passes a substantive law.

Ncube told a parliamentary committee on Monday that dollarisation was throttling an economy grappling with shortages of U.S. dollars, fuel and bread, and 15-hour daily power cuts.

Many businesses had resorted to selling goods in U.S. dollars to protect them against near triple-digit inflation as the RTGS dollar was fast losing value before the government’s surprise intervention.

The Batoka project involves construction of a dam, powerhouses, roads, transmission infrastructure and houses in both Zambia and Zimbabwe, the Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) said in a statement.

Feasibility studies are almost complete and a developer for the project is expected to be engaged by the end of this year, it said.

“Once engaged, the developer is expected to commence works in the last quarter of 2020,” the statement said.

In February, ZRA short-listed U.S, European and Chinese companies to build the Batoka Gorge hydro power plant, Zambia’s ministry of finance said in statement.

Those short-listed are a consortium of General Electric and Power Construction Corporation of China, Salini Impregilo of Italy and a joint venture of Chinese firms Three Gorges Corporation, China International and Water Electric Corporation and China Gezhouba Group Company Ltd.

The project will use a Build-Operate-Transfer financing model and place no fiscal strain on either government as no sovereign guarantees will be required.

Post published in: Business

When it comes to diversity and inclusion in the legal profession, there’s good news and bad news. The bad news is that there’s still so much work to be done. The good news is that the profession is now focused on that work — and leaders of the bar are willing to take it on.

Last Wednesday, I had the pleasure of attending the Diversity and Inclusion Celebration Dinner of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, where the organization bestowed its Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award upon two such leaders: Juan Arteaga, a partner at Crowell & Moring, and Lisa Linsky, a partner at McDermott Will & Emery (and, full disclosure, a longtime friend of mine). It was a beautiful and inspiring event — and it also served as a fundraiser for the City Bar Fund, the nonprofit arm of the organization that supports the legal profession in advancing social justice (including, but not limited to, diversity efforts).

After welcoming remarks by Deborah Martin Owens, Executive Director of Diversity and Inclusion at the City Bar, and Roger Juan Maldonado, President of the City Bar, the organization paid tribute to Justice Rosalyn Richter of the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court, First Department. Two members of the Committee to Enhance Diversity in the Profession, Kathy Hirata Chin of Crowell & Moring and Matthew Morningstar of Morgan Stanley, praised Justice Richter, outgoing co-chair of the Committee, for her tireless efforts to advance diversity in the profession. They noted that the past year has been a difficult one for Justice Richter — in September, she lost her wife, LGBTQ activist Janet Weinberg — but Justice Richter continued to work hard for the causes she cares about, including LGBTQ rights, diversifying the judiciary, and educating young people about law and the legal system.

Amid a standing ovation, Justice Richter took the stage. When she reached the podium, she joked about how long it took to make it up there in her walker — and thanked the City Bar for having a ramp leading up to the stage, without her even having to ask for it.

“I have the privilege of being an appellate judge, and so I now have the privilege of asking for things I was too scared to ask for as a young lawyer,” Justice Richter said. “We as a legal community need to stop having inaccessible events.”

Left to right: Benson Cohen of Sidley Austin, Co-Chair of the Diversity & Inclusion Champion Award Committee; Matthew Morningstar of Morgan Stanley, Incoming Co-Chair of the Enhance Diversity in the Profession Committee; Lisa Linsky of McDermott Will & Emery, 2019 Diversity Champion Award Winner; Kathy Chin of Crowell & Moring, Co-Chair of the Enhance Diversity in the Profession Committee; Juan Arteaga of Crowell & Moring, 2019 Diversity Champion Award Winner; Roger Juan Maldonado of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, President of the City Bar; Bret Parker, Executive Director of the City Bar; and Justice Rosalyn Richter of the First Department, Outgoing Co-Chair of the Enhance Diversity in the Profession Committee. (Photo credit: Alycia Kravitz)

Following presentations about the City Bar’s various pipeline programs devoted to advancing diversity, the 2019 Diversity and Inclusion Champion Award was presented to — and enthusiastically accepted by — Juan Arteaga and Lisa Linsky. Both delivered heartfelt and eloquent remarks focused on different aspects of diversity and inclusion.

