Posts on ‘October 14th, 2008’

Northern Rock is not intending to bring legal action against its former directors after taking advice from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and KPMG Forensic. The nationalized U.K. lender announced Tuesday that it has concluded that there are insufficient grounds to proceed with negligence action against the ex-directors, with the bank’s auditors also off the hook. The decision follows a review of the previous board’s conduct carried out with the assistance of Freshfields and KPMG as external advisers.

Long held U.S. antagonism to the International Criminal Court could soften under a new president, but that does not mean that either Barack Obama or John McCain is ready to sign on. Both Obama and McCain generally favor the concept of a standing tribunal to deal with war crimes, but they share President Bush’s anxiety about the potential of politically motivated prosecutions of U.S. officials or soldiers. They do not share, however, what has been at times Bush’s outright hostility to the court.

As the global credit markets continue to reel, pharmaceutical company mergers have chugged right along, with multibillion-dollar deals thriving in a cash-strapped market. The latest example: On Monday, King Pharmaceuticals, Inc. — represented by Dewey & LeBoeuf — renewed its proposed $1.6 billion offer for Alpharma Inc. The bid for Bridgewater, N.J.-based Alpharma, represented by Simpson Thacher, had been on the table since Sept. 11 and was slated to expire on Friday.

Lawyers who sued FleetBoston Financial for securities fraud in 2002 have been given six months to find new class representatives, after the first two died. The suit, over losses tied to a financial crisis in Argentina, has seen the deaths of the first class representative and his son, who succeeded him in the role. On Oct. 3, a federal judge refused to appoint another family member, a convicted felon, to fill the slot. The class faces decertification unless the lawyers can prove a representative exists.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments over whether two former partners of a now-defunct law firm could avoid personal liability for defaulting on a commercial lease — while other partners were held personally liable — because the two had signed the lease on behalf of the firm. The dispute started in 2000 when Titus & McConomy decided to wind down operations and leave its lease five years before it was set to expire.

A New Jersey appeals court appears in sync with arguments that secrecy should be lifted on the money a vending company paid a girl paralyzed in a crash with a drunken football fan. A jury found Aramark Corp. liable in 2005 for $105 million in compensatory and punitive damages for serving too many beers to the driver who struck Antonia Verni’s vehicle after a game. The state high court reversed the verdict, and when the case settled before a retrial, a judge sealed the amount and all future proceedings.

It took a Federal Circuit panel just two days after oral argument to decide to affirm a $46 million judgment against an online gaming company that did not respond to a federal lawsuit. During oral argument, a lawyer for Bodog Entertainment told a skeptical court that the accused patent infringer, a defunct company based in Costa Rica, was not operating at the time of the alleged service of the summons and complaint in November 2006. With interest, the amount Bodog owes is more than $50 million.

Following the failure of IndyMac and the potential of other bank collapses, lawyers have been flooding bar associations with questions about whether they would be responsible for client trust accounts if a bank fails. According to research and interviews with several bar associations, lawyers should not worry about sanctions or disciplinary actions if a bank failure leads to the loss of client funds, provided the lawyer chooses an FDIC-insured, stable bank. However, civil liability is another matter.

A bomb threat in downtown San Francisco caused the evacuation of at least two law firms Monday. Employees from Lieff Cabraser and Gordon & Rees evacuated their offices in a 30-floor high-rise after a man entered wearing a tube-shaped device with wires attached to his hand. The man, who was quickly arrested, claimed he had been passed over for an appearance on the TV game show “The Price is Right” and asked Lieff Cabraser to “please help” him, according to a partner.

Dick Heller successfully challenged Washington, D.C.’s handgun ban and now has a gun permit, but his lawyers are still trying to get their fees for the June win. They want nearly $3.6 million in fees and costs, including a fee enhancement, but the District of Columbia filed an opposition brief calling the enhancement unwarranted, and proposing a figure of about $808,000. An attorney for Heller filed a reply last week that blasted the D.C. government for attempting to diminish the work of the Heller team.