Legal News

By Bob Van Voris - Apr 2, 2013 9:00 AM ET New York State Senator Malcolm Smith, a Democrat who represents a Queens district in New York City, was among a group of six people charged in a bribery scheme aimed at getting him the Republican nomination for mayor. Smith, 56, sought to bribe party officials so that [...]

By Andrea Tan - Apr 2, 2013 12:52 AM ET UBS AG, sued for wrongful dismissal by two former traders in Singapore, said they were fired for serious misconduct and won a bid to seal documents in the cases. “Premature disclosure of the bank’s investigation into the fired traders would hamper the bank’s ongoing probe into the matter, as [...]

By Joel Rosenblatt – Apr 2, 2013 12:01 AM ET Facebook Inc. (FB) Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg is scheduled to be questioned in a lawsuit alleging that seven technology companies broke antitrust laws by agreeing to not recruit from each other. U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh in San Jose, California, yesterday issued a ruling [...]

By Bob Van Voris – Apr 1, 2013 8:47 AM ET Argentina may learn at any time whether a U.S. appeals court will rule that it must pay $1.4 billion to holders of its defaulted debt, something the South American country has resisted for more than a decade. The court in New York is set to rule after [...]

By Jeff Kass & Joel Rosenblatt - Apr 1, 2013 12:00 AM ET James Holmes, accused of opening fire in a Colorado movie theater in July and killing 12 people, is set to find out whether prosecutors will seek his execution. Judge William Sylvester in state court in Centennial, in suburban Denver, ordered lawyers for the Arapahoe County district attorney’s office to [...]

By David Glovin - Mar 31, 2013 7:00 PM ET Banks including Bank of America Corp., Barclays Plc (BARC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) won dismissal of antitrust lawsuits by plaintiffs claiming they were harmed by the rigging of the London interbank offered rate. In more than two dozen interrelated cases before U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald inNew York, the banks [...]

By Patricia Hurtado & David Glovin - Mar 31, 2013 7:00 PM ET SAC Capital Advisors LP may seem under siege by federal prosecutors, with the steady drumbeat of indictments over the past few years and the invariable 6 a.m. knock at the door as one employee after another meets agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s New York office. With the insider [...]

By Christie Smythe - Mar 28, 2013 11:26 AM ET Six men charged in a scheme to tip off traders to internal brokerage “squawk box” data reached deferred-prosecution agreements, the government said. Assistant U.S. Attorney James McMahon announced the deals today in Brooklyn, New York federal court, marking the end of a case that began more than seven years ago. Former [...]

By Steven Church, Tiffany Kary & Jared Goyette - Mar 28, 2013 12:00 AM ET Stockton, California, shouldn’t be allowed to reorganize under court protection because it can’t prove it negotiated in good faith to avoid bankruptcy, creditors told a judge who said he will rule by April 1. When the city did engage in talks, it told parties, “in essence, to [...]

By Bob Van Voris - Mar 28, 2013 12:00 AM ET SAC Capital Advisors LP may have an easier time completing a $602 million settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission than Citigroup Inc. (C) did in 2011, in part because it faces a different judge, according to securities lawyers. Citigroup drew U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, who in 2009 [...]

By Jim Brunsden – Mar 27, 2013 8:47 AM ET European Union nations approved bank-capital and bonus rules for the 27-nation bloc in the face of continued opposition from the U.K. The measures, which ban bonuses of more than twice fixed pay, were approved today at a meeting of national ambassadors, according to a spokeswoman [...]

By Greg Stohr – Mar 27, 2013 12:01 AM ET A demonstrator outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on March 26, 2013. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg The U.S. Supreme Court takes up its second gay-marriage case in two days, one that gains new significance after the justices signaled reluctance to decide whether same-sex couples have [...]

By Edvard Pettersson - Mar 27, 2013 12:01 AM ET Apple Inc. (AAPL) asked to proceed with a new trial on 14 Samsung Electronics (005930) Co. products for which a U.S. judge overturned a jury patent-infringement award rather than letting Samsung appeal her decision upholding damages for 14 other products covered by the jury’s verdict. Apple, in a reply yesterday to [...]

By Laurie Asseo & Greg Stohr - Mar 26, 2013 11:15 AM ET A pivotal justice questioned California’s ban on same-sex marriage as the U.S. Supreme Court began a historic argument that could lead to gay weddings nationwide. During early questioning in the hour-long argument, Justice Anthony Kennedy suggested that children of same-sex couples suffer “immediate legal injury” from California’s ban. [...]

By Karen Gullo - Mar 26, 2013 12:01 AM ET Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), the world’s largest retailer, filed trespassing claims in a lawsuit against the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and other groups holding demonstrations at company stores in Florida. A complaint filed March 22 in Orange County, Florida, seeks a court order restraining the group and several [...]

By Jeremy Hodges & Edvard Pettersson - Mar 25, 2013 8:30 PM ET Boris Berezovsky, the Russian oligarch who was found dead at his U.K. home on March 23, died from hanging with no evidence of a violent struggle, U.K. police said. Berezovsky’s cause of death “is consistent with hanging,” Thames Valley Police said yesterday in an e-mailed statement. “The [...]

By Patricia Hurtado – Mar 25, 2013 10:50 AM ET Rengan Rajaratnam, the younger brother of imprisoned hedge-fund founder Raj Rajaratnam, was taken into custody by FBI agents yesterday when he arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport on a flight from Brazil, a person familiar with the matter said. Rajaratnam was indicted by a federal [...]

By Steven Church & Jared Goyette - Mar 25, 2013 9:31 AM ET Stockton, California, faces a four- day fight with creditors this week over whether it can remain under federal bankruptcy protection and avoid state court claims seeking to force it to pay more than $300 million in debt. Creditors such as Assured Guaranty Corp. and Franklin Resources Inc. (BEN) must [...]

By Edvard Pettersson - Mar 25, 2013 12:00 AM ET A Republican voter challenge to Arizona’s redrawn election districts over claims they favor Democratic candidates for the state Legislature will be decided by a three-member panel of federal judges. A Republican voter group, in a case set for trial today in Phoenix, accuses the state’s Independent Redistricting Commission of [...]

By Joe Schneider & Phil Milford - Mar 24, 2013 7:29 PM ET Otelco Inc. (OTT), a local exchange carrier based in Oneonta, Alabama, filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware, after losing a contract with Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) which resulted in lower revenue. Otelco listed assets of $168 million and debt of $310 million in the Chapter 11 documents filed [...]