Legal News

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 [...]

By Chris Dolmetsch, Tom Schoenberg & Andrew Zajac - Mar 22, 2013 9:23 AM ET New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was sued by gun advocacy groups who claim new state laws regulating the sale and possession of firearms and ammunition are unconstitutional. Organizations led by the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association are seeking to enjoin the law to “vindicate the right [...]

By Patricia Hurtado - Mar 22, 2013 12:01 AM ET Rengan Rajaratnam, the younger brother of imprisoned hedge-fund founder Raj Rajaratnam, was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges he took part in an insider-trading scheme tied to Galleon Group LLC. Rengan Rajaratnam, 42, is accused of conspiring with his brother to trade on material nonpublic information about Clearwire Corp. [...]

By Steven Church - Mar 22, 2013 12:00 AM ET Throwing Stockton, California, out of bankruptcy will require creditors including Assured Guaranty Corp. and mutual-fund manager Franklin Resources Inc. (BEN) to convince a judge that the city isn’t insolvent and never really tried to cut a deal. The odds are against them, said attorneys who aren’t involved in the case. [...]

By Patricia Hurtado - Mar 21, 2013 9:50 AM ET NextEra Energy Capital Holdings Inc., a unit of NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE) (NEE), sued banks including Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (BBVA) to clarify its financing obligations to solar power projects in Spain. NextEra Energy, the largest U.S. wind-power operator, sued 16 banks yesterday in Manhattanfederal court, asking a judge to interpret a 2011 [...]

By David McLaughlin & Beth Jinks - Mar 21, 2013 12:01 AM ET Energy Future Holdings Corp.’s directors and chief executive officer were sued by hedge fund Aurelius Capital Management over claims that loans made within the power producer harmed creditors. Texas Competitive Electric Holdings Co., a unit of Energy Future, is owed more than $725 million in additional interest after [...]

By Chris Dolmetsch - Mar 21, 2013 12:00 AM ET As a five-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in New York nears an end, a dairy farm and a Norwegian energy company will try to persuade an appeals court to overturn drilling bans in two upstate towns. Attorneys for the dairy farm, Cooperstown Holstein Corp., and Norse Energy Corp. (NEC) are [...]

By Tom Schoenberg & Sara Forden - Mar 20, 2013 11:48 AM ET Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ABI) and the U.S. Justice Department obtained a second postponement of the government’s antitrust lawsuit seeking to block the brewer’s purchase of Grupo Modelo SAB as settlement talks continue. U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts in Washington suspended the case until April 9 in a one-page order, when the two [...]

By Allen Johnson Jr., Margaret Cronin Fisk & Jef Feeley - Mar 20, 2013 12:01 AM ET Transocean Ltd. (RIG) Chief Executive Officer Steven Newman said the company’s crew on the Deepwater Horizon “should have done more” to prevent the rig’s 2010 explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. Transocean’s missteps in connection with the explosion led Newman to recommend the company pay $1.4 [...]

By Tom Schoenberg & Andrew Zajac - Mar 20, 2013 12:01 AM ET Freddie Mac (FMCC) sued Bank of America Corp., UBS AG (UBSN), JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and a dozen other banks over alleged manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, saying the mortgage financier suffered substantial losses as a result of the companies’ conduct. Government-owned Freddie Mac accuses the banks of acting [...]

By Stephanie Bodoni – Mar 19, 2013 7:00 AM ET The European Union’s highest court overturned a decision that backed a proposed 9 billion-euro ($11.6 billion) government loan to France Telecom SA, handing a victory to competitorBouygues SA. (EN) Today’s ruling that the government aid must be reexamined by the lower EU court also responds to a [...]

By Andrea Tan - Mar 19, 2013 1:57 AM ET Juerg Buergin, a former executive director of operations at UBS AG (UBSN) in Singapore, was deceived by an underaged prostitute and her pimp into believing she was 18, according to his lawyer. The girl, now 20, wasn’t a victim and should testify publicly, Buergin’s lawyer Selva Naidu told a Singapore [...]

By Edvard Pettersson - Mar 19, 2013 12:00 AM ET Las Vegas Sands Corp. is facing its second trial in a case brought by a Hong Kong businessman who says the casino operator run by billionaire Sheldon Adelson owes him for obtaining a license to operate in Macau. A trial is scheduled for next week in state court in Nevada over claims by [...]