Posts on ‘June 17th, 2009’

White & Case and DLA Piper have insisted that their Moscow operations are operating normally after they were raided Tuesday by Russian authorities in connection with a fraud investigation. According to local press reports in the Moscow Post, police seized documents in several locations related to an $87.5 million fraud case and a related conflict between owners of the Hotel Moskva. The law firms said that the searches related to client activities and did not involve the firms themselves.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge last month affirmed an arbitration award in a wrongful termination suit of more than $4.1 billion, sending shock waves through the labor and employment bar. Alston & Bird partner Michael D. Young spoke to The National Law Journal about the lessons to be learned from the outcome in this case regarding arbitration agreements and the arbitration process. He also broke down the award to explain how the arbitrator came up with such an astronomically high number.

IBM’s law department acts almost as a legal SWAT team, making decisions quickly without getting bogged down in bureaucracy. And as you might expect, they’re among the savviest users of legal tech in the profession. Follow their motto, “Think Smart,” and use technology in innovative ways.

A former business executive was sentenced Tuesday to two years of probation for his role in an accounting scandal that cost shareholders of insurer AIG more than $500 million. John Houldsworth, the former CEO of an Irish affiliate of Berkshire Hathaway’s General Re, was also fined $5,000 and ordered to perform 400 hours of community service. A Connecticut federal judge noted that Houldsworth provided crucial information to investigators that helped them win convictions against five other executives.

When the curtain goes up on Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing next month, the stars of the show will be the nominee and the 19 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But this production is scripted mostly by a handful of Republican and Democratic lawyers on Capitol Hill who are currently digging through documents and drafting questions. And while the theme of an almost certain confirmation remains, one or two discoveries could alter that story line before hearings begin on July 13.

Ocean Tomo has sold its famed but struggling patent auction business to British brokerage ICAP for $10 million, the companies have announced. The sale of Ocean Tomo’s transaction department, which includes the auction and patent brokerage, comes as revenue has plunged and key transaction leaders have left. And while ICAP is bullish on patent auctions, observers say the rise and fall of the Ocean Tomo auction business — selling for less than its 2008 revenue — is a sign of a business model that may have run its course.

A group of former George W. Bush administration officials turned white-collar defense lawyers gathered in Washington, D.C., this week to discuss the current enforcement environment as well as changes across federal agencies in response to the financial crisis. While one lawyer likened the pro-enforcement era to “a walk in the woods with a very hungry grizzly bear” and another warned it was “2002 on steroids,” the bottom line was: Be afraid, Corporate America. Be very afraid.