Practice Areas
Industries
Commercial Contracts
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May 25, 2012
SP Newsprint Gets $5M Secrets Suit Against Employees Stayed
A Delaware bankruptcy judge on Thursday stayed a Georgia action brought by a former contractor of SP Newsprint Holdings LLC, which called the $5 million trade secrets suit against three SP employees an attempted end run around its automatic stay protection.
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May 25, 2012
JPMorgan Unit Faces $293M Suit Over MBS Loan Buyback Deal
JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its unit EMC Mortgage LLC were sued Friday for $293 million by a securitization trust that had financed the purchase of residential mortgage loans EMC had sold, claiming EMC violated an agreement to repurchase shoddy loans.
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May 25, 2012
American Tank & Vessel Deals Blow To Contractor's $20M Suit
A Texas state judge ruled Tuesday that a former contractor’s claim for $20 million in consulting fees from American Tank & Vessel Inc. is likely offset to some degree because he caused the company to lose an oil pipeline contract with the Ghanaian government.
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May 25, 2012
Dow Jones, S&P Shut Down ISE's Index Option Sales
An Illinois appeals court on Friday upheld a lower court's decision barring International Securities Exchange LLC from selling Dow Jones and S&P 500-linked index options without a license, agreeing that misappropriation claims by The McGraw-Hill Cos. Inc. and others aren't preempted by federal copyright law.
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May 25, 2012
RG Steel Wins Arbitration Order In $125M Severstal Dispute
A New York federal judge on Friday granted RG Steel LLC's motion to compel arbitration in a dispute brought by Severstal U.S. Holdings over a purchase agreement for three affiliated steel companies after RG's price adjustments reduced the deal amount from $125 million to $1.9 million.
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May 25, 2012
IStar Seeks Sanctions In $134M RE Contract Fight
Real estate investor iStar Financial Inc. asked a Maryland federal judge Thursday to sanction homebuilders U.S. Home Corp. and Lennar Corp. and their attorneys in a dispute over a $134 million land sale, saying their second amended complaint ignores court orders and state law.
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May 25, 2012
Cat's Paw Creates Worker Liability For Retaliation: 7th Circ.
The Seventh Circuit on Thursday held that the cat's paw theory allows an employee who causes an employer to retaliate against another worker to be held individually liable under Section 1981, a Reconstruction era law banning discrimination in contractual relationships.
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May 25, 2012
Law Firms Can't Dodge Coudert Unfinished Business Claims
A federal judge said Thursday that unfinished client matters were the property of defunct law firm Coudert Brothers LLP on the day it was dissolved, moving the estate administrator closer to recouping money from firms to which former Coudert attorneys moved.
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May 25, 2012
Aaron Spelling's Widow Sues Auction House Over Dolls
The widow of television producer Aaron Spelling has sued Maryland-based auction house Theriault's over the sale of a collection of antique dolls, alleging the company owes her money and the return of unsold items.
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May 24, 2012
Mergers Can Start Noncompete Clocks, Ohio Court Says
The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a merger sets a noncompete agreement in motion when the deal makes no provision for its continuation after a merger, refusing to let an insurance services provider enforce its predecessors' contracts with employees.
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May 24, 2012
Vegas Developer Fights $5M Boies Schiller Fee
A Las Vegas developer argued Thursday that a New York state judge defied public policy in affirming a $5 million fee to Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP, claiming the firm never clarified that chairman David Boies would not personally represent the developer despite his alleged promises he would.
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May 24, 2012
Evergreen Trustee Says Ex-Director Doomed Company
The Chapter 7 trustee of bankrupt Evergreen Energy Inc. slapped a former director of the company with a lawsuit Wednesday, alleging the director's conflict of interest obstructed the energy company from securing crucial financing and led directly to the firm's demise.
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May 24, 2012
Security Firm Says Ex-Exec Helping Rival Nab Army Contract
Security firm International Biometric Group LLC on Monday sued rival Intrepid Solutions and Services Inc. and a former executive who switched companies, claiming he plans to use confidential information to help Intrepid snag a military intelligence contract, violating his IBG employment contract.
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May 24, 2012
Offshore Driller Noble Makes Peace In $50M Wire Defect Suit
Noble Drilling Services Inc. settled on Thursday a $50 million wire defect suit alleging wire ropes made by Bridon-American Corp. and distributed by Certex USA Inc. snapped and damaged the company's oil rigs.
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May 24, 2012
Lack Of Licensing Deal Sacks Ex-NFL Players' Royalty Suit
A California federal judge on Tuesday found that a group of ex-professional football players could not collect licensing royalties allegedly owed by their union, ruling the athletes couldn't establish the same fiduciary relationship that led to a $26 million settlement in a related class action.
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May 24, 2012
Dow Wins $2B In Fight Over Axed Kuwait Petrochem Venture
Kuwait's state-owned petrochemical company must pay Dow Chemical Co. $2.16 billion for cancelling a planned plastics joint venture just days before it was set to launch in 2008, Dow said Thursday, announcing an arbitration award that closes a four-year fight.
