Corporate Law

Fla. AG Probes Large Foreclosure Law Firm re Possible ‘False & Misleading’ Mortgage Docs

The attorney general’s office in Florida is investigating a law firm with a high-volume foreclosure practice to determine whether it was in involved in “fabricating and/or presenting false and misleading documents in foreclosure cases,” reports the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.). A spokeswoman for the Tampa-based firm Florida Default Law…

Apr 29, 2010 10:59 PM CDT

Ex-Toyota Lawyer Explains Split with His Counsel: I Wanted to Go to Trial

A difference of opinion about how his whistle-blower case against Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. should be handled prompted a pending divorce with his trial counsel, says a former in-house lawyer for the company. His lawyers recommended settlement after the validity of his severance agreement, which included a $3.7 million…

Apr 27, 2010 5:09 PM CDT

McDermott Wins Appeal of $4.4M Trial Court Sanction in Medtronic Patent Case

A federal appeals court today reversed an award of nearly $4.4 million against McDermott Will & Emery and its clients for what a lower court had earlier termed “abuse of advocacy.” Contrary to the trial court’s finding that the law firm’s attorneys proceeded “cavalierly” and “with full awareness that their…

Apr 26, 2010 10:58 PM CDT

After Gizmodo Posts iPhone Pix, Cops Seize Editor’s Home Computers

Updated: An editor for a gadgets site that posted photographs of a lost iPhone prototype last week returned to his home in Fremont, Calif., on Friday night to find authorities searching it. Deputies from the San Mateo County Sheriff’s office also searched Gizmodo editor Jason Chen before seizing multiple computers…

Apr 26, 2010 10:17 PM CDT

Lawyers Ask to Exit Toyota Whistle-Blower Case Brought By Former In-House Counsel

Citing a “breakdown in the attorney-client relationship” that has made it “unreasonably difficult” to represent a former Toyota Motor Sales USA in-house counsel in a whistle-blower suit against the embattled automotive manufacturer, lawyer Jeff Allen is seeking to withdraw from the case along with his partner, Joseph Wohrle. The two…

Apr 26, 2010 8:23 PM CDT

Divided 9th Cir. Green Lights Massive Wal-Mart Sex Discrimination Suit

In a 6-5 ruling today, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave a green light to a massive 2001 class action suit by female workers of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that is reportedly the biggest class action suit ever. The plaintiffs can now proceed to trial; Wal-Mart, which…

Apr 26, 2010 7:33 PM CDT

Judge Dismisses Mortgage Foreclosure Over ‘Fraudulently Backdated’ Doc

A Florida judge has dismissed a mortgage foreclosure case filed by a national bank, finding not only that the bank couldn’t prove it owned the mortgage at the time that it filed the complaint but “fraudulently backdated, in a purposeful, intentional effort to mislead” a purported 2007 “assignment of mortgage,”…

Apr 19, 2010 6:23 PM CDT

IG Says SEC Largely Ignored Likely Allen Stanford Ponzi Scheme for a Decade

Although the Securities and Exchange Commission suspected as early as 1997 that R. Allen Stanford was running a Ponzi scheme, and its examiners concluded four times between 1997 and 2004 that his businesses were fraudulent, the federal regulatory watchdog didn’t pursue Stanford seriously until around the time that Bernard Madoff’s…

Apr 17, 2010 1:47 AM CDT

Former Blackwater Gen’l Counsel, 4 Other Ex-Execs Indicted in Weapons Case

Five former executives of a private security company that made headlines over its involvement in a 2007 Baghdad shooting incident that left 17 Iraqi civilians dead are now under indictment, facing apparently unrelated charges that they illegally stockpiled automatic weapons at Blackwater Worldwide’s headquarters in North Carolina and filed false…

Apr 17, 2010 12:06 AM CDT

Preliminary Plaintiffs Lawyer Team Is Tapped in Consolidated Toyota Case

After news late last week that the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation had decided to consolidate nearly 200 lawsuits against Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. before a single federal judge in California, that judge has now tapped a preliminary team of plaintiffs lawyers to lead the complex case. U.S.…

Apr 16, 2010 9:24 PM CDT

Md. Adopts Nation’s First Law Creating Do-Gooder ‘Benefit Corporations’

Maryland’s governor signed legislation this week creating a new kind of corporation that seeks to make a profit at the same time it performs social good. The measure is the nation’s first “benefit corporation” law, according to stories in Business Week and the Philadelphia Inquirer. It allows directors of such…

Apr 15, 2010 4:06 PM CDT

Despite Legal Issues, Dogs at Work Can Be a Plus; Hawk & Squirrel are Sent Home

On the theory that a happy employee is a productive employee, a number of avant-garde business owners let employees bring pets to work. But the arrangement can present both practical and legal issues, reports the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.). At Justia Inc., co-owner Stacy Stern admits that her two…

Apr 14, 2010 10:41 PM CDT

While Winning $1.25B in Bet-the-Farm Case, Lead Trial Lawyers Also Were Divorcing Each Other

As one of the top trial lawyers in California, partner Linda Smith of O’Melveny & Myers was an obvious choice to work on a major antitrust case against Intel Corp. on behalf of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. And so was her husband, O’Melveny partner and litigation star Chuck Diamond. The…

Apr 13, 2010 8:54 PM CDT

French Prosecutors Probe Whether Suicides Were Due to Company’s ‘Moral Harassment’

An investigative magistrate has been appointed in Paris to determine whether France Télécom should be charged with “moral harassment” in the suicides of 35 of its employees. The investigation comes after inspectors from the French Labor Ministry issued a report finding that a restructuring with the goal of cutting 22,000…

Apr 12, 2010 11:33 AM CDT

Jailed Onetime Billionaire Allen Stanford Gets Yet Another Lawyer—Alan Dershowitz

Only a few days ago, a federal judge in Houston said he wasn’t going to approve any more changes in defense counsel for jailed onetime billionaire R. Allen Stanford, who is accused of masterminding a $7 billion Ponzi scheme. But today the Houston Chronicle is reporting another addition to Stanford’s…

Apr 8, 2010 7:29 PM CDT