Legal News

By Julie Bykowicz - Jun 17, 2013 12:45 AM ET Waving banners calling for the protection of free speech, protesters yesterday marched to the U.S. consulate and the Hong Kong government headquarters, demanding city leaders protect the one-time Central Intelligence Agency technical assistant. Photographer: Luke Casey/Bloomberg White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said that he doesn’t know the whereabouts of [...]

By Ellen Rosen - Jun 17, 2013 12:01 AM ET Amelia Cottrell, a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigator who helped build an insider-trading case against a unit of billionaire Steven A. Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors LP, was promoted to a top enforcement position in the agency’s New York office. Cottrell, 39, will help supervise a staff of [...]

By Dune Lawrence & David Voreacos – Jun 17, 2013 12:01 AM ET He is a red-headed hacker who hails from Arkansas, goes by the name “weev,” and seems to delight in being annoying. For years, he broke into computer systems, disrupted blog sites and riled people with personal attacks. Now his case has become a [...]

By Greg Stohr - Jun 17, 2013 12:00 AM ET A year ago it was health care. Now the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to rewrite the nation’s civil rights rules. With cases on gay marriage, affirmative action and voting rights still to be decided in the next two weeks, the court is set to produce another blockbuster June. Chief [...]

Illustration by Matthew Hollister By Martha C. Nussbaum & Charles Wolf –  Jun 16, 2013 6:00 PM ET When William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago, proposed to add a law school to the new university in 1902, he entrusted the project to Ernst Freund, a political-science professor, former practicing lawyer and well-known expert on police power [...]

By Phil Milford - Jun 16, 2013 1:30 PM ET Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) DePuy Synthes unit, a maker of artificial spinal repair products, won $16 million in damages from Globus Medical Inc. (GMED) when a jury decided that three of its patents were infringed. A federal jury in Wilmington, Delaware, also decided June 14 after a two-week trial that the [...]

By Chris Christoff, Brian Chappatta & Mark Niquette - Jun 14, 2013 11:45 AM ET Protesters yell after being shut out of a public informational meeting at Wayne State University’s Law School in Detroit, on June 10, 2013. State-appointed emergency manager Kevyn Orr told people attending the meeting that the chances Detroit can avoid bankruptcy are about 50-50. Detroit (9845MF) will suspend [...]

By Lindsay Fortado, Ben Moshinsky & Jesse Hamilton – Jun 14, 2013 8:36 AM ET Global regulators may start overseeing currency rates in a widening response to benchmark-rate setting scandals that began with revelations on the manipulation of Libor, according to two people familiar with the matter. The International Organization of Securities Commissions, a Madrid-based [...]

By Elizabeth Amon - Jun 14, 2013 12:01 AM ET Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and Latham & Watkins LLP advised Safeway Inc. (SWY), the second-largest U.S. grocery-store chain, on the sale of its Canadian stores to Empire Co. (EMP/A)’s Sobeys Inc. unit for about C$5.8 billion ($5.7 billion) in cash. Nova Scotia-based Stewart McKelvey served as co-counsel on the deal. Sullivan [...]

By Robert Langreth & Shannon Pettypiece - Jun 14, 2013 12:01 AM ET Companies and a university are moving to offer cheaper and broader genetic testing for breast cancer risk to a growing group of women, following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that endedMyriad Genetics Inc.’s (MYGN) monopoly over DNA that vastly raises odds for the disease. Within hours of the [...]

By Chris Strohm & Danielle Ivory - Jun 14, 2013 12:00 AM ET The Senate Intelligence Committee will consider legislation to limit government contractors’ access to sensitive data after a worker leaked details about classified spy programs, panel Chairman Dianne Feinstein said. Feinstein, a California Democrat, also said she has asked Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to propose revisions in management of intelligence [...]

By Michael Riley - Jun 13, 2013 10:44 PM ET Thousands of technology, finance and manufacturing companies are working closely with U.S. national security agencies, providing sensitive information and in return receiving benefits that include access to classified intelligence, four people familiar with the process said. These programs, whose participants are known as trusted partners, extend far beyond [...]

By Greg Stohr - Jun 13, 2013 10:42 AM ET The U.S. Supreme Court restricted the ability of companies to patent human genetic sequences, issuing a mixed ruling in a case that raised questions about thousands of biotechnology, agricultural and drug patents. The justices unanimously ruled that parts of Myriad Genetics Inc. (MYGN)’s patents on genes linked to breast [...]

By Lisa Lerer & Hwee Ann Tan - Jun 13, 2013 6:03 AM ET Hong Kong will deal with any U.S. request to extradite Edward Snowden, the former U.S. government contractor who disclosed secret information, according to the city’s legal system, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying said. “We can’t comment on individual cases,” Leung said yesterday in a Bloomberg Television interview in New [...]

By Edvard Pettersson - Jun 13, 2013 12:01 AM ET European Union Commissioner Viviane Reding asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for more information on the U.S. surveillance program Prism and its consequences for the rights of EU citizens. “Given the gravity of the situation and the serious concerns expressed in public opinion on this side of the [...]

By Elizabeth Amon - Jun 13, 2013 12:00 AM ET Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman LLP is opening a Washington office with the hire of Clarine Nardi Riddle, former chief of staff to retired U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman, who joined Kasowitz Benson last week as senior counsel in New York. Riddle joins the firm as counsel and will lead [...]

By Bob Van Voris & Adam Satariano - Jun 13, 2013 12:00 AM ET The government’s antitrust case over e-book pricing reaches a crucial stage as a key Apple Inc. (AAPL) executive takes the stand to try to convince a federal judge he didn’t lead an illegal scheme with publishers to fix prices. Eddie Cue, called “the chief ringleader of the conspiracy” [...]

By Mary Schlangenstein & Karen Gullo – Jun 13, 2013 12:00 AM ET The latest fight against a government investigation that might compromise customer privacy isn’t coming from a phone or Internet company. It’s coming from FedEx Corp. (FDX) The operator of the world’s largest cargo airline vows to fight any charges that may result from a federal [...]

By Sophia Pearson - Jun 12, 2013 8:37 AM ET Pfizer Inc. (PFE) said it reached a $2.15 billion settlement with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (SUNP) after an almost 10-year dispute over the sale of generic Protonix in the U.S. Pfizer will receive 64 percent of the settlement while its partner Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. will get the [...]

By Elizabeth Amon - Jun 12, 2013 7:40 AM ET Seyfarth Shaw LLP began a labor and employment practice in Australia with offices in Sydney and Melbourne. The firm hired eight labor and employment partners from three Australian law firms who will work on national and cross-border matters. Darren Perry, Chris Gardner, Justine Turnbull, Ben Dudley and Luke [...]