Overall
Key cases
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Intellectual Property
Labor & Employment
Corporate
Practice Areas
White Collar
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April 17, 2013
Ex-Sigma Analyst's Insider Trading Sentencing Delayed
A New York federal judge on Wednesday agreed to put off the sentencing of a former analyst at hedge fund Sigma Capital Management for insider trading, pursuant to the government’s request, as he continues to cooperate with prosecutors.
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April 16, 2013
10th Circ. Backs 6-Year Sentence For Corrupt Prison Official
The Tenth Circuit on Tuesday affirmed the 70-month prison sentence imposed on a former high-ranking New Mexico corrections official who took about $237,000 in kickbacks from a roofing contractor, finding she had properly received a sentencing enhancement for obstructing the investigation into her misconduct.
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April 16, 2013
2nd Circ. Lets Madoff Feeder Fund Deflect Suit Amid Ch. 15
The Second Circuit on Tuesday upheld U.S. recognition of Bernard Madoff feeder fund Fairfield Sentry Ltd.’s Caribbean bankruptcy, quashing an investor’s bid to circumvent Chapter 15 protections and sue the fund.
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April 16, 2013
Amgen To Pay $25M To Escape Anemia Drug Kickback Suit
Amgen Inc., which pled guilty in December to misbranding its Aranesp anemia drug, will pay $24.9 million to settle a whistleblower suit alleging it paid kickbacks to pharmacy providers to promote the drug among Medicare and Medicaid patients, the U.S. Department of Justice said Tuesday.
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April 16, 2013
U Of Cincinnati Coach Gets Nod To Depose Fund Co-Founder
A federal judge in Alabama on Monday granted college football coach Tommy Tuberville’s request to depose his co-defendant in the lawsuit that accuses both of them of mismanaging nearly $2 million in the TS Capital Partners hedge fund they co-founded.
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April 16, 2013
Parker Drilling Shells Out $16M To Settle FCPA Actions
The U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday signed off on a nearly $16 million deal with Parker Drilling Co. to resolve allegations that the drilling services company violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by improperly influencing Nigerian officials to reduce a $3.8 million customs penalty.
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April 16, 2013
$141M MF Global Loss Gets Ex-Trader 5 Years In Prison
A former commodities trader was sentenced in Illinois federal court Tuesday to five years in prison on charges that he cost his former clearing firm, the now-bankrupt MF Global Inc., $141 million in 2008 by making large trades on wheat futures contracts knowing he couldn't pay potential losses.
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April 16, 2013
Penn State Can't Dodge Ex-Coach's Whistleblower Suit
A Pennsylvania state judge on Tuesday declined to boot former assistant football coach Mike McQueary’s whistleblower and defamation suit against Pennsylvania State University, saying he sufficiently alleged that school officials made him a scapegoat for cooperating with the investigation into convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky.
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April 15, 2013
9th Circ. Pares Convictions In Calif. City Corruption Case
The Ninth Circuit on Monday reversed some of the convictions of Albert Robles — the imprisoned former treasurer of South Gate, Calif. — and his associate over Robles’ bribery scheme with city contractors, citing the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Skilling v. United States, which narrowed the scope of honest services fraud.
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April 15, 2013
RE Exec Can't Escape Ponzi Conviction In 10th Circ.
The Tenth Circuit on Monday affirmed the conviction of Phillip Lochmiller Sr. on conspiracy charges related to a $30 million real estate Ponzi scheme, rejecting his arguments that the case should be overturned due to prejudicial jury instructions and a lack of evidence.
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April 15, 2013
Yahoo Beats Privacy Suit Over Subpoenas In 9th Circ.
The Ninth Circuit on Monday upheld the dismissal of a proposed class action against Yahoo Inc. alleging the company illegally shared a user’s private information with a Georgia criminal grand jury, saying although subpoenas for the information allegedly weren’t valid, the company is immune anyway.
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April 15, 2013
CORRECTED: Scripps Heir Guilty Of Embezzling $3.6M From Family
An heir of Detroit News founder James E. Scripps is in prison after a Pennsylvania federal jury convicted him Friday of embezzling $3.6 million from his family — and spending it on houses, jewelry and a stripper — through a wire fraud scheme.
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April 12, 2013
Only Counsel Can Call Witnesses, Fla. High Court Says
The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the authority to decide who to call as a witness in a criminal trial rests with a defendant's attorney, not the defendant himself.
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April 12, 2013
Reporter's Tapped Call On Hold For Now In Ex-DA's Trial
A Texas federal judge overseeing the trial of an allegedly corrupt district attorney on Thursday declined to suppress or admit a wiretapped conversation between a newspaper reporter and a former state judge who was convicted of racketeering in a related case, the reporter’s attorney said.
