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Former Stanford Investment Advisers Push to Get Assets Unfrozen
Headline Legal News |
2009/08/26 22:59
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The Fulton County Daily Reports states that when Stanford International Bank, the financial institution founded by larger-than-life Texan R. Allen Stanford, imploded earlier this year after the Securities and Exchange Commission accused the bank of fraud, assets belonging not just to investors but also to financial advisers once employed there were frozen.
Now, with the help of some Atlanta lawyers, those financial advisers are trying to get their money back.
Jason W. Graham of Graham & Penman, along with associate Eric L. Jensen and Fort Worth, Texas, lawyer Robert J. Wright, filed a motion in US District Court for the Northern District of Texas on July 28 seeking to modify the receivership order and to have accounts belonging to 10 former financial advisers at Stanford International Bank, or SIB, released. |
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Class Claims Facebook Invades Privacy, Sells Personal Information
Headline Legal News |
2009/08/25 16:29
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Facebook invades the privacy of its customers and misappropriates people's images and personal information for marketing and commercial purposes, a class action claims in Orange County Court, Calif. The class claims Facebook's "unconscionable" terms and conditions allow it to compile an extraordinary amount of data from users, and permits third parties access to a gold mine of information without users' knowledge or consent.
Professional photographer Elisha Melkonian says Facebook permitted her photos to be downloaded, copied and distributed without her permission, despite her fruitless attempts to stop it.
Melkonian says she is concerned that Facebook has stored personal information posted by her 11-year-old son, including "partially clothed photographs of children aged 5 to 11" who were swimming.
She claims Facebook's terms and conditions are misleading, as they do not clearly specify how Facebook stores or uses such sensitive material as contact information, date of birth, email addresses and phone numbers, which puts users at risk of identity theft. |
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Newly Released Documents Show Rehnquist's Private Side
Headline Legal News |
2009/08/24 20:55
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The National Law Journal reports that in the dark days after he announced that he was suffering from thyroid cancer in late October 2004, Chief Justice William Rehnquist's in-box filled up with anxious notes from his colleagues.
"Top priority at Court," wrote Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, is "to have our Chief back with us, steadily on course toward a cancer-free future."
Justice David Souter reported to the chief that, after an overly long discussion among the justices of a minor case in Rehnquist's absence, "I could hear Tony [Kennedy] muttering under his breath, 'Five minutes on [the case]. The chief better get back here fast.'" Souter added, "That's certainly the sense of the Court as we all pull for you in your ordeal."
From Justice Stephen Breyer also came a handwritten note: "You are missing nothing here! The cases are routine; our lunchtime discussions need your input -- particularly on recent films." Breyer did joke that Rehnquist had missed a chance to win some money from him in the justices' apparently low-stakes wagering over the presidential election. "I paid $1 to CT [Clarence Thomas]," Breyer said. It's a safe bet that Breyer had put his money on John Kerry and Thomas on George W.Bush. |
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Asbestos Tests Must Continue
Headline Legal News |
2009/08/19 16:13
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Courthouse News reports that air tests for asbestos-like fibers must continue at a Minnesota mining plant because a 1975 order to do so has been folded into the state's environmental laws, the 8th Circuit ruled.
Northshore Mining Co., a taconite processing facility in Silver Bay, Minn., has tried for several years to get fiber tests removed from state permits.
But the St. Louis-based 8th Circuit agreed with a district court that the 34-year-old law is moot because it "has been effectively incorporated into state administrative law." |
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Bogus 'Emergency' In Forest, Groups Say
Headline Legal News |
2009/08/17 16:23
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Courthouse News reports that the US Forest Service declared a bogus "emergency situation" to push through a salvage timber sale in Northern California's Klamath National Forest, three environmental groups say in Federal Court. The Forest Service can declare an emergency when a project threatens imminent economic loss to the government, but the only ones who will lose if this project doesn't proceed is a private, third-party timber auction bidder, the groups say.
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, instead of the inaccurate and incomplete environmental analysis the Forest Service prepared, it needs to complete a more comprehensive environmental impact statement that also considers cumulative impacts and a full range of alternatives, the groups say.
Joining the Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Center as plaintiffs are the Environmental Protection Information Center and the Klamath Forest Alliance.
Represented by René Voss of San Anselmo, the groups seek withdrawal of the faulty environmental assessment, want the "emergency situation" to be set aside, and injunctive relief. |
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Texas Judge Orders Microsoft To Stop Selling Word In The US
Headline Legal News |
2009/08/13 16:39
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Courthouse News reports a federal judge in Texas fined Microsoft $290 million and ordered it to stop selling Word in the United States, because the word-processing software violates a patent held by a small company called i4i. Toronto-based i4i, which has about 30 employees, said Microsoft violated a patent tied to Extensible Markup Language or XML, a special alphabet that allows computers to interpret text.
The Canadian company filed a patent for a "customized XML" tool in 1998.
Because Word 2003 and Word 2007 have the ability to process XML documents with custom XML elements, i4i accused Microsoft of patent infringement. Microsoft insisted the patent was invalid.
In May, a jury ruled for i4i and awarded it $200 million in damages.
Microsoft moved for judgment despite the verdict, but US District Judge Leonard Davis in Tyler, Texas, sided with i4i, saying Microsoft knowingly infringed on the smaller company's patent. |
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Top Madoff Aid Pleads Guilty
Headline Legal News |
2009/08/12 18:57
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According to the New York Law Journal, Bernard L. Madoff's right-hand man pleaded guilty Tuesday and is cooperating in the government's investigation into the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
Frank DiPascali Jr. waived indictment and entered guilty pleas to 10 counts in a criminal information before Southern District of New York Judge Richard J. Sullivan. DiPascali admitted he was part of a scheme that cost institutions, individual investors and charities billions of dollars.
In spite of his cooperation with the government and over the objections of both his defense counsel and the prosecution, Sullivan ordered DiPascali to jail immediately.
DiPascali, who began working for Madoff in 1975 and who was described as the company's chief financial officer, said the conspiracy dated back to the early 1980s and that he followed Madoff's lead from the outset. |
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