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Securities Fraud Liability May Hit More Defendants
Law Firm News |
2010/06/21 09:05
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pPeter J. Henning follows issues involving securities law and white-collar crime for DealBook’s White Collar Watch. As Congress works on the final version of the financial regulatory bill, a major change in liability for corporate law firms, accounting firms and investment banks has been inserted into the measure. House members of the conference committee agreed to add a provision offered by Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, to restore aiding and abetting liability for private securities fraud cases./ppThe impact of the amendment is significant because it expands the potential defendants in securities fraud class actions to include more than just the company accused of making misstatements or omissions, and these are defendants with deep pockets.
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Law firm: BP claims form flawed
Law Firm News |
2010/06/16 10:07
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| pBP said Tuesday it has accelerated its process of approving payments for commercial claims related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, but two Miami law firms representing fisherman said the oil company’s claim forms are flawed./ppBP said it approved initial payments toward 90 percent of commercial large-loss claims that have been filed as a result the ongoing oil disaster. The U.K.-based oil giant said it approved payment of 337 checks for a total of $16 million to businesses that have filed claims in excess of $5,000./ppThis week, the two firms, Grossman Roth, P.A. and Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price amp; Axelrod LLP, began representing 600 fishermen from the Florida Keys Commercial Fisherman's Association. They warned that BP’s oil spill claim forms are seriously flawed./pp“The claim form that BP put on its website is inadequate under the federal Oil Pollution Act,” said Andy Yaffa of Grossman Roth./p |
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Court OKs Calif. city's day laborer crackdown
Law Firm News |
2010/06/10 10:37
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| pA federal appeals court on Wednesday upheld the city of Redondo Beach's ordinance allowing for the arrest of day laborers who approach automobiles soliciting work./ppA divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower-court decision./ppThe appeals court said the city's ordinance, modeled after a Phoenix law upheld by the same court, was a reasonable response to traffic problems that officials said day laborers soliciting work caused at two city intersections. The 2-1 majority noted that Redondo Beach allowed the day laborers an alternative forum to seek work such as passing out literature on sidewalks and in parking lots./ppJudge Sandra Ikuta wrote for the majority that we conclude that the Redondo Beach ordinance is narrowly tailored to serve Redondo Beach's significant interests in traffic flow and safety./p |
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Appeals court rules against Bagram detainees
Law Firm News |
2010/05/24 03:04
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| Detainees at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan cannot use U.S. courts to challenge their imprisonment the way detainees in Guantanamo Bay have, a federal appeals court ruled Friday in a victory for the Obama administration.pThree appeals court judges said in an unanimous decision that because Afghanistan is a war zone and that the United States in effect has sovereignty over Guantanamo Bay swing the balance against the detainees./ppUnlike Guantanamo Bay, it is undisputed that Bagram, indeed the entire nation of Afghanistan, remains a theater of war, the judges said in turning aside the requests of a Tunisian and two Yemeni prisoners./ppIn the case of Guantanamo Bay detainees, who do have the right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts, the United States has maintained its total control of the Guantanamo Bay facility for over a century, even in the face of a hostile government, the court noted./p |
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CANCER CLUSTER TRIAL APPROACHES
Law Firm News |
2010/05/17 09:25
