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Securities
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May 9, 2013
RBC's Discovery Bid In Wash-Trading Suit Falls Short
A New York federal judge on Wednesday rejected the Royal Bank of Canada's bid to force the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to release certain notes related to its investigation of the bank, ruling that the agency wasn't required to provide the documents since they are internal communications.
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May 9, 2013
Hearing On ATP's $691M Asset Sale Pushed Back
A Texas bankruptcy judge Thursday delayed his review of ATP Oil & Gas Corp.’s proposed $691 million oil and gas leases sale to a group of lenders led by Credit Suisse AG, as the company answers creditor objections to the deal.
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May 9, 2013
Heller Ehrman Settles Legal-Fee Fight With Ex-Refco Exec
A California bankruptcy court on Thursday allowed bankrupt law firm Heller Ehrman LLP’s to settle a dispute over legal fees with a former Refco Inc. executive that stemmed in part from a securities class action against the failed brokerage.
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May 9, 2013
Judge Wants Secret Witnesses Named In JPMorgan Suit
A federal magistrate judge in New York on Tuesday ordered class action plaintiffs pursuing fraud claims against JPMorgan Chase & Co. related to failed, allegedly falsely represented mortgage-backed securities to turn over the identities of 15 confidential witnesses to the bank.
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May 9, 2013
Regulators Join Fight To Block Schwab's Class Action Waiver
State regulators and investor organizations Wednesday joined the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in its appeal against a FINRA panel decision to allow Charles Schwab Corp. to prevent clients from filing class actions.
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May 9, 2013
Investors' E-Trade Deceit Suit Moves Forward After 5 Years
A New York federal judge Wednesday lifted an almost five-year stay of a securities suit against E-Trade Financial Corp. that alleges the company misrepresented its financial condition during the mortgage meltdown in 2007.
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May 9, 2013
Q&A With Foley & Lardner's Gardner Davis
Shareholder suits challenging mergers and acquisitions provide about the same practical benefit to shareholders as Somali pirates provide to international shipping, says Gardner Davis, a partner in Foley & Lardner LLP's transactional and securities practice.
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May 9, 2013
Vitamin Shoppe Shareholders Sue After $30M Insider Cashout
Vitamin Shoppe Inc. was hit Tuesday with a proposed shareholder class action accusing the New Jersey-based company of beefing up its financial reports while hiding known threats to revenue, allowing company insiders to cash in more than $30 million in shares before stock prices plummeted.
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May 9, 2013
IntraLinks Can't Dodge Shareholder Suit Over FDIC Contract
A New York federal judge on Wednesday declined to dismiss a consolidated shareholder class action alleging top executives at cloud computing company IntraLinks Holdings Inc. misled investors about the probable loss of a contract with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
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May 9, 2013
SEC Asset Management Chief Jumps To Prudential
Bruce Karpati, who oversaw a recent private equity industry crackdown as head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's asset management unit, has left the agency to become chief compliance officer for Prudential Financial Inc.'s mutual fund business, he said Thursday.
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May 9, 2013
Apache Preps $4B In Asset Sales, $2B Stock Buyback
Texas energy giant Apache Corp. announced plans Thursday to sell roughly $4 billion in assets by the end of 2013 and buy back up to $2 billion of its own stock from shareholders, sending the stock surging as investors responded positively to the blockbuster share buyback plan.
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May 9, 2013
Baker Botts Adds Trio of Partners To Offices In NY, DC
Baker Botts LLP has lured a trio of experienced partners to its Washington and New York offices, significantly boosting its transactions and securities practices and its expertise in energy matters, the firm announced this week.
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May 9, 2013
SEC, Texas Probe Morgan Keegan Over Muni Bond Sales
Regions Financial Corp. on Wednesday said its former Morgan Keegan unit is under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the states of Missouri and Texas over alleged securities law violations involving municipal bonds.
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May 9, 2013
Insider Trader Can’t Postpone Prison Time For Family Time
A New York federal judge on Wednesday rejected convicted insider trader Todd Newman’s request that he be allowed to spend more time with his daughter before the beginning of his 4 1/2-year prison sentence.
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May 9, 2013
Prudential Says UBS Fraud Doomed $208M MBS Purchase
Prudential Insurance Co. of America is accusing UBS Americas Inc. of misrepresenting the quality of $208 million in mortgage-backed securities by shirking underwriting guidelines and failing to follow the proper appraisal process, according to a suit removed to New Jersey federal court on Wednesday.
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May 9, 2013
Feds Seek Record Jail Terms In UBS Bid-Rigging Case
Three former UBS AG executives convicted of rigging bids on municipal bond investments should receive record prison sentences ranging from 11 years to nearly 20 years, prosecutors told a New York federal judge Wednesday, prompting an outcry from defense attorneys.