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April 12, 2013
Dickie Scruggs Loses Bid To Vacate Corruption Conviction
The Fifth Circuit on Friday affirmed the conviction of once-prominent plaintiffs' lawyer Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, ruling that Scruggs could not waive an earlier guilty plea after the U.S. Supreme Court's Skilling v. United States decision narrowed the scope of what constitutes honest services fraud.
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April 12, 2013
6th Circ. Nixes $12M Ponzi Sentences Due To Trial Delay
The Sixth Circuit on Friday overturned a lower court's prison sentences of two men convicted in a $12 million Ponzi scheme, ruling that the government violated speedy trial laws by deliberately delaying one man's extradition from Switzerland in a misguided effort to build its case.
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April 12, 2013
Penn State Insurer Wins Bid To Move Sandusky Coverage Case
A state judge on Thursday agreed to transfer the Pennsylvania State University's recently filed suit over insurance coverage for civil litigation stemming from the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal to Philadelphia County court, but rejected the insurer's motion for sanctions against the school.
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April 12, 2013
File Sharers Can't Expect Privacy, 6th Circ. Rules
The Sixth Circuit on Thursday upheld a lower court’s ruling that a man convicted on child porn charges did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in files he made publicly available on the Lime Wire LLC “peer-to-peer” file-sharing service.
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April 12, 2013
TVA Contractor Gets 6 1/2 Years For $2.5M Bonus Fraud
A Tennessee federal judge on Thursday sentenced a construction firm contractor to 6 1/2 years in prison for falsifying safety records at Tennessee Valley Authority power plants as part of a scheme to collect more than $2.5 million in bonuses.
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April 12, 2013
Fake Doctor Gets 12 Years For Medicare Fraud, Records Theft
A New York federal judge Wednesday handed down a 12-year prison sentence to a woman who posed as a doctor to steal records of 1,000 patients and defraud Medicare in a multimillion-dollar scheme that funded purchases of a mansion and luxury cars, prosecutors said.
Expert Analysis
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No Clear Rule On Warrantless Cellphone Searches
When a person is arrested with a cellphone on him, law enforcement officers will likely want to search the phone’s contents. Courts have focused on different issues in determining whether to allow a warrantless cellphone search, and there is no standard analysis, say Bridget Rohde and Sara Crasson of Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC.
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No Harm, No Foul — Is The Error Prejudicial Or Harmless?
Even if an appellant establishes that a trial court erred, the trial court’s decision might not be disturbed. The error must also be prejudicial and not simply harmless. But who bears the burden of showing prejudice and how is that showing made? What errors are prejudicial and what errors are harmless? And how do the standards differ in civil and criminal cases? Practitioners would do well to review these issues, says J. Bradford McCullough of Lerch Early & Brewer Chtd.
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Litigation Support At A Crossroads
Despite recession-driven cost pressures that have resulted in the downsizing of nonlawyer personnel at law firms, many litigation support departments are growing. In a recent survey, half of respondents indicated that their function has grown in size in the past three years, and more than half of respondents indicated that current staffing levels are inadequate for the projected needs of the coming year, say experts at Epiq Systems and Georgetown University Law Center.
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An Insider’s View Of The FCPA Resource Guide
Recent commentary from the deputy chief of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, Fraud Section, suggests that the government’s FCPA resource guide — rather than being an outgrowth of mounting criticism from the business community, defense bar and other legal commentators concerning the FCPA’s troubling ambiguity and opaque enforcement policies — was more a product of international treaty obligations, says Caryn Trombino of Perkins Coie LLP.
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What Food Cos. Can Learn From Horses And Peanuts
As of late, two big stories have made headlines in the food industry: the horse meat scandal in Europe and the indictment against the Peanut Corp. of America on a salmonella outbreak. Both cases warrant close examination to understand how quickly a company can become ensnared in a public relations nightmare and how to handle an investigation once it starts, say attorneys with Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.
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Challenges In Conducting Breach Investigations: Part 1
Companies' data breach and cyber intrusion responses are commonly too narrowly shaped by state security breach notification requirements, industry rules governing payment card breaches and the absence of a direct legal obligation requiring a more comprehensive review. In critical instances, these responses are insufficient, says Kim Peretti of Alston & Bird 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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Italian Court's Google Decision: A Significant Precedent
The appellate court in Milan recently published its decision overturning the conviction of three Google Inc. executives for allowing video depicting the bullying of an autistic teenager to be uploaded to the Italian Google Video website. The opinion reduces the potential burdens facing content-hosting providers and other similar Internet companies, say attorneys with Jones Day.
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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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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.