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p style=text-align: center; line-height: 200%; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none class=MsoNormal align=centerstrong style=mso-bidi-font-weight: normalspan style=line-height: 200%; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0ptfont face=Times New Romanfont size=3CDC, COUNTY AND ILLINOIS STATE HEALTH DEPARTMENT REPORTS ARE “INADMISSIBLE,” JUDGE RULES;/font o:p/o:p/font/span/strong/ppA state court judge is barring from evidence studies by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Illinois Department of Health, and the McHenry County Health Department in what is believed to be the largest brain cancer cluster cases in the U.S. courts. The first trial in the group of 31 cases is to begin here on June 7. /ppCourt of Common Pleas Judge Allan Tereshko last week ruled against Rohm amp; Haas/Dow Chemical, the defendant, deciding that the public health epidemiological studies are “irrelevant” to the case and “can only serve as a source of confusion and misdirection.”/ppThe brain cancer cluster victims from McCullom Lake, Illinois, are asserting that Philadelphia-based Rohm amp; Haas, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow, poisoned the air and groundwater in the McCullom Lake community with vinyl chloride (among other toxic chemicals) discharged from its chemical-manufacturing plant into an unlined waste pit near their homes. The Plaintiffs allege that prolonged exposure caused them to contract rare malignant brain cancers and brain tumors; 10 of the victims have died./ppThe first three brain cancer victims – next-door neighbors who were each diagnosed with malignant brain cancer within the same year – filed suit in April 2006.nbsp; Less than a month later, the McHenry Health Department, using outdated cancer-rate data (based on zip codes) for the area that includes McCullom Lake, told local residents there was no epidemiological evidence of a brain cancer cluster.nbsp; McCullom Lake’s population is only about 1,000 people; the population of its zip-code region is roughly 50,000. nbsp; Later, the state Department of Health announced that more recent data showed that there was no epidemiological evidence of a brain cancer cluster in McHenry County – population more than 300,000.nbsp; Under public pressure, the county government then asked the CDC to review the analyses of the two health departments.nbsp; /ppThe Court’s order comes after attorneys for Rohm and Haas/Dow have claimed in pre-trial proceedings and in the news media that no public agency has found a brain cancer cluster in McCullom Lake.nbsp; Their statements rely on the flawed studies that the judge has now ruled inadmissible, according to Aaron J. Freiwald, lead trial attorney for the plaintiffs. /pp“The studies cited by the defendant were about as valid in this case as if you did a study of brain cancer rates in the entire state of Illinois or in all of the Western Hemisphere,” Freiwald said.nbsp; “They, too, wouldn’t tell you anything about brain cancer rates in McCullom Lake. When you do the math, using reliable, objective data, there is no escaping the fact there was and is a cancer cluster in McCullom Lake Village.”/ppThe trial Court, in granting Plaintiff’s Motion to Preclude evidence of the studies, noted that the studies supported by the defendants “do not attempt to discretely address the pattern of brain cancer represented in the significantly smaller subset which is the Village.” /ppThe first brain cancer cluster case to go to trial will be on behalf of Joanne Branham, who lived with her husband Franklin Delano Branham in McCullom Lake for 30 years.nbsp; Mr. Branham was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a lethal form of brain cancer, in 2004, just a few years after he and Joanne relocated to Apache Junction, Arizona, near Phoenix. He died just one month after brain surgery.nbsp; /ppJury selection is scheduled for June 3rd.nbsp;
Contacts:
Aaron J. Freiwald, Esq.
a href=mailto:ajf@layserfreiwald.comfont color=#336699ajf@layserfreiwald.com/font/a
215.875.8000
Stephan Rosenfeld (for Layser amp; Freiwald)
215.514.4101
a href=mailto:steph@idadvisors.comfont color=#336699steph@idadvisors.com/font/a/p |
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US lawmaker urges action on Russian lawyer's death
Law Firm News |
2010/04/28 07:53
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pA U.S. senator urged the State Department on Monday to deny entry to the United States for all Russian officials allegedly responsible for the prison death of a lawyer./ppSergey Magnitsky died in November after spending almost a year in jail. He was awaiting trial on tax-evasion charges linked to his work with a British investor barred from Russia because of allegations he was a security risk./ppSen. Benjamin Cardin, D-Md., released a letter he wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton asking her to deny entry to the United States of several senior officials from the Russian Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service and the Federal Tax Service./ppMagnitsky's colleagues and attorney believe the public officials listed by Cardin were involved in the lawyer's death./ppWe can take the concrete action to ensure those public officials and others who share responsibility for this crime should be denied entry visas to the United States, Cardin wrote. Since the death, a number of prison officials have been fired, but no one has been prosecuted for his torture or death, nor for participating in the corruption he exposed.
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