Posts on ‘October 28th, 2009’

Peter Yuen, a Hong Kong partner at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, has been tracking a number of cases in which individual Chinese lawyers, many of them active in consumer rights issues, have used an article of the new law to bring private actions against large Chinese companies, including China Mobile, Baidu and China Netcom. The proliferation of such cases may eventually require the Supreme People’s Court to issue an interpretation of the country’s new anti-monopoly law, he says.

The challenge for Diamond McCarthy’s trial team was considerable. How do you convince a jury that a shareholder who received almost $12 million in dividends is “oppressed”? The attorney who led the team for Balkrishna Shagrithaya, the co-founder and minority shareholder of ARGO Data Resource Corp., said the firm argued that he was oppressed because the sum represented only 7 percent of the company’s total retained earnings. The jury sided with Shagrithaya, though they didn’t give him everything he asked for.

The Morgan Lewis lawyers who defended NutriSystem in a spate of securities fraud suits can claim a complete victory now that a federal judge has dismissed a pair of derivative suits that accused top executives and board members of fraud, waste and breach of their fiduciary duties. Judge Mary McLaughlin’s opinion comes less than two months after she tossed out a class action shareholders suit against the company.

Jury selection began Tuesday in the government’s case against Taylar Nuevelle, who is accused of breaking into the home of her former girlfriend, Washington, D.C., Superior Court Magistrate Judge Janet Albert, and stalking her through voluminous text messages and e-mails. One of the issues in the case is the extent to which the lawyers will be allowed to discuss a judicial misconduct complaint Nuevelle filed against Albert alleging that the judge improperly involved a deputy U.S. marshal amid the spat with Nuevelle.

A Florida judge has revived a lawsuit at the request of developer Richard T. Fields after a 2008 settlement fell through. Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts Development sued Fields and the developers of the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casinos for an estimated $1 billion, alleging Fields conspired to cut him out of a deal to develop two casinos for the tribe. To end the fight, Fields agreed to buy an Atlantic City, N.J., casino for $316 million — a deal that collapsed when Trump’s companies filed for bankruptcy.

At a New York court hearing Tuesday in the America’s Cup dispute between billionaire sailors Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli, arguments over the race’s location at times sounded like a debate at the U.N. General Assembly. When the debate ended, the judge ruled that Ras al-Khaimah, an emirate of the United Arab Emirates, cannot host the next race, set for February 2010. The ruling was a win for Ellison’s Golden Gate Yacht Club, the official challenger for the cup, and its lawyer, David Boies.

On Oct. 22, Fort Worth, Texas’ 2nd Court of Appeals affirmed James Kevin Pope’s 40 life sentences for sexual assault of a child and three 20-year sentences — one for each of three counts of sexual performance of a child. Because the 415th District Court ordered Pope to serve the sentences consecutively, he could face up to 2,460 years in prison for engaging in group sex with his three teenage daughters.

Christmas has come early for California’s legal aid organizations. This month, $40 million is going out to more than 100 nonprofits and charities across the state from money left over in a class action settlement with makers of chewing tobacco. The money — in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars — will help local legal groups avoid cutting services and jobs as they struggle through the recession.

An ex-AIG employee and four former top execs at General Re convicted last year of engaging in a scam to inflate AIG’s loss reserves have filed papers asking the 2nd Circuit to overturn their convictions. To increase their chances, three of them have shaken up their legal teams by adding Am Law 200 lawyers with sterling appellate resumes. The defendants are asking the circuit to toss out the convictions on several grounds, including claims that the trial judge admitted hearsay evidence and gave improper jury instructions.