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Class Action
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May 24, 2013
Visa, MasterCard Sue Opponents Of $7B Swipe Fee Deal
Visa Inc., MasterCard Inc. and several major lenders, including Bank of America NA, struck back Friday at retail trade associations objecting to a proposed $7.25 billion settlement over allegedly excessive credit card fees, asking a New York federal judge in a complaint to find their fee-setting practices lawful.
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May 23, 2013
Time Warner Accused Of Stiffing Workers On OT
A former Time Warner Cable Inc. call center employee filed a putative class action against the telecommunications giant Tuesday in California court, claiming the company has failed to pay employees proper overtime rates and wages they were owed upon termination.
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May 23, 2013
Retail Giants Sue Visa, MasterCard After Spurning $7B Deal
Target Corp., Macy's Inc. and 16 other U.S. retailers sued Visa Inc. and MasterCard Inc. on Thursday over allegedly anti-competitive credit and debit card transaction fees, two days after announcing they had opted out of a $7.25 billion settlement in related multidistrict litigation.
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May 23, 2013
BP, Others Face Price-Fixing Claims In 1st Private Suit
BP PLC, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Statoil ASA were accused Wednesday in New York federal court of manipulating prices for crude oil futures, the earliest known private antitrust action lodged after a European regulator raided several oil companies over similar allegations.
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May 23, 2013
Target, CVS Sued For Slandering Docs, Voiding Prescriptions
Target Corp., Rite Aid Corp. and CVS Caremark Corp. were hit with a proposed class action in California state court Wednesday, accusing them of using a state Medicaid suspension list to wrongly void non-Medicaid prescriptions written by suspended doctors and slandering the doctors to patients.
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May 22, 2013
JPMorgan Wants NM AG's Credit Card Suit In Federal Court
JPMorgan Chase & Co. on Wednesday said New Mexico Attorney General Gary King's purported class action alleging the bank's retail unit used deceptive marketing to ensnare customers in credit card payment protection plans should be heard in federal, not state, court.
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May 22, 2013
Smucker Accused Of Making Bogus 'All-Natural' Claims
The J.M. Smucker Co. was hit with a putative class action Tuesday alleging it falsely touts Crisco cooking oils as all natural even though they're made using genetically modified crops and heavy processing.
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May 21, 2013
Tea Party Groups Hit IRS With 1st Suits In Bias Scandal
A pair of tea party groups mounted the first lawsuits against the Internal Revenue Service over the agency’s targeting of conservative groups, claiming in a putative class action and an individual suit Monday that their tax-exempt status applications were illegally scrutinized.
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May 20, 2013
Nike, Apple Face False Ad Suit Over Fitness Wristband
Sports apparel retailer Nike Inc. and electronics giant Apple Inc. were hit with a proposed class action Friday that challenges their advertising claims that the Nike Plus FuelBand electronic wristband accurately records each calorie burned by its wearer during physical activity.
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May 20, 2013
BMC Investor Sues To Block $7B Sale To Bain, Golden Gate
A BMC Software Inc. investor on Friday launched a proposed class action in Texas court, complaining that a planned $7 billion sale of the company to Bain Capital LLC and Golden Gate Capital shortchanges shareholders.
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May 20, 2013
Oil Field Workers Say Superior Energy Stiffed Them On OT
Superior Energy Services Inc. deprived over 1,000 Pennsylvania oil field workers of overtime pay by misclassifying them as exempt from federal and state wage laws, according to a proposed class action filed in federal court Friday.
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May 20, 2013
Calif. Insurer Accused Of Bilking Policyholders
A California man claiming he is being shortchanged on his medical insurance benefits lodged a putative class action in state court accusing Unum Life Insurance Co. of America of denying an annual benefit increase guaranteed in its long-term care policies.
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May 17, 2013
ING Gave Morgan Stanley Kickbacks For 401(k) Biz, Suit Says
An Alabama medical laboratory filed a proposed class action in New York federal court on Friday alleging Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. encouraged the lab to use ING Life Insurance and Annuity Co. to administer its employees' 401(k) plan because ING paid the brokerage firm extra fees.
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May 17, 2013
Herrick Accused Of Tacking High Fees Onto Debt Notices
Herrick Feinstein LLP was hit with a putative class action Thursday in New Jersey federal court alleging it deceptively added unauthorized attorneys’ fees to debts it collected from consumers on behalf of a homeowners association, in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
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May 16, 2013
EEOC's 1st Genetic Bias Class Action Targets Nursing Home
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission launched its first class action under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act on Thursday, accusing a New York nursing home of wrongly requesting family medical histories as part of health exams before and after workers accept jobs.
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May 15, 2013
Goodyear Factory Employees Sue For $4M Over Downsizing
A group of French factory workers hit Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company with a $4 million tortious interference suit in April alleging the tire manufacturer's French subsidiary moved ahead with a downsizing plan in violation of its obligations to the employees' union.
