Legal News

By Steven Church & Dakin Campbell – May 14, 2013 12:01 AM ET Ally Financial Inc. (ALLY) reached a deal to avoid creditor lawsuits related to the company’s insolvent mortgage arm, Residential Capital LLC, hours before a court-ordered report into the companies’ pre-bankruptcy relationship was to be made public. The report, by former U.S. Bankruptcy Judge [...]

By Julie Bykowicz - May 13, 2013 10:06 PM ET A handful of Cincinnati-based Internal Revenue Service employees have accomplished what no bipartisan White House dinner ever could: uniting the U.S. Congress. Capitol Hill lawmakers are now on a mission to dissect how the tax agency wound up targeting Republican-friendly groups for extra scrutiny. Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnellcalled it [...]

By Erik Larson - May 12, 2013 8:13 PM ET Bank of New York Mellon Corp., the world’s biggest custody bank, is appealing a ruling allowingChesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK) to proceed today with redeeming $1.3 billion in bonds six years early at 100 cents on the dollar. A notice of the appeal was filed May 11 in federal court [...]

By Karin Matussek – May 13, 2013 8:03 AM ET Porsche Automobil Holding SE, already facing suits seeking a combined 4 billion euros ($5.2 billion) linked to the carmaker’s aborted takeover of Volkswagen AG (VOW), was sued by more hedge funds in Germany. The plaintiffs, including Viking Global Equities LP, Glenhill Capital LP and David Einhorn’s [...]

By Elizabeth Amon – May 13, 2013 7:52 AM ET Baker Botts LLP announced three lateral hires last week including international tax lawyer Don J. Lonczak and capital markets lawyer Bonnie A. Barsamian. Lonczak will be based in the firm’s Washington and New York offices while Barsamian will be based in its New York office. Jay Ryan, an [...]

By Andrea Tan – May 13, 2013 7:08 AM ET Singapore’s state counsel said U.S. research engineer Shane Todd was found hanging from a black strap in front of a door in his home when the police found him. Todd, who was 31 when he died in June last year, was in a standing position [...]

By Jesse Drucker - May 13, 2013 12:01 AM ET A woman stands outside a Starbucks coffee in London, England. Photographer: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images  In early November, members of the U.K. Parliament assailed executives from Google Inc. (GOOG), Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) and Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) for moving billions of dollars in profits into tax havens. Less than a month later, Chancellor of the Exchequer George [...]

By Steven Church & Dakin Campbell - May 13, 2013 12:01 AM ET An investigative report on Ally Financial Inc. (ALLY)’s relationship with its bankrupt mortgage arm, Residential Capital LLC, may affect settlement talks between the companies and creditors who blame Ally for $25 billion in potential claims. The court-ordered report, due today, will examine allegations that Ally exerted so much [...]

By David McLaughlin – May 12, 2013 9:23 PM ET Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Google Inc. (GOOG) are among technology companies being asked by the New York attorney general to take steps to deter thefts of iPhones and other handheld devices and eliminate a black market for the products. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman wrote to Apple, [...]

By Kit Chellel – May 10, 2013 7:44 AM ET Abu Qatada, the Islamic cleric the U.K. is trying to deport to Jordan on terror charges, will voluntarily return to his home country if the two governments adopt a treaty that guarantees him a fair trial. “If that is enacted in Parliament, he will voluntarily [...]

By Eleni Himaras – May 10, 2013 1:44 AM ET Hong Kong’s securities regulator must be able to seek asset-freezing court orders to protect investors, the city’s top court said in rejecting Tiger Asia Management LLC’s claim such action can only be taken after a civil or criminal trial. In such proceedings, the Securities and [...]

By Andrew Harris - May 10, 2013 12:01 AM ET Four men were convicted at a trial involving a money-laundering scheme by the Los Zetas drug gang that included buying, training, breeding and racing horses in the U.S., the Justice Department said. Each of the men was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, a crime [...]

By Greg Farrell, Janelle Lawrence & Phil Mattingly – May 10, 2013 12:01 AM ET A skirmish between the FBI and the Boston police erupted into public view after the bureau sought to rebut a claim that police weren’t aware of a federal probe of the alleged mastermind of the Boston Marathon bombing. At a [...]

By Kit Chellel - May 9, 2013 8:01 PM ET Matthew Jordan, like many Dresdner Kleinwort bankers, was worried about Commerzbank AG (CBK)’s plans to take over the investment bank in 2008. Jordan, Dresdner’s deputy head of equity research, had lost 20 analysts to rivals that year amid uncertainty about the lender’s future. So he was relieved when Dresdner’s [...]

By Laurel Brubaker Calkins & Erik Larson - May 9, 2013 8:27 AM ET Jeffrey Skilling, the convicted former Enron Corp. chief executive officer, may get out of prison in as little as four years if a judge approves a deal with prosecutors over objections by victims of one of the biggest corporate frauds in U.S. history. In exchange for [...]

By Ben Moshinsky - May 9, 2013 7:40 AM ET The U.K.’s accounting watchdog placed KPMG LLP under two separate investigations, examining its audits of a car seller and the conduct of one of its partners. The Financial Reporting Council will investigate whether KPMG “was independent” when it audited the annual accounts of Nottingham, England-based Pendragon Plc (PDG) for 2010 and 2011. [...]

By Nicholas Dunbar - May 9, 2013 4:06 AM ET Stichting Vestia Groep, a Dutch affordable-housing provider that nearly collapsed as a result of losses on derivatives, asked a London court to void 700 hundred million euros ($924 million) ininterest-rate swaps after it was sued by Credit Suisse Group AG. (CSGN) Credit Suisse should have known that the derivatives were [...]

By Elizabeth Amon - May 9, 2013 12:01 AM ET Latham & Watkins LLP is opening a new office in Dusseldorf and hiring four partners from Shearman & Sterling LLP, which announced the closing of two German offices last month. The new partners in Dusseldorf include Harald Selzner, Rainer Wilke and Martin Neuhaus, who have experience in complex [...]

By Chris Dolmetsch – May 9, 2013 12:01 AM ET Golfer Vijay Singh, the winner of the 2000 Masters Tournament, sued the PGA Tour claiming he was publicly humiliated by a suspension for using deer-antler spray before he was cleared of wrongdoing two months later. Singh, the world’s top-ranked player in 2004 and 2005, filed a complaint [...]

By Freeman Klopott – May 9, 2013 12:01 AM ET Senator Tom Libous, a champion of fracking in the New York Legislature, is blocking a bill that would delay drilling for natural gas for at least two years. Passage of the measure would harm the prospects of a real-estate company founded by Libous’s wife and [...]