Arteaga focused on immigration. He has done extensive pro bono work in the field, representing immigrants, including battered women and their children, in immigration and deportation proceedings. He told the story of one such case.

In 2017, he was asked to help a family of undocumented immigrants from Colombia who are now living in the United States. The oldest son applied for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, while the family pursued asylum claims.

The son received notification that he needed to be fingerprinted as part of the DACA application process — and he was terrified, afraid that the fingerprinting could result in him being taken into custody and deported. After much discussion and deliberation with his family, the son decided to go in for the fingerprinting. Arteaga accompanied him on that day.

On the day of the appointment, the son hugged his father in a parking lot a few blocks away from the fingerprinting site (because his father was not joining his son for that appointment, and understandably so). The son was shaking with fear as he hugged his father and told him how much he loved him. Neither father nor son was certain that the son wouldn’t be taken into custody for eventual deportation when he went in for the fingerprinting.

In the end, the son, accompanied by Juan Arteaga, had his fingerprints taken without incident. But the more Arteaga reflected on the episode, the more sad and angry he became. Immigrants shouldn’t have to live in such fear — and they shouldn’t have to endure the deplorable conditions and treatment at the border that have dominated the headlines as of late.

When it comes to immigration, Arteaga said, “We need to advocate for the values and principles that brought us here this evening. Our resolution of the immigration debate will determine the kind of nation we become.”

Lisa Linsky of McDermott Will & Emery, 2019 Diversity Champion Award Winner. (Photo credit: Alycia Kravitz)

In her acceptance speech, Lisa Linsky focused on LGBTQ rights — appropriately enough, given that the dinner took place just a few days before the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots and the WorldPride celebration in New York. She talked about her work at McDermott as the first partner-in-charge of Firmwide Diversity and partner-in-charge of LGBT Diversity and Inclusion — which she viewed as of a piece with the work she did in the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office, as a prosecutor focused on sex crimes and child abuse. The common thread: advocating for people whose voices were not being heard.

Linsky did point out the progress made on LGBTQ equality in recent years. She noted that the dinner was taking place on a momentous date: June 26, the anniversary of both United States v. Windsor (2013), in which the Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), in which the Court ruled in favor of nationwide marriage equality.

But she also urged everyone not to become complacent. Just as electing an African-American president didn’t mark the end of racism, the advent of marriage equality didn’t mark the end of discrimination against the LGBTQ community. Instead, Linsky said, “We must continuing naming — and resisting — the ways in which people continue to be excluded and oppressed.”

The evening concluded with remarks from Letitia “Tish” James, the 67th Attorney General of the State of New York, as well as the first African-American and first woman to be elected to the position. She began by invoking the now-infamous AP photograph of two migrants, a father and his young daughter, who drowned in the Rio Grande while trying to enter the United States.

“Caging individuals and separating families is not an immigration policy,” she said. “It is man’s inhumanity to man.”

James then turned to the Census case, Department of Commerce v. New York — which her office litigated, and which the Supreme Court was going to rule on the next day.

“Let’s hope the justices get it right,” she said. “Let’s hope they recognize the proposition that in this country, everyone should be counted.”

Diversity and Inclusion Celebration Dinner [New York City Bar Association]

David Lat, the founding editor of Above the Law, is a writer, speaker, and legal recruiter at Lateral Link, where he is a managing director in the New York office. David’s book, Supreme Ambitions: A Novel (2014), was described by the New York Times as “the most buzzed-about novel of the year” among legal elites. David previously worked as a federal prosecutor, a litigation associate at Wachtell Lipton, and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@laterallink.com.