Posts on ‘September 28th, 2009’

In a major setback for insurer Nationwide, a federal judge in Philadelphia refused to declare that allowing insurance coverage for the funeral home directors involved in a body-parts-for-cash scheme would violate public policy. U.S. District Judge Michael M. Baylson also rejected the argument that guilty pleas by the participants had conclusively proven that all of the conduct was intentional and therefore could not be treated as negligent conduct that triggers insurance coverage.

A copyright infringement battle between Eminem’s record label Eight Mile Style and Apple Inc. kicked off on Friday in Detroit federal district court. Eight Mile Style claims Apple did not have a license to reproduce and sell 93 Eminem songs, for which it contends Apple has earned $2.58 million from iTunes downloads. Aftermath Records, founded by rapper and producer Dr. Dre, is also a defendant in the case.

Defense lawyers connected to the case of the murder of Yale University graduate student Annie Le are unhappy that so many details have been revealed by police for an ongoing investigation. Before Raymond Clark III was even apprehended or interrogated by police, hecklers stood outside his residence due to police leaks, says Thomas Ullmann, New Haven’s public defender. Lawyers say too much information was revealed too soon, including some that was inaccurate, such as reports that Le’s body was found contorted.

Manhattan federal district court Judge Denny Chin has issued an order concluding that it wouldn’t be feasible to order restitution in the case of Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff. Instead, investors’ recoveries in the criminal case will be determined by forfeiture principles. Practically speaking, for Madoff’s victims this decision means they won’t have to go through the painful process of proving the extent of their investment and loss to the government.

For the first time in 20 years, a Pennsylvania disciplinary office has had to take drastic measures to ensure a disbarred attorney finally gives up the practice of law. After five years of suspensions, and then disbarment in August 2008, Allen Feingold continued to practice law and failed to notify clients of his disbarment, according to orders in the case. This month, a judge in the case ordered Feingold to hand over his office keys and directed the Office of Disciplinary Counsel to change the locks.

Boies, Schiller & Flexner on Thursday filed the first of what partner Richard Drubel expects will be “a number” of suits against Bear Stearns, alleging that the defunct investment firm fraudulently induced shareholders to hold onto their Bear Stearns stock, and then sustained huge losses. The plaintiff is Bruce Sherman, the former CEO of the money management firm Private Capital Management, and the suit involves only his personal losses, which Drubel said amount to “tens of millions of dollars.”

The U.S. Department of Justice was clearly concerned about the fate of Research in Motion, the BlackBerry developer that faced a business-shuttering injunction in 2005. Lawyers for NTP, the company seeking the injunction, knew that. The U.S. government was, after all, the largest single user of BlackBerry devices. What NTP’s lawyers didn’t know was that the DOJ had secretly entered into a common-interest agreement with RIM to advance government interests in the patent infringement dispute.

Even the discovery squabbles in a federal challenge to California’s Proposition 8 are weighty. Gay marriage opponents trooped into the courtroom of a California federal judge Friday to quash requests for internal campaign e-mails and other documents from last year’s “Yes on 8″ effort. Marriage supporters, meanwhile, argued that the motivations of those behind the ballot initiative are highly relevant because discriminatory intent would undermine opponents’ claims of a rational state interest in the ban.

In a filing late Friday, Bank of America and its counsel at Cleary Gottlieb reiterated the argument they’ve been making since the bank entered into a now-defunct settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission — that BofA did nothing wrong in keeping the specific bonus information out of proxy statements and other public merger documents. The bank claims its M&A counsel followed custom by detailing bonus payments in a confidential disclosure schedule and mentioning it in its regulatory filings.

Less than a week after the 1st Circuit affirmed a $13 million test case verdict against AstraZeneca in an Average Wholesale Price manipulation case, the drug company is set to go to trial in Kentucky on Tuesday, facing allegations of Medicaid fraud in its drug-pricing practices. The last time AstraZeneca faced a state jury in an AWP case, it was hit with a $250 million verdict.