Practice Areas
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Texas
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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
Pelican Refining Seeks $76M From Sigma In Failed Deal
The parent companies of Pelican Refining Co. LLC and Pelican Asphalt Co. LLC headed to Texas state court on Friday to demand $76 million in damages from Sigma Petroleum Inc. after Sigma defaulted on a deal to buy the two refineries.
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May 25, 2012
Texas Co. Says Cybex Stole Secrets, Muscled Competition
A Texas fitness equipment manufacturer on Thursday hit a former employee and Cybex International Inc. with a petition in state court accusing them of conspiring to steal trade secrets and campaigning to drive the company out of business.
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May 25, 2012
CES Settles Houston Residents' $15M Suit Over Toxic Fumes
Defunct CES Environmental Services Inc. on Tuesday settled a suit brought by a group of Houston-area residents seeking up to $15 million in damages over the company's allegedly unlawful hazardous waste operations, resolving the matter just one week ahead of trial.
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May 25, 2012
Chartis Accused Of Failing To Cover $17M Ponzi Loss
Chartis Inc. was hit with a suit in Texas federal court Thursday claiming that the insurance giant wrongfully denied coverage of $17 million lost by an electrical manufacturer unwittingly caught up in a $670 million Ponzi scheme.
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May 25, 2012
Bracewell Gets Litigation Star From Patton Boggs
Bracewell & Giuliani LLP has added former Judge Joseph M. Cox, an ex-Patton Boggs LLP litigation partner whose practice area ranges from class actions to product liability and everything in between, to its office in Dallas, the firm announced Monday.
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May 25, 2012
Texas Duo Indicted In $19M Medicare, Medicaid Fraud
Federal prosecutors said Thursday they've indicted two Houston-area men suspected of orchestrating a $19 million Medicare and Medicaid scam made possible through kickbacks to patient recruiters and a laundry list of medically unnecessary procedures.
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May 24, 2012
Ex-SEC Atty Barred From Agency After Repping Stanford
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday barred the former head of enforcement in its Fort Worth, Texas, office from appearing before the commission for one year for privately representing alleged Ponzi schemer R. Allen Stanford after participating in the SEC's investigations into the financier.
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May 24, 2012
Texas Floats New Effort To Reduce Gas Flaring
Texas’ energy regulator unveiled an initiative Wednesday aimed at reducing drillers’ use of flaring — the practice of burning off natural gas to access oil — saying the state needed to update its standards as production rises in Texas shale plays.
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May 24, 2012
Investor Suit Over Layton Energy Oil Funds Axed
A Texas federal judge has tossed a putative class action alleging Layton Corp. lied about squandering $13.5 million investors had devoted to two energy and oil funds, saying the suit failed to show standing for any of its claims.
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May 24, 2012
$55M Suit Claims Blue Cross Shorted Texas Hospitals
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia Inc. withheld payments for health services after claiming they would be covered, two hospitals allege in a suit seeking at least $55 million in damages that was removed to Texas federal court Wednesday.
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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 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
Power Shortages Loom In Texas As Demand Rises, Report Says
Texas’ grid operator released a report Tuesday showing the state could face electrical shortages as early as 2014 as demand for electricity outpaces investment in new generation — a finding that’s prompting regulators to consider incentives for power plant construction.
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May 23, 2012
Warburg Pincus Leads $1.1B Investment In Gulf Oil Startup
Four private equity firms, led by Warburg Pincus LLC, have agreed to pour up to $1.13 billion into a new deepwater oil exploration venture that plans to cash in on the Gulf of Mexico's oil-rich subsalt plays, they said Tuesday.
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May 23, 2012
5th Circ. Cans Challenge To Coke's 41-Year-Old Root Beer Buy
The Fifth Circuit on Tuesday affirmed that The Coca-Cola Co. doesn't owe one-third of Barq's Inc. to its previous owners, ruling that the 41-year-old sale of the plaintiff's interest in the root beer company was valid under Louisiana law.
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May 22, 2012
Ex-Enron CEO Skilling Will Seek New Trial, Attys Say
Attorneys for former Enron CEO Jeffrey K. Skilling on Thursday said the imprisoned executive will seek a new trial surrounding his scheme to hide Enron's financial woes, a month after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his latest attempt to overturn his conviction.
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May 22, 2012
5th Circ. Reopens Suit Over Texas Beachfront Land Seizure
The Fifth Circuit on Monday gave a former Texas landowner another shot at her claim that the state was wrong to seize her private waterfront land under the Texas Open Beaches Act.