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May 9, 2013
Quinn Emanuel To Open 1st Aussie Office In June
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP will expand to Australia in June, launching an office in Sydney that will be headed by a longtime Quinn Emanuel partner and a partner from Herbert Smith Freehills LLP seasoned in insurance, product liability, securities and entertainment litigation, the firm said Thursday.
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May 9, 2013
Consol Strikes $43M Deal With CNX Investors Over Buyout
Former minority shareholders of CNX Gas Corp. will receive $42.7 million to settle a class action that challenged Consol Energy Inc.'s $960 million deal to take CNX private in 2010, according to documents filed Wednesday in Delaware Chancery Court.
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May 9, 2013
Morgan Lewis Nabs Top Duane Morris Litigator For NY Office
A Duane Morris LLP partner who successfully defended a father-son duo from an investor fraud suit arising from the epic collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. has jumped to Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP’s litigation practice, the firm said Thursday.
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May 9, 2013
AXA Can't Seek Punitive Damages Over $1.5B ING Sale
AXA SA can't pursue punitive damages or claims alleging ING Groep NV hid union-organizing activity at a Mexico-based insurer before ING sold it to AXA for $1.5 billion, a New York state appeals court ruled Thursday.
Expert Analysis
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Arguing For Arbitration Clauses In Customer Agreements
In a landmark decision with potentially wide implications, a Financial Industry Regulatory Authority hearing panel recently ruled that Charles Schwab & Company Inc. could include a provision in its customer agreements prohibiting customers from bringing class action claims against Schwab and requiring customers to arbitrate their claims. The decision should come as welcome news to brokerage firms and likely will prompt other firms to amend their customer agreements to include similar clauses, say Bradley Bondi and Jason Halper of Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP.
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Know Your Swap Reporting Rules Before April 10
On April 10, 2013, commercial end-users must begin reporting and maintaining records on all swaps to which they are counterparties under the Dodd-Frank Act. These new regulations will have significant impacts on firms’ swaps businesses as they not only apply to new swaps but also to historical swaps and certain physical transactions, say attorneys with Sutherland Asbill & Brennan LLP.
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Where Privilege Protection Ends In Internal Investigations
Internal investigations by counsel into potentially illegal corporate conduct are generally considered to be protected by the attorney-client privilege and attorney work-product doctrine. It is less clear whether work that is unconnected or tangentially connected to such an investigation, including internal audits or anti-corruption risk assessments, may be conducted in a way that preserves privilege protections, say attorneys with Paul Hastings LLP.
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7 Reasons To Do Pro Bono Work
Research shows that helping others and cultivating social relationships makes us happier and that generous people live longer, healthier lives. These are just a few of the countless reasons to create time in our busy schedules to do pro bono and charitable work this year, says Anne Brafford of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP.
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On The Verge Of Fraudulent Transfer Litigation
The Boston Generating LLC litigation — like the Tribune and Lyondell bankruptcy cases — will pose the basic question of whether clever structuring by insolvency professionals can enable disappointed creditors to evade the safe harbor provided by Bankruptcy Code Section 546(e) for those that participate in the securities markets, say Harold Horwich and Sabin Willett of Bingham McCutchen LLP.
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The Full Impact Of FATCA
One misperception about the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act is that it only applies to banks or insurance companies. But a foreign financial institution for FATCA purposes includes non-U.S. banks, investment funds, investment managers and many insurers. Passive investment entities that are not per se funds but are professionally managed can be caught, says John Taylor of King & Spalding LLP.
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Avoid The Top 10 Pitfalls In A Jury Charge Conference
It can be a challenge even for experienced trial lawyers to keep one eye on the present trial and one eye on the future appellate record, as the charge conference requires. But being aware of the major pitfalls of the conference, and how to avoid them, will pay big dividends later, say Dawn Solowey and Lynn Kappelman of Seyfarth Shaw LLP.
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And Now A Word From The Panel ...
One of the most fascinating facets of watching the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation is trying to guess not simply whether an MDL will be created, but where it will be located. Take, for example, In re Mirena IUD Products Liability and Marketing Litigation, slated to be heard at the March 21 hearing, says Alan Rothman of Kaye Scholer LLP.
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A London Stock Exchange Rewrite For Tech Cos.
Following a similar U.S. regime for emerging growth companies under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, the London Stock Exchange has introduced a section to its main market catering specifically to high growth companies looking for a transitional route to the official list. But for London to truly rival New York as an attractive place to list technology shares, it will require a much wider maturation of the market, say attorneys with Paul Hastings LLP.
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SEC Still Quiet On Rule 144(i) Evergreen Requirement
Despite the strong negative reaction in the securities community to the so-called Evergreen Rule, and despite the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s admission that the effect of the amendment on shell companies in reverse mergers was unintended, there has been no change to the rule to address these effects, says Julie Holden of TroyGould PC.