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May 15, 2013
MTV Viewer Accuses Viacom Of Sending Spam Texts
Viacom Inc. was hit Monday with a proposed class action accusing it of violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by sending consumers promotional text messages after they voted by phone for their favorite nominee during the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards.
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May 15, 2013
True Religion Shareholders Sue To Block $835M Buyout
True Religion Apparel Inc. and its board threw shareholders under the bus when they agreed to let TowerBrook Capital Partners take the designer jeans company private for $835 million, a proposed class of California shareholders alleged Tuesday.
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May 14, 2013
Power-One Investor Says $1B ABB Offer Is Too Low
Solar energy firm Power-One Inc. and its executives were hit with a shareholder class action Tuesday claiming that its proposed $1 billion sale to Swiss conglomerate ABB Ltd. undervalues Power-One with the renewable energy market set to explode over the next decade.
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May 13, 2013
BMW Roadster’s Alloy Wheels Crack Early, Suit Says
BMW of North America LLC was targeted in a putative class action in California federal court Friday alleging that the alloy wheels it used in in its BMW Z4 sports cars from model years 2007 to 2012 are prone to cracking and create a safety hazard.
Expert Analysis
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Fla. Case Makes TCPA Compliance More Confusing Than Ever
While we have been patiently awaiting further guidance from the Federal Communications Commission on a wide array of pending petitions for declaratory rulings on such points as the definition of an autodialer, Mais v. Gulf Coast Collection Bureau Inc. raises a question about whether such guidance will be binding on the courts, say Judy Harris of Reed Smith LLP and Robert Jackson of the Law Offices of Robert H. Jackson.
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When Rights Of Publicity Trump 1st Amendment
An important practice tip that flows from the Third Circuit's opinion in Ryan Hart v. Electronic Arts Inc. is that talismanic invocation of the First Amendment does not resolve the legal problem of balancing that amendment with competing rights such as the right of publicity, says Ronald Katz of Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP.
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The Starstruck Medical Causation Trend
In the technical sense, medical causation answers whether an accused substance brought about some alleged disease. But rarely are the central causal allegations in major toxic torts purely courtroom affairs — publicity and politics now drive the litigation, with plaintiff verdicts begetting more publicity, says James Sabovich of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP.
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Rise Of The Machines — Predictive Coding Goes Mainstream
The pros of using predictive coding far outweigh the cons. Given the heavy pressure on law firms and in-house counsel to reduce discovery costs, as well as the Justice Department's recent stance on the subject, it appears predictive coding will continue to emerge from the obscure world of legal technology to the mainstream of legal practice, say Michael Moscato and Myles Bartley of Curtis Mallet-Prevost Colt & Mosle LLP.
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5 Overlooked Reasons To Be Class Rep In An Antitrust Suit
In many circumstances in antitrust litigation, standing up as a class representative may be an effective way to protect the company’s interests while assuring that it and other victims of anti-competitive behavior receive the monetary recovery they deserve, say Kellie Lerner and Ryan Marth of Robins Kaplan Miller & Ciresi LLP.
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Recent Trends In M&A And Corporate Fiduciary Litigation
In 2012, shareholders challenged 93 percent of all merger and acquisition transactions with a value greater than $100 million and 96 percent of M&A transactions with a value greater than $500 million. In other words, it almost is inevitable nowadays that litigation will follow a merger or going private announcement — with an average of about five lawsuits per transaction, say attorneys with Arnold & Porter LLP.
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Libor Litigation Must Overcome Significant Obstacles
When U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald dismissed a consolidated, multidistrict batch of antitrust and racketeering suits in Manhattan earlier this spring, she suggested plaintiffs seeking to recover from banking giants at the heart of the interest rate-fixing scandal might have better luck with securities fraud claims. But those plaintiffs will need to be lucky indeed. Two recent developments show that obstacles are inherent and, perhaps, insurmountable, say attorneys with Choate Hall & Stewart LLP.
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Tips For Your Rule 10b5-1 Trading Plan Policy
Now that investigations have been initiated by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the SEC into possible abuses by corporate executives of Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, the private securities bar inevitably will follow suit and file litigation. Nevertheless, these plans continue to be an effective defense against allegations of insider trading, say attorneys with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP.
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What Sponsors Must Know About Litigation On Church Plans
Recently, two firms have filed class actions against three Catholic Church-affiliated health care facilities, claiming that their pension plans should be subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. These cases could have a profound effect on all church plan sponsors, regardless of whether they have previously obtained favorable church plan rulings, say attorneys with Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.
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E-Discovery In The Cloud: Who Can Get Your Data?
Many lawyers are asking whether placing electronically stored information in the cloud could inadvertently waive the attorney-client privilege and whether the government or a civil litigant could obtain ESI directly from a cloud service provider. In answering these questions, there are a number of aspects of the cloud worth considering, say Timothy Broas and Matthew Saxon of Winston & Strawn LLP.