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May 22, 2012
Latham Adds 2 Vinson M&A Partners To Energy Group
Latham & Watkins LLP has added to its rapidly growing Houston energy practice with the hire of two Vinson & Elkins LLP mergers and acquisitions partners who advise energy companies and private equity firms, Latham said Monday.
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May 22, 2012
Texas Has Right To Defund Planned Parenthood, 5th Circ. Hears
Texas' health commission is not constitutionally bound to allot state funds to Planned Parenthood because the First Amendment allows Texas to exclude groups that are at odds with its priority of promoting childbirth, the American Center for Law & Justice told the Fifth Circuit on Monday.
Expert Analysis
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Upholding CWA Negligence Standard In The 5th Circuit
In U.S. v. Pruett, the Fifth Circuit has distinguished, but not overruled, Ahmad, in holding that an offense of the Clean Water Act explicitly requires negligence. This will be important in the Fifth Circuit to the extent a future defendant in that jurisdiction must defend against a knowing violation of the CWA, says Kimberly Bick of Irell & Manella LLP.
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Force Placed Insurance: A Coverage Lifeboat?
In Alvarado v. Lexington Insurance Co., the Texas Court of Appeals has thoroughly examined the issue of whether a homeowner, subject to "force placed" insurance, has any rights in the policy obtained by his lender. This issue is likely to have increasing prominence for lenders — and their insurers — as the correspondence between the mapped flood plain and reality becomes more and more in error, says Wylie Donald of McCarter & English LLP.
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Dallas — No Place For Markman Drama?
It is always priceless when judges provide insights into their thought processes. Judge David Godbey of the Northern District of Texas recently informed us all that he prefers the simple pleasures of the written word to watching a claim construction soap opera play out in his courtroom, says Gaston Kroub of Locke Lord LLP.
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Implications Of Sterling Chemicals V. Evans
The Fifth Circuit recently held in Sterling Chemicals V. Evans that a paragraph in an asset purchase agreement qualified as an amendment to an employee benefit plan, highlighting a split between circuits of the U.S. Courts of Appeal, say Paul Compernolle, Michael Graham and Maggie McTigue of McDermott Will & Emery LLP.
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Circuit Split? Mirant Vs. Adelphia
The Fifth Circuit decision in In re Mirant Corp. appears to be in direct conflict with Adelphia Recovery Trust v. Bank of America NA, but a closer analysis reveals that the two decisions are reconcilable. Unfortunately, the court in Mirant adopted legal conclusions without much analysis — or any mention of the analysis provided by Adelphia — making the status of this area of law unclear, says Vincent Roldan of Vandenberg & Feliu LLP.
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When HIPAA Is Not Enough: Tougher Texas Privacy Laws
New privacy requirements that are more stringent than the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act have entered into force in Texas. These changes are likely to have significant reach, impacting not only HIPAA-covered entities, but also governmental entities, schools and universities, and other entities in Texas that process protected health information, say attorneys with Goodwin Procter LLP.
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Where Rubber Hits Road: Examples Of Alternative Fees
Creating new approaches to fee agreements is something to embrace rather than fear — and when structured and managed correctly, it can be financially advantageous. Take, for example, fixed-fee arrangements, result-based billing and portfolio billing, say Bill Rudnick and Keith Maziarek of DLA Piper.
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Vitro: Defining 'Manifestly Contrary' To US Policy
Since the enactment of Chapter 15 in 2005, relatively few courts have addressed what would be "manifestly contrary" to United States public policy. But it is likely that the Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Texas will be asked to address the public policy exception when it considers recognition of the Mexican concurso of Vitro SAB de CV, say attorneys with Chadbourne & Parke LLP.
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Predictive Coding — Putting The Cart Before The Horse
Many providers and pundits may focus on the Kleen Products LLC v. Packaging Corporation of America case currently pending in Illinois as proof of either judicial acceptance or rejection of predictive coding. But the need for parties to act reasonably in litigation and e-discovery trumps any debate over the use of new technologies, says Christina Zachariason of Navigant Consulting Inc.
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9th Circ. Firsts: Equitable Mootness And Arbitration
2012 is shaping up as a year of bankruptcy first impressions for the Ninth Circuit. The court has sailed into uncharted bankruptcy waters twice already this year in the same Chapter 11 case — In re Thorpe Insulation Co., say attorneys with Jones Day.