Law Reports

Cherilyn Zavatsky | Bloomberg Law Houston Cas. Co. v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins. Co., No. 10-1835, 2011 BL 306808 (4th Cir. Dec. 6, 2011) Insurance brokers at times may undertake non-traditional roles with respect to insureds. Brokers’ professional liability insurance is usually obtained to cover the broker’s liability for its activities, but brokers [...]

Richard Powell | Bloomberg Law Final Notice to Integrated Financial Arrangements plc – Financial Services Authority, 5 December 2011 ntegrated Financial Arrangements plc (IFA), the UK’s largest wrap provider, has become the latest firm to be disciplined by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) for client money breaches. This takes place in quick succession to recent [...]

Blayne V. Scofield | Bloomberg Law Culhane v. Aurora Loan Services of Nebraska, No. 11-cv-11098, 2011 BL 299995 (D. Mass. Nov. 28, 2011) Massachusetts federal Judge William Young’s November 28, 2011 opinion in Culhane v. Aurora Loan Services of Nebraska is notable for several reasons. First, Judge Young concludes that an assignment executed by a dual employee [...]

Ashok Chandra | Bloomberg Law Expedia, Inc. v. City of New York Dept. of Finance, 2011 NY Slip Op 08648 (App Div, 1st Dept Nov. 29, 2011) The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York determined that a tax increase implemented by New York City’s Department of Finance on online travel companies was [...]

Gellman v. Telular Corp., No. 11-01196, 2011 BL 301393 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 30, 2011) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a plaintiff’s patent infringement action for lack of standing. The plaintiff asserted that her late husband’s employee and co-inventor of the patent in suit had effectively assigned his [...]

Fanni Koszeg | Bloomberg Law CFTC & SEC Congressional Testimony, Gary Gensler & Mary Shapiro (Dec. 1, 2011) Gary Gensler, Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Mary Schapiro, head of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry (Committee) at a hearing scheduled [...]

Kate Hooker | Bloomberg Law Lluberes v. Uncommon Productions, LLC, No. 10-2082, 2011 BL 303756 (1st Cir. Dec. 2, 2011) A district court correctly ruled that sugar cane producers in the Dominican Republic who filed a defamation action against filmmakers who documented the inhumane treatment of workers were limited-purpose public figures and thus required to [...]

Jonathan D. Gupta | Bloomberg Law Joint Committee on Taxation, Present Law and Issues Related to the Taxation of Financial Instruments and Products (Dec. 2, 2011) The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) prepared a report on issues related to the taxation of derivatives and other financial instruments, including concerns over inconsistent tax treatment of economically similar instruments. [...]

Rebecca L. Tsai | Bloomberg Law Verizon New York, Inc. v. Optical Communications Group, Inc., No. 4598, 2011 NY Slip Op 08685, 2011 BL 302181 (App. Div. Dec. 1, 2011) Verizon New York, Inc., owns an underground conduit network beneath New York City. Pursuant to the New York Public Service Law, Verizon is required to [...]

Alex Kreonidis | Bloomberg Law Gaines v. Janus Capital Mgmt., LLC, No. 10-01207, 2011 BL 304462 (4th Cir. Dec. 2, 2011) In an unpublished opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of three mutual fund trusts (Trusts), two of their service providers, and [...]

Cherilyn Zavatsky | Bloomberg Law Fruge v. Amerisure Mut. Ins. Co., No. 10-31178, 2011 BL 299036 (5th Cir. Nov. 22, 2011) The Fifth Circuit held that an insurer could offer extrinsic evidence to support its claim that its policies should be reformed based on a mutual mistake of the parties. The court interpreted for the [...]

John G. Haley | Bloomberg Law In the Matter of Facebook, Inc., FTC File No. 092 3184 (Nov. 29, 2011) Facebook, the social networking site with 750 million users, settled with the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) over charges that it collected, used and granted access to its users’ personal information in contravention of its own [...]

Michael L. Calder | Bloomberg Law Flynn v. Holder, No. 10-55643, 2011 BL 302580 (9th Cir. Dec. 1, 2011) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in a unanimous three-judge opinion, held that the National Organ Transplant Act, 42 U.S.C. § 273 et. seq. (NOTA), does not prohibit compensation for donations of blood [...]

Jennifer Gaeta | Bloomberg Law Groupion, LLC v. Groupon, Inc., No. 11-CV-00870, 2011 BL 301435 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 28, 2011) The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied Groupion, LLC’s preliminary injunction motion against Groupon, Inc., the popular online coupon site, in a trademark dispute. The court further denied Groupion’s motion for [...]

Susan M. Greenwood | Bloomberg Law SEC Congressional Testimony, Robert Khuzami (Dec. 1, 2011) Robert Khuzami, Director of the Division of Enforcement (Division) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) testified before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs concerning the “Application of Insider Trading Laws to Trading by Members of Congress and [...]

Adrienne Woods | Bloomberg Law JAS Partners, Ltd. v. Fort Wayne Telsat, Inc. (In re Fort Wayne Telsat, Inc.) (No. 11-2112, 2011 BL 299152 (7th Cir. Nov. 23, 2011) The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld the approval of a settlement, finding that the bankruptcy trustee (“Trustee”) had engaged in sufficient discovery [...]

Tatiana Rodriguez | Bloomberg Law SEC v. Citigroup Global Markets Inc., No. 11-CV-07387 (S.D.N.Y. Filed Oct. 19, 2011) In rejecting the recent consent judgment between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (Citigroup), Judge Jed S. Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York brought to [...]

Laura McQuade | Bloomberg Law Scarlet Extended SA v. Société Belge des Auteurs Compositeurs et Éditeurs, Case C-70/10 (Eur. Ct. Justice Nov. 24, 2010) The European Court of Justice (ECJ) held that European Union law prohibits an injunction requiring an Internet Service Provider (ISP) to install, for an unlimited period and at the ISP’s own [...]

Raphael Rosenblatt | Bloomberg Law CFTC Speech, Commissioner Scott O’Malia, Keynote Address of the 7th Annual FIA Asia Derivatives Conference (Nov. 30, 2011) Commissioner Scott D. O’Malia of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) delivered the keynote address at the 7th Annual FIA Asia Derivatives Conference. Noting that three years have passed since the financial crisis [...]

Sima Saran Ahuja | Bloomberg Law CFTC Speech, Bart Chilton, Remarks at New York Law School, Center on Financial Services Law (Nov. 15, 2011) In his remarks at New York Law School, Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Commissioner Bart Chilton discussed financial scams and compared the recent rise in Ponzi schemes to a “pandemic of [...]