Posts on ‘March 5th, 2009’

A defunct San Francisco purveyor of invisible braces didn’t hoodwink investors about its chances in a bet-the-company patent case, a federal judge ruled Friday. Even though patent cases can make or — as in this case — break a company, there are relatively few securities fraud cases filed because of negative trial outcomes. Securities litigators say that’s because most everything about litigation is already out in the public, making it difficult to prove that the company is intentionally misleading investors.

Nine years ago, a widow sued University of California Regents after learning that her husband’s body, which had been donated for research, couldn’t be located. Wednesday, in California high court arguments on her right to sue, the Regents’ attorney, Louis Marlin, was asked if the school’s position is, “‘you give us the body and we can do anything we want with it’?” He replied that “the university gets to do everything it wants that’s legal.” Despite the challenge in that exchange, Marlin was clearly winning the legal battle.

A man on trial for killing his girlfriend was shot to death inside a Stockton, Calif., courtroom Wednesday after he attacked the judge presiding over his murder trial with a cutting tool. A police detective attending the trial fatally shot David Paradiso after he began attacking San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Cinda Fox, said a spokesman for the sheriff’s department.

When a high-rise project ousted Marina Del Toro’s dental technician business in Hallandale Beach, Fla., she claimed that her landlord compelled a Broward County judge to kick her out for improper reasons. Del Toro’s prospects improved when the Florida Supreme Court overturned three lower court rulings. Now, Del Toro’s company is suing her former landlord and its attorneys — powerhouse law firm Greenberg Traurig and shareholder Craig Barnett — for malicious prosecution and abuse.

Some lawyers representing the thousands of people that Bernard Madoff is alleged to have defrauded are scoffing at an agreement that calls for the financier to give up artwork and entertainment tickets as part of his business’s liquidation. The Am Law Daily spoke with Milberg’s Brad Friedman, whose firm has been among the most active in recruiting former Madoff clients, about asset recovery initiatives, accounting firms and why Milberg is ditching class actions for derivative actions when filing Madoff claims.

Karl Rove and former White House counsel Harriet Miers will testify before the House Judiciary Committee in connection with a congressional investigation into the firings of nine U.S. Attorneys, according to an agreement announced Wednesday by House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich. The agreement ends a long-running feud between the House of Representatives and former President George W. Bush over the executive power to shield current and former aides from congressional subpoenas.

Interview skills and networking are still key to landing a job, but locating open positions and getting a foot in the door often starts by scanning online job postings and sending resumes and cover letters out into the ether. The world of cyber job-hunting presents lots of opportunity but also potential pitfalls for attorneys looking to land a position — and there are plenty of people in that category, given the widespread layoffs hitting law firms.

A federal judge has tossed out three consumer antitrust class actions against Qualcomm Inc., holding that the alleged injuries to consumers were too remote to be traced to alleged anti-competitive conduct by Qualcomm. The suits by secondary purchasers of mobile phones accused Qualcomm, the world’s largest maker of mobile phone chips, of using its monopoly control of the chip patents to charge allegedly anti-competitive fees to the cell phone industry, which contributed to higher costs to consumers.

Any case that brings together an airline disaster plaintiffs lawyer from Miami; a former U.S. attorney general; Alan Dershowitz; the author of the RICO act; and Jonathan Schiller of Boies, Schiller & Flexner is bound to be a doozy. And indeed, the $22.5 billion suit filed in a Moscow court by Russia’s Federal Customs Service against the Bank of New York Mellon two years ago has not disappointed. But like all good things, the so-called Russian RICO case must come to an end.

A former senior vice president at General Re Corp. was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for an accounting fraud scandal that artificially propped up the stock price of insurer American International Group. Christopher Garand was also fined $150,000 for his role in the case, which authorities say cost AIG shareholders more than $500 million. Federal prosecutors say AIG paid Gen Re in a secret deal to take out reinsurance policies with AIG in 2000 and 2001.