Legal News

By Karin Matussek - Apr 22, 2013 4:34 AM ET Uli Hoeness, the former German national soccer player and president of Bayern Munich football club, is being investigated for tax evasion after reporting himself to authorities in January in a bid for amnesty. Munich prosecutors are examining whether the formal declaration, possible under German law to win a pardon for tax violations, [...]

By Patricia Hurtado & David McLaughlin - Apr 22, 2013 12:00 AM ET As prosecutors weigh charges in the Boston Marathon bombings, the same laws used successfully in deadly terrorist acts such as the Oklahoma City bombing and the first World Trade Center attack may be at the top of their list. Terrorism cases brought over the past 20 years show [...]

By Bill Callahan & Edvard Pettersson – Apr 22, 2013 12:00 AM ET Altria Group Inc. (MO)’s Philip Morris U.S.A. unit, the maker of Marlboro Lights, faces a class-action trial in California over allegations smokers were misled by the company calling its cigarettes “light.” The cigarette maker will defend itself at a nonjury trial scheduled to start [...]

By Edvard Pettersson & David McLaughlin - Apr 22, 2013 12:00 AM ET McGraw-Hill Cos. (MHP)’s Standard & Poor’s unit is set to take its first stab at fending off the U.S. Justice Department’s allegations that the company’s mortgage-backed securities ratings were fraudulent. The largest U.S. rating company by revenue faces a deadline today to file its response in federal [...]

By Elizabeth Amon - Apr 19, 2013 6:37 AM ET Seyfarth Shaw LLP will open an office in Shanghai this summer, giving the firm its first office in Asia. China practitioner Wan Li, who recently joined the firm from DLA Piper LLP, will be the chief representative and managing partner of Seyfarth’s Shanghai office. “In speaking with our clients during the last [...]

By Joel Rosenblatt - Apr 19, 2013 12:01 AM ET Intuitive Surgical Inc. (ISRG) targeted surgeons with “basic or limited” skills in minimally invasive procedures to increase sales of its robotic surgical system, a company marketing executive told a jury. Ryan Rhodes, Intuitive’s director of marketing, testified yesterday about a “surgical target list” contained in internal marketing documents at [...]

By Phil Milford, William Selway & Margaret Newkirk - Apr 19, 2013 12:00 AM ET A Mississippi man was charged with threatening to kill or injure President Barack Obama and a U.S. senator by mailing them letters containing ricin, a deadly poison with no known antidote. Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, of Corinth, made an initial court appearance yesterday with his lawyer, Christi McCoy, in Oxford, [...]

By Margaret Cronin Fisk - Apr 19, 2013 12:00 AM ET BP Plc (BP/) faces the third anniversary of the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico tomorrow with no sure knowledge of how much more it will have to pay government and private plaintiffs over the disaster. Last year BP agreed to pay an estimated $8.5 billion [...]

By Jeremy Hodges – Apr 18, 2013 8:37 AM ET The executive editor at News Corp. (NWSA)’s Sun tabloid will be charged with authorizing bribes to public officials uncovered as part of a wider probe into wrongdoing at the company’s U.K. newspapers. Fergus Shanahan authorized a journalist to make two payments totaling 7,000 pounds ($10,600) [...]

By Ellen Rosen – Apr 18, 2013 7:58 AM ET ArcelorMittal (MT) USA LLC, part of the world’s biggest steelmaker, sued units of OAO Severstal (CHMF), Russia’s second-largest steelmaker, and Nisshin Steel Holdings Co. (5413) for allegedly infringing a patent for metal used in auto parts. Michigan-based Severstal Dearborn and West Virginia-based Wheeling-Nisshin Inc. misappropriated [...]

By Elizabeth Amon – Apr 18, 2013 7:19 AM ET Baker & McKenzie LLP will merge with United Arab Emirates 40-lawyer law firm Habib Al Mulla on July 1, to create Baker & McKenzie Habib Al Mulla. The firm will advise clients on local and international law in its Dubai offices and, with regulatory approval, [...]

By Joshua Gallu – Apr 18, 2013 12:01 AM ET Mary Jo White, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg Mary Jo White, the first former prosecutor to serve as chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has pledged to run a “bold and unrelenting” enforcement program at the agency charged [...]

By Thomas Korosec – Apr 18, 2013 12:01 AM ET A woman arrested in Texas for the slaying of the Kaufman County District Attorney, his wife and another prosecutor confessed to her involvement and said it was her husband who shot the three, police said. Kim Williams, 46, was arrested yesterday and charged with capital [...]

By Dimitra Kessenides – Apr 17, 2013 5:05 PM ET Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP Kim Koopersmith is as surprised as anyone by the path her career has taken. On April 1, Koopersmith, 53, assumed the chairmanship of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, an 850-lawyer global law firm with strong roots [...]

By Karen Gullo - Apr 17, 2013 1:11 PM ET California officials are seeking to enforce the state’s first-in-the nation law barring therapy for minors about avoiding homosexuality after conflicting rulings in lawsuits claiming the ban is unconstitutional. Lawyers for California Attorney General Kamala Harris say the counseling, known as gay conversion therapy, is discredited and unsafe, and the state’s [...]

By Patricia Hurtado - Apr 17, 2013 1:09 PM ET The sentencing of former SAC Capital Advisors LP analyst Jon Horvath for insider trading was delayed at the government’s request as he continues to cooperate with prosecutors. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Sullivan in Manhattan agreed to adjourn Horvath’s court date for six more months in a filing dated today. Horvath, a [...]

By David Glovin & Michael Riley - Apr 17, 2013 12:01 AM ET In searching for clues about whether the deadly bombing in Boston had roots in the U.S. or overseas, investigators will scrutinize the bombs themselves, the timing of the blasts and similarities to earlier attacks. Investigators haven’t disclosed whether they believe the bombings are home-grown terrorism or originated [...]

By Sophia Pearson & Jesse Riseborough - Apr 16, 2013 8:35 AM ET A French citizen with ties to BSG Resources Ltd. was charged with witness tampering and attempting to obstruct a probe into whether a mining company paid bribes to win “lucrative” rights in Guinea, according to court documents. Frederic Cilins, 50, was arrested and charged with plotting to destroy documents [...]

By Elisa Martinuzzi & Sergio Di Pasquale – Apr 16, 2013 7:48 AM ET Siena prosecutors are seizing assets from Nomura Holdings Inc. as part of their probe into Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA’s use of derivatives to hide losses. Photographer: Alessia Pierdomenico/Bloomberg Italian prosecutors are seizing about 1.8 billion euros ($2.4 billion) of [...]

By Elizabeth Amon - Apr 16, 2013 6:58 AM ET Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP acted as legal advisers to Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (TMO), the second-biggest maker of life-sciences equipment by market value, which agreed to buy Life Technologies (LIFE) Corp. for $13.6 billion in cash in a deal that expands its [...]