Posts on ‘November 13th, 2009’

Two years ago, Baker Botts partner William Jeffress won a defense verdict for coal mining company Drummond in what was believed to be the first Alien Tort Claims Act case to go to trial. Despite the verdict — which was later upheld by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — Drummond is still facing litigation over the 2001 murder of three union leaders at a Colombian mine. But the plaintiffs suing Drummond haven’t gotten very far.

The Justice Department is planning to focus more criminal enforcement on the pharmaceutical industry’s interaction with foreign officials, the head of the department’s Criminal Division warned on Thursday. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, addressing the 10th Annual Pharmaceutical Regulatory and Compliance Congress and Best Practices Forum, said the application of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act to the pharmaceutical industry will be pushed “in the months and years ahead.”

Loyalty is not just owed or pledged to a firm or company, which many people reflexively proclaim as an absolute, writes consultant Frank M. D’Amore. Rather, it is similarly owed to family members, clients and, perhaps most importantly, yourself. D’Amore discusses what could be called foolish loyalty, where attorneys with good practices stay at firms that are showing the telltale signs of likely extinction or extended stays on life support, or attorneys stay despite having obviously outgrown their firms.

After a Georgia man had both his legs partially amputated as a result of a railroad car accident, he filed suit in federal court. One defendant, the owner of the railroad car that ran over the plaintiff, settled for undisclosed terms in the midst of a deposition. But the railroad, CSX Transportation, went to trial last month. The railroad may have made the right decision. Attorneys for CSX last month secured a defense verdict for their client after a week-and-a-half-long jury trial with some unusual aspects.

The husband and estate of a woman who developed blood clots and died shortly after undergoing outpatient knee surgery have been awarded more than $6 million. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the surgeon ignored several risk factors that should have indicated that blood clotting could be a problem and did not observe post-surgery precautions that could have prevented it from occurring. The defense had argued that the type of surgery Ruby Quarles underwent did not normally require any such precautions.

California State Bar governors face the difficult task this week of deciding whether to approve 45 changes in the Rules of Professional Conduct, including an especially controversial one that would let lawyers seek advance conflict-of-interest waivers from clients. The waiver proposal is one of seven of the 45 amendments the State Bar dubs “very controversial.” Many of the more contentious changes aren’t sitting well with lawyers, who have sent in more than 1,000 pages of comments.

A disagreement between a Georgia judge and a senior assistant prosecutor erupted on Thursday into a heated confrontation in a courthouse hallway between the judge and the district attorney. The judge said after he ordered the senior assistant DA arrested for failing to pay a fine for a contempt finding, the DA “walked up to me, within [a] 1/4 inch of my face, and shouted that I was making a mockery of the judiciary.” The judge described the “ruckus in the back hallway” in an order holding both prosecutors in contempt.

A Florida resident is suing Internet domain name auction company SnapNames.com Inc. in state court following the company’s admission that an employee secretly participated in the company’s auctions. The class action claims that legitimate bidders overpaid, and the company unfairly profited, because of the employee’s actions. “This is an industry begging for transparency. Right now you don’t know who you’re bidding against,” said Santiago Cueto, the brother of plaintiff Carlos Cueto.

Allen & Overy landed the lead advisory role for General Electric on the $1.8 billion sale of GE’s fire alarm and security unit to Hartford, Conn.-based United Technologies, the conglomerate that makes Sikorsky helicopters, Carrier air conditioners and other big-name items. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz advised UTC on the deal, says a UTC spokesman. GE sold its homeland security branch to the French company Safran earlier this year, and is reportedly close to selling its stake in NBC Universal to Comcast.

A multimillion-dollar coal contract dispute that went to the U.S. Supreme Court took its latest turn Thursday with another ruling in favor of Massey Energy. For the third time, West Virginia’s Supreme Court has overturned a $50 million jury verdict against the coal producer. The appeal of the case by Harman Mining and its president, Hugh Caperton, to the U.S. Supreme Court resulted in a ruling that elected judges must step aside when large campaign contributions from interested parties create the appearance of bias.