Legal News

By Elizabeth Amon - May 6, 2013 12:01 AM ET A second wave of Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart PC lawyers, mostly associates, have left the firm for Littler Mendelson LLP as part of an earlier group of departures led by Don Prophete. Prophete, along with six partners whom the firm calls shareholders, left Ogletree for Littler [...]

By David Glovin – May 6, 2013 12:00 AM ET Frederic Bourke, co-founder of the luxury-handbag maker Dooney & Bourke, is set to enter prison this week for conspiring 15 years ago in what prosecutors called “one of the most audacious” bribery schemes ever attempted in the former Soviet Union. Bourke, 67, by court order [...]

By Erik Larson & Janelle Lawrence - May 6, 2013 12:00 AM ET A friend of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev argues that he should be released on bail pending his trial on a charge of lying to investigators because he isn’t accused of destroying evidence. Robel Phillipos of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who attended the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with [...]

By David McLaughlin - May 5, 2013 7:58 PM ET New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said he will announce new enforcement actions against major financial institutions as part of his effort to “protect New York homeowners” after calling the first such lawsuit last year a “template” for future litigation. In October, Schneiderman sued JPMorgan Chase & Co., alleging [...]

By Brendan Coffey - May 3, 2013 9:08 AM ET When Oklahoma energy billionaire George Kaiser opened the Northeast Gateway liquid natural gas terminal in 2008, the floating depot’s first delivery was shipped on the Excellence, a 909-foot supertanker that holds 138,000 cubic meters of LNG — enough gas to meet more than 4 percent of daily U.S. demand. The [...]

By Sarah Frier - May 3, 2013 9:05 AM ET International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) is being probed by the U.S. Justice Department over corruption allegations in Poland, Argentina, Bangladesh and Ukraine, adding to bribery charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Justice Department is investigating whether IBM violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the company said in an April 30 filing. [...]

By Argin Chang & Cindy Wang - May 3, 2013 8:06 AM ET MediaTek Inc. (2454)’s China head resigned today as Taiwan authorities probed possible insider trading linked to the company’s planned $3.8 billion merger with MStar Semiconductor Inc. (3697), which would create a business producing 70 percent of the chips used in televisions. Lu Hsiang-cheng is being investigated for insider trading along with four [...]

By Phil Mattingly & Ted Bunker - May 3, 2013 12:14 AM ET The two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings initially targeted the city’s July 4 celebration and attacked last month’s race after building their bombs faster than expected, according to a U.S. official. The information about the brothers’ original plans came from an interrogation of the younger suspect, Dzhokhar [...]

By Chris Strohm - May 3, 2013 12:00 AM ET Google Inc. (GOOG), Twitter Inc. and even Silicon Valley startups are confronting calls by law enforcement following the Boston Marathon bombings to make their products more easily used for surveillance. Police and federal agencies made record levels of requests for data from companies including Google and Twitter in months before [...]

By Jonathan Mahler – May 2, 2013 6:00 PM ET The storm that’s slowly rolling toward Indianapolis quietly gained strength this week with the filing of several devastating documents in a federal court in California. If it stays on course, it’s going to hit with biblical force, reducing the National Collegiate Athletic Association to a heap [...]

By Arun Devnath & Sarah Shannon - May 2, 2013 8:27 AM ET Sohel Rana, owner of Rana Plaza, center, seen wearing police-issue body armour and helmet, is escorted for his appearance at the High Court in Dhaka on April 30, 2013. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) and J.C. Penney Co. were among retailers sending representatives to a meeting near Frankfurt to discuss allying [...]

By Ben Moshinsky - May 2, 2013 8:01 AM ET Stuart Hall, a former host of British Broadcasting Corp. television programs, pleaded guilty to 14 sexual-assault offenses, involving victims as young as nine over a period spanning almost two decades. Hall, who hosted British comedy game show “It’s a Knockout” in the 1970s, will be sentenced next month [...]

By Jeremy Hodges – May 2, 2013 7:11 AM ET Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS)’s deal with U.K. officials that saved the bank as much as 20 million pounds ($31 million) in taxes, according to an advocacy group, will be reviewed by a U.K. court at a two-day hearing starting today. The group, UK Uncut, [...]

By Sangwon Yoon - May 2, 2013 5:29 AM ET North Korea sentenced a U.S. citizen to 15 years hard labor for unidentified crimes committed after he entered the country last year, a verdict that may exacerbate tensions already running high over the regime’s nuclear program. Pae Jun Ho, arrested while “committing hostile acts” against North Korea after he [...]

By Elizabeth Amon – May 2, 2013 12:01 AM ET Morrison & Foerster LLP announced leadership changes, appointing San Francisco partner Brandon Parris and Tokyo partner Randy Laxer as co-chairmen of the corporate department and New York partner Gary Lee and Tokyo partner Dale Caldwell to lead the finance group. “It’s no accident that both [...]

By Linda Sandler – May 1, 2013 1:38 PM ET Liquidating Bernard L. Madoff’s defunct brokerage has cost $774.8 million, including lawyers’ and consultants’ fees and expenses of $737.1 million, the trustee for the firm said in a report. Irving H. Picard, who has been liquidating the firm since Madoff’s December 2008 arrest, has paid [...]

By Joe Schneider & Kit Chellel – May 1, 2013 8:27 AM ET Coda Holdings Inc., parent of the electric-car maker backed by billionaire Philip Falcone, filed for bankruptcy and will seek to sell its assets to a group led by a Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG) unit. Coda will focus on its energy-storage business, Chief Executive Officer [...]

By Arun Devnath – May 1, 2013 8:16 AM ET Bangladesh officials said the death toll from the factory complex that collapsed last week rose to at least 403, and the European Union warned of trade sanctions in the wake of the nation’s biggest industrial disaster. Rescue efforts are continuing “but it is very unlikely that [...]

By Robert LaFranco & Alex Sazonov - May 1, 2013 7:27 AM ET Alisher Usmanov, Russia’s richest person, moved control of most of his $20 billion fortune last year to a holding company based in the British Virgin Islands, a collection of more than 60 isles 5,600 miles away from Moscow. The company, USM Holdings, controls the billionaire’s most valuable [...]

By Patricia Hurtado - May 1, 2013 12:01 AM ET Level Global Investors LP co-founder Anthony Chiasson, convicted of an insider-trading scheme that reaped $72 million, asked a judge to give him less time in prison than the 13-year term called for by U.S. sentencing guidelines. Lawyers for Chiasson, 39, called such a sentence “draconian” in a, April 29 court [...]