A New Jersey Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that a $7 billion lawsuit filed by Italian dairy giant Parmalat SpA against Citigroup could go forward on a claim that Citigroup aided and abetted former Parmalat executives in misappropriating company money. Parmalat has alleged that Citigroup helped obscure the state of Parmalat's finances and helped to move the ill-gotten gains of former Parmalat executives through its bank accounts. Judge Jonathan N. Harris dismissed several of Parmalat's claims, including fraud claims brought under New Jersey's Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act and racketeering claims brought under the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The trial is scheduled for May 5.

Citigroup was among four banking giants indicted by an Italian judge in June 2007 for not revealing to the market that Parmalat was not financially healthy. Parmalat filed for insolvency in December 2003 after discovering accounting discrepancies totaling nearly $5 billion in debt.

The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals recently reversed a district court’s dismissal of a declaratory judgment action, relying on the Supreme Court’s decision in MedImmune Inc. v. Genentech Inc., 127 S.Ct. 764 (2007). See Micron Technology, Inc. v. MOSAID Technologies, Inc., 2008 WL 540182 (Feb. 29, 2008)

Micron was one of the four largest manufacturers of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips. Micron, together with Samsung Electronics Company, Ltd, Hynix Semiconductor, Inc., and Infineon Technologies of North America, controlled seventy-five percent of the worldwide market for these chips.

MOSAID held patents on the circuit technology that was used in the manufacture of DRAM chips. In 2001 and 2002, MOSAID sent a series of four letters to Micron inviting Micron to license MOSAID’s patents.

After sending letters to all four of the manufacturers who declined to enter into licenses with MOSAID, MOSAID began patent infringement litigation against each of the manufacturers. MOSAID first sued Samsung. Infineon then sued MOSAID for declaratory judgment of noninfringement. MOSAID and Samsung settled. MOSAID then sued Hynix, who later settled. MOSAID then settled with Infineon. In each settlement, MOSAID granted the manufacturer a license under its patents. MOSAID made statements in public and in its 2005 annual report that it intended to “aggressively” pursue all other DRAM manufacturers to force them to license MOSAID’s technology, and that it would be “unrelenting” in its litigation strategy. The industry believed that Micron was the next target of MOSAID.       

In July 2005, Micron filed a declaratory judgment in the Northern District of California seeking a declaration of noninfringement of 14 patents owned by MOSAID. The following day, MOSAID sued Micron and two other defendants, in the Eastern District of Texas, for infringing seven patents.  MOSAID later added one more defendant and three more patents to the Texas action.            

MOSAID then moved to dismiss the California action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court granted MOSAID’s motion on the grounds that Micron had no reasonable apprehension of being sued by MOSAID. The district court found that there was no evidence of threats from MOSAID to Micron for the last four years, no threats from MOSAID to Micron’s customers, and no public statements by MOSAID that it intented to sue Micron.           

Micron appealed and the Federal Circuit reversed.           

The court first held that the district court in California did have subject matter jurisdiction over the case. The district court had applied the wrong test – the “reasonable apprehension” test is not the proper test, according to the Supreme Court in MedImmune. The correct test, which the appellate court repeatedly stated “is more lenient,” is “whether the facts alleged under all the circumstances show that there is a substantial controversy between parties having adverse legal interests of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.” Micron, quoting MedImmune, 127 S.Ct. at 771.            

In applying this test, a district court must look at the evidence of all of the circumstances. In this case, the evidence included the series of letters from MOSAID to Micron, the previous suits from MOSAID against the other three manufacturers, and MOSAID’s public statements of its intent to aggressively pursue litigation against the remaining manufacturers.         

Carl Icahn and his affiliates on Monday said it is filing a lawsuit in the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware seeking a court order requiring Motorola to make certain materials demanded by Icahn from Motorola available for inspection.

The materials that Icahn is seeking include are any board and committee minutes and documents relating to the service and selection of Motorola's senior officers, the prospects or strategy of Motorola's Mobile Devices business and the realignment of its business regarding Mobile Devices, including the potential spinoff of the Mobile Devices business.

Icahn also seeks to include documents, if any, provided to Motorola's Board of Directors regarding matters disclosed in certain of Motorola's press releases and conference calls concerning the performance of Motorola and documents showing the use of Motorola's aircraft and other property by members of senior management, the board of directors and their families.

In addition, Carl Icahn and his affiliates released a letter to stockholders of Motorola, Inc., requesting stockholders to elect Frank Biondi, William Hambrecht, Lionel Kimerling and Keith Meister as directors of Motorola at the 2008 annual meeting of stockholders of Motorola.