Law Reports

Taxpayers and exam teams have significant roles to play in audits, the Internal Revenue Service said in new examination guidelines unveiled by the agency’s Large Business & International (LB &I) Division. The publication offered guidelines for the so-called Quality Examination process for the nation’s largest taxpayers. Planning is a major part of the initiative and taxpayers and [...]

An equity investor cannot use an insider to get around the absolute priority rule during a bankruptcy reorganization, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held Feb. 14 (In re Castleton Plaza LP,7th Cir., No. 12-2639, 2/14/13). In a case of first impression at the appellate level, the court, in an opinion by [...]

A cleaner who had a high-risk pregnancy and was fired after exhausting her leave under California’s Pregnancy Disability Leave Law still may have viable discrimination claims based on alleged failure to provide additional leave as a reasonable accommodation for her pregnancy-related disability, the California Court of Appeal held Feb. 21 in an issue of first impression (Sanchez [...]

Eight law firms have jointly issued a consensus report with their views on how companies should comply with a new law requiring issuers to disclose their Iran-related activities in quarterly and annual periodic filings. The new disclosure requirements are mandated by the 2012 Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act, which was signed into law in [...]

BitTorrent users who allegedly shared the same copyrighted work, or piece of that work, with an investigator cannot be joined as defendants in an infringement lawsuit because they did not interact with each other, a magistrate judge in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois recommended Feb. 11 (In Re BitTorrent Copyright [...]

By Joe Kirwin BRUSSELS–The European Union took another step Feb. 19 toward establishing an EU-wide patent scheme as a majority of member states signed an accord to create a new court. The Unified Patent Court is designed to complement a recently passed EU law that gives applicants a “one-stop shop” option for protecting inventions and innovations, [...]

By Marc Heller In the fight to force online retailers to collect sales taxes, attention may soon turn to a state that does not even have a sales tax. That state would be Montana, home of the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), whose committee is the first stop for the Marketplace [...]

By Kevin P. McGowan Granting a petition filed by U.S. Steel Corp. employees, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed Feb. 19 to review whether workers’ time spent putting on and taking off safety equipment falls within a Fair Labor Standards Act provision denying compensation for time spent “changing clothes” (Sandifer v. U.S. Steel Corp., U.S., No. 12-417, cert. granted 2/19/13). [...]

A lessor was not required to file a motion seeking a payment of post-petition rent after a bankruptcy court mistakenly made the rejection date of a lease retroactive, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado ruled Feb. 4 (Epic Energy Resources Inc. v. Terrace Point Partnership LLC, D. Colo., No. 1:12-cv-01046-RBJ, 2/4/13). Judge R. [...]

By Steve Burkholder NORWALK, Conn.-The Financial Accounting Standards Board issued a closely watched proposal Feb. 14 that is aimed at improving and simplifying how banks, insurers, and other enterprises account for a broad range of financial instruments, including loans. “The proposed accounting standard would measure financial assets based on how a reporting entity would realize value [...]

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Feb. 13 dismissed a putative securities class suit alleging that Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and officials made misrepresentations about the Internet movie and television subscription company’s accounting practices, profitability, price changes, and correspondence with the SEC (In re Netflix Inc. Securities Litigation, N.D. Cal., 3:12-cv-00225-SC, 2/13/13). Judge Samuel Conti [...]

An architecture firm that fired a drafter after the employee refused to engage in criminal copyright infringement had wrongfully terminated that employee despite the state’s employment at-will doctrine, the Texas Court of Appeals for the Second District held Feb. 7 (Young v. Nortex Foundation Designs Inc., Tex. App., No. 02-11-00470-CV, 2/7/13). The court noted that a narrow exception to the at-will doctrine existed with [...]

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Feb. 12 denied Vivendi Universal S.A.’s bid to overturn a $900 million-plus jury verdict holding it liable for securities fraud and other causes of action based on a share-for-share merger transaction with plaintiff Liberty Media Corp. (Liberty Media Corp. v. Vivendi Universal S.A., S.D.N.Y., 03 Civ. 2175 (SAS), 2/12). Among other specifics, Vivendi [...]

Carbon Tax Swap for Corporate Rate Cut Could Boost GDP, Lower Deficit, Study Says Taxing the carbon content of fossil fuels could allow Congress to significantly reduce corporate tax rates that act as a drag on the U.S. economy while also raising new revenue to address the federal budget deficit, according to a study issued [...]

A computer specialist cannot pursue her sex discrimination claims against the Forest Service based on her nonselection for promotion, because she could not refute the federal agency’s explanation that the selected male candidate was better qualified, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled Feb. 11 (Conroy v. Vilsack, 10th Cir., No. 11-4091, 2/11/13). The appeals [...]

Two loans made by a woman to her husband–one before and the other during their marriage–that he was ordered to repay in their divorce judgment were properly found to have been incurred in the course of his divorce and exempt from discharge in bankruptcy, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held Feb. [...]

An alleged trademark troll that demanded that a plaintiff based in Virginia purchase a license to use a contested trademark did not, merely by making its licensing demand, direct its activities towards Virginia in a manner that would bring it within the court’s personal jurisdiction, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia [...]

BALTIMORE–While tax reform discussions in Congress this year may not focus specifically on exempt organizations, it will be impossible to rewrite the tax code without looking at Section 501, which governs them, a Senate Democratic aide told a gathering of tax-exempt groups Feb. 8. Both parties have expressed interest in comprehensive tax reform in 2013. [...]

Gelber Group LLC, a proprietary trading firm, agreed Feb. 8 to pay $750,000 to settle Commodity Futures Trading Commission allegations it engaged in wash trading–that is, reported trades that it had no intention of executing (In re Gelber Group, CFTC, No. 13-15, 2/8/13). At the same time, Gelber trading manager Martin Lorenzen agreed to pay $200,000 for allegedly orchestrating the [...]

By Laura Mahoney SACRAMENTO, Calif.–The City of Stockton’s ability to settle a civil lawsuit without the bankruptcy court’s permission stems from provisions in the Bankruptcy Law of 1898 that did not go away when the Bankruptcy Code displaced it in 1978, a federal judge said in a Feb. 5 written ruling (In re City of Stockton, Bankr. [...]