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May 24, 2012
Dish Faces Off Against Big 4 Networks In DVR Copyright Row
Dish Network Corp. on Thursday faced two lawsuits and launched one of its own over its new AutoHop feature, which allows users to record the four major networks' programming without commercials and which the satellite broadcaster's network opponents say runs contrary to copyright laws.
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May 23, 2012
AIG Claims Pared In $10.5B Countrywide RMBS Suit
A California federal judge on Wednesday tossed American International Group Inc.'s federal claims in its $10.5 billion suit over deteriorated underwriting standards at Bank of America Corp. unit Countrywide Financial Corp., agreeing with BofA that those claims have come too late.
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May 23, 2012
JAMS, Ex-Judge Added To Fish & Richardson Arbitrator Suit
Alternative dispute resolution provider JAMS Inc. and an arbitrator were added Wednesday to a Texas suit accusing Fish & Richardson PC of failing to disclose that one of its attorneys had a relationship with the arbitrator, a former judge who awarded the firm's client $22 million in a contract dispute.
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May 23, 2012
Developer Wants Consultant To Pay For Botched $1B Mall Suit
Developer G.K. Las Vegas LP asked a New York state judge Tuesday to hold Connecticut merchant banking outfit Gregory & Hoenemeyer Inc. liable for recommending a law firm that allegedly botched GKLV's $1 billion suit against its former partner in a Nevada shopping mall venture.
Expert Analysis
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Jeopardized By Cherryland: Bankruptcy Remote Financings
If the Michigan Court of Appeals decision in Wells Fargo Bank NA v. Cherryland Mall Limited Partnership is widely followed, an array of unanticipated consequences may arise that could have profound effects on the debt capital markets generally and on single purpose entity borrowers in particular, say attorneys with Fox Rothschild LLP.
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The Case Against Counterclaim Class Actions
A class action counterclaim changes the entire scope, purpose and center of gravity of a lawsuit. Where allowed, it injects myriad additional facts, claims and persons into a case that were of no relevance to the original action, and it results in an interminable delay in deciding the claims brought by the plaintiff, says Michael Walker of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP.
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Why Draft A Standstill Provision When 'Between' is Enough?
Although Martin Marietta has stated that it will appeal the decision to the Delaware Supreme Court, the Chancery Court’s opinion Martin Marietta Materials Inc. v. Vulcan Materials Company provides a clear roadmap for lawyers that will result in an implied standstill even though a confidentiality agreement does not have an express standstill, say David Robbins and Janice Liu of Bingham McCutchen LLP.
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Best Practices For Corporate Social Responsibility
As with many industries, the legal services industry has adapted to the demand for sustainability practices. An effective Corporate Social Responsibility program will manifest itself in all strategic planning, from best firm employee practices and environmental sustainability to providing legal services, recruiting and retention of employees, business development, marketing and philanthropy, says Howard Dakoff of Levenfeld Pearlstein LLC.
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Forging Public-Private Partnerships In Turkey
The Turkish government has embarked on an ambitious program of large landmark pathfinder projects done as public-private partnerships, and it is especially keen to encourage foreign sponsor and foreign lender participation, say attorneys with Chadbourne & Parke LLP.
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Keys To Co-Lending Agreements In Commercial RE
Co-lending arrangements have long been used by commercial real estate lenders looking to spread risk, increase spreads, improve returns, free up capital and gain other advantages from utilizing participations, syndications, A/B loans and other co-lending vehicles. Practioners should keep in mind a few key considerations when crafting current co-lending agreements, says Hilary Metra Gevondyan of DLA Piper.
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FSMA’s Potential Impact On Commercial Contracts
While a contract's force majeure clause may be boilerplate, the Food Safety Modernization Act provides new reasons to pay greater attention — new provisions of the FSMA, when taken together, greatly increase the probability that your supply chain, or your ability to comply with your contractual obligations, will be disrupted by some regulatory action by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, say Michael Plunkett and Corinne Marie Pouliquen of Blank Rome LLP.
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Trending Topic: Twitter's 'Innovator's Patent Agreement'
Twitter's new “Innovator’s Patent Agreement” — a policy covering assignment of inventions by Twitter employees to Twitter — appears to be an attempt to square the open-source ethos of Silicon Valley developers with the reality that software patents are becoming increasingly valuable assets to their employers, says Andrew Liddell of Fulbright & Jaworski LLP.
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In-License Agreements With Nonprofits: 5 Considerations
Many of the most profitable technologies being developed and commercialized by tech companies — particularly in the areas of life sciences and clean technology — were initially developed by nonprofit institutions. There are five often overlooked issues that should be considered by a company when negotiating an in-license agreement with nonprofits, say attorneys with Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC.
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Using Federal Antitrust Law To Void Class Action Waivers
Following the Second Circuit's decision in In re American Express Merchants’ Litigation, class action arbitration waivers may be voidable if the plaintiffs can show that the enforcement of those waivers will strip them of their federal statutory rights under the Sherman Act, say Michael Christian and Demetrius Lambrinos of Zelle Hofmann Voelbel & Mason LLP.