Posts on ‘October 27th, 2009’

In a growing trend, federal judges are enforcing the “forum selection clause” in eBay Inc.’s standard user agreement, which calls for any dispute to be resolved through a court action filed in Santa Clara County, Calif. “EBay operates around the world and it is not shocking for it to want to focus its legal defense in a particular forum rather than have to litigate in potentially hundreds or thousands of other jurisdictions,” a Pennsylvania federal district court judge wrote in an opinion last week.

Fresh from tapping into the technology experience of GCs who attended the annual Association of Corporate Counsel conference this month, attorney Ari L. Kaplan shares tips he received on eliminating software licensing costs through the use of inexpensive or free applications.

A summary judgment hearing in a federal court in Delaware was Washington Mutual Inc.’s first chance to try to claw back some of the billions of dollars in assets the holding company argues were wrongfully stripped away when the government seized and sold its banking operations to JPMorgan Chase & Co. The hydralike litigation has become a case study in how a bank holding company can create a legal headache for the government, and for companies that buy banking assets, long after its main business has disappeared.

In a case of first impression, a federal appellate court ruled Monday in the prosecution of prominent Miami attorney Ben Kuehne that criminal defense lawyers can’t be charged with taking ill-gotten proceeds from defendants as legal fees. The 11th Circuit affirmed a decision by U.S. District Judge Marcia G. Cooke, who dismissed a money-laundering conspiracy count against Kuehne for vetting money that went to Miami celebrity attorney Roy Black to defend Colombian drug kingpin Fabio Ochoa.

Thelen’s former employees are using a novel legal argument in an $18 million suit against five firms that hired many of Thelen’s partners, according to an opposition brief filed Friday. The employees argue the firms’ hiring of the partners amounted to purchasing a portion of Thelen’s business. Therefore, the firms are bound by the same obligations as an employer under the WARN Act. The defendant firms, meanwhile, argue that since there was no merger, they had no obligations to former Thelen staff.