Posts on ‘December 17th, 2008’

The Justice Department on Tuesday turned over more than 50,000 pages of records relating to the prosecution of Nazi criminals to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said the records amounted to the largest body of English-language primary source materials documenting Nazi prosecutions, outside of the immediate postwar Allied cases in Europe. The records, many of which had not been public before Tuesday, include transcripts of more than 40 trials and hearings.

Gibraltar resident Anurag Dikshit, one of the world’s richest people, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of violating the U.S. Federal Wire Act and agreed to forfeit $300 million as part of a cooperation deal. The founder of PartyGaming, a site aimed at the U.S. market, entered the plea in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to charges that he transmitted interstate and foreign wagering information. Dikshit could face up to two years in prison. Forbes magazine said he is worth about $1.6 billion.

N.Y. Gov. David A. Paterson praised the state judiciary for making an austere spending request even while the courts confront an influx of foreclosure, personal debt and other cases related to the “greatest economic and fiscal challenge of our lifetime.” However, Paterson did not include a raise for judges, whose salaries have not increased since January 1999, in the spending plan he submitted Tuesday to the Legislature.

At a short but crackling federal court hearing Tuesday, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher beat back a last-minute effort to stop NBC from airing its “Momma’s Boys” reality show debut. The creator of the popular Turkish reality show “Perfect Bride” claimed that NBC capitalized on the success of the trademarked “Perfect Bride” phrase by using it in marketing materials, and that airing “Momma’s Boys” would endanger the plaintiffs’ ongoing negotiations with an unnamed NBC competitor. The judge denied the injunction.

It’s been almost 10 years since the Columbine High School shootings, and still no one outside the legal teams at odds in a pair of long-settled civil suits has seen the depositions of the parents of shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. And that’s the way it’s going to stay, thanks to a 10th Circuit ruling this week that upheld a federal district court’s decision to transfer the documents to the National Archives and keep them under seal for another 20 years.

Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye and the four presiding Appellate Division justices have formally adopted a new set of attorney ethics rules that proponents say brings New York lawyers in line with their counterparts in most of the rest of the country. The Rules of Professional Conduct align ethics standards in form and numbering sequence with the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

For litigators, the ripples emanating from the collapse of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities could be gifts that keep on giving well into the new year. Schulte Roth & Zabel has already been tapped to examine Madoff’s quasi-hedge fund/alleged Ponzi scheme. Noted litigation firm Susman Godfrey has announced that it is launching a financial fraud task force to investigate claims, and Boies, Schiller & Flexner’s Stuart Singer confirmed that he’s “representing a number of individuals and groups” involved.

The total federal bankruptcy filings jumped up by 30 percent for the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, with business filings climbing by 49 percent in the same period, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The annual figures released on Monday may not bode well for the coming year, with the fourth quarter numbers showing a 34 percent rise in that quarter alone.

Personal information on barristers across England and Wales has been stolen following a break-in at the London office of the Bar Council. Contact details and other data, including bank details and information on 1,500 complaints against barristers, was taken from the Bar Council’s offices in central London. According to the Bar Council, the information stolen — which was held on a laptop and four computer hard drives — was well protected.

Declaring that “no effective management” exists at Dreier LLP in the wake of the arrest of Marc S. Dreier, the sole equity partner of the firm, a receiver late Tuesday afternoon filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the firm and related entities. The receiver’s affidavit said that the firm faces “an accelerating onslaught” of demands from creditors, clients and its attorneys. Dreier has no intention of seeking personal bankruptcy protection, according to his attorney.