Legal News

By Laurel Brubaker Calkins and Andrew Harris – Jan 23, 2012 10:24 AM ET The R. Allen Stanford who arrived at the Houston federal courthouse in shackles today to start his $7 billion investment fraud trial is far different from the Texas billionaire prosecutors indicted 2 1/2 years ago. Weeks before his June 2009 indictment, Stanford [...]

By Cornelius Rahn – Jan 23, 2012 3:45 AM ET A European Union proposal to simplify and toughen the region’s data-protection rules will require companies to disclose data breaches within 24 hours of their occurrences, Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said. The EU will this week outline an overhaul of its 17-year- old data-protection policies addressing online [...]

By Steven Church – Jan 23, 2012 12:00 AM ET Today’s deadline to submit initial bids for the Los Angeles Dodgers may bring a record price for a professional baseball team as a result of a process that Major League Baseball lawyers said could set an unwelcome precedent. The bankrupt team and owner Frank McCourt won concessions [...]

By Andrew Harris – Jan 20, 2012 12:01 AM ET The number of patents in litigation between Apple Inc. (AAPL) and a Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. (MMI) unit was narrowed by a judge who invalidated two of them, said Apple didn’t infringe a third and found that issues with five others required a trial. U.S. Circuit Judge [...]

By David McLaughlin – Jan 20, 2012 12:01 AM ET Eastman Kodak Co., the photography pioneer that filed for court protection, won a bankruptcy judge’s approval to borrow as much as $650 million to support operations as it pursues a sale of patents. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan Gropper in Manhattan approved Kodak’s request for preliminary borrowing [...]

By Beth Jinks and Mary Childs – Jan 20, 2012 12:00 AM ET As Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) investors bet the 131-year-old photographic pioneer was headed for bankruptcy, the company decided Chapter 11 was the simplest way to become the leaner digital printing specialist it aspires to be. Bankruptcy allows sales of the photography divisions and [...]

By Andrew Harris and Laurel Brubaker Calkins – Jan 20, 2012 12:00 AM ET R. Allen Stanford’s investors, after waiting three years to see the Texas financier go to trial on charges of leading a $7 billion fraud, must hold on even longer before learning when they will get some of their money back. Stanford’s customers [...]

By Steven Church – Jan 19, 2012 10:10 AM ET Jefferson County (STOAL1), Alabama, asked the judge overseeing its bankruptcy to clarify a footnote in a recent order that’s impeding settlement talks with sewer bondholders owed more than $3 billion. In a Jan. 6 ruling that limited the powers of a receiver for the county’s [...]

By Patricia Hurtado – Jan 19, 2012 3:10 AM ET U.S. Treasury Department software used to track federal collections and payments was stolen by a government contractor’s employee who worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, federal prosecutors said. Bo Zhang, 32, who worked for an unidentified technology company, was a computer programmer assigned [...]

By Dawn McCarty and Beth Jinks – Jan 19, 2012 2:14 AM ET Eastman Kodak Co. (EK), the photography pioneer that introduced its $1 Brownie Camera more than a century ago, filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors after consumers worldwide moved from film to digital technology. The Rochester, New York-based company, which traces its roots to [...]

By Mary Schlangenstein and David McLaughlin – Jan 19, 2012 12:01 AM ET American Airlines parent AMR Corp (AAMRQ). risks losing control of its ability to exit bankruptcy as an independent carrier after three possible suitors emerged within two months of its Chapter 11 filing. The outside interest means AMR may need to move sooner than [...]

By Eric Engleman – Jan 18, 2012 10:26 AM ET Internet companies led by Google Inc. (GOOG) are using their online clout to stoke opposition to Hollywood-backed anti-piracy measures in the U.S. Congress that they say will encourage censorship and chill innovation. Google, owner of the world’s most popular search engine, placed a link on its home page [...]

By Bob Van Voris and Patricia Hurtado – Jan 18, 2012 10:18 AM ET Seven people were charged in Manhattan federal court with counts including securities fraud and conspiracy as part of a five-year insider trading investigation by the FBI and the Justice Department. Among those charged are Level Global Investors LP co- founder Anthony Chiasson, who [...]

By Greg Stohr – Jan 18, 2012 10:14 AM ET The U.S. Supreme Court revived an appeal from an Alabama death-row inmate who missed a legal filing deadline because of a mailroom error at the New York law firm that was representing him. The justices, voting 7-2 today to reverse a lower court, said Cory R. [...]

By Edvard Pettersson and Charles Stein – Jan 18, 2012 12:01 AM ET Bank of New York Mellon Corp. agreed to change its disclosure statements for so-called standing instruction foreign exchange transactions to partly resolve a lawsuit by U.S. prosecutors. The bank won’t use the phrase “best execution” in describing its standing instruction service to [...]

By Alessandra Migliaccio and Marco Bertacche – Jan 17, 2012 7:53 AM ET Carnival Corp. (CCL)’s Italian unit is rushing to prevent its crippled cruise liner from spewing 2,400 tons of fuel into Europe’s biggest marine park, as the search continues for 29 missing passengers and crew members. Smit Salvage, a unit of Royal Boskalis Westminster [...]

By Kit Chellel – Jan 17, 2012 7:22 AM ET Claims that Boris Berezovsky went to meetings in a bathrobe and signed text messages as “Dr. Evil” were invented by Roman Abramovich and his friends, Berezovsky’s lawyers argued as a lawsuit between the men drew to a close. Both sides have accused each other of dishonesty and greed [...]

By Amy Thomson – Jan 17, 2012 7:13 AM ET News Corp. (NWSA)’s U.K. publishing unit has stopped using private detectives in the aftermath of the phone-hacking scandal, Tom Mockridge, News International’s chief executive officer, told a media inquiry. Reporters must get permission to use investigators and he hasn’t approved any requests, Mockridge told the judge-led inquiry [...]

By Andrea Tan – Jan 17, 2012 12:45 AM ET Singapore Exchange withdrew a lawsuit filed to force China Sky Chemical Fibre Co. (CSCF) to comply by listing rules, and said lawyers for both sides met after the company ignored a deadline to appoint a special auditor. China Sky’s lawyer is seeking further instructions from the [...]

By Kristen Haunss, Jeffrey McCracken and Jonathan Keehner – Jan 13, 2012 7:42 AM ET Eastman Kodak Co. (EK) is in advanced talks with Citigroup Inc. (C) to provide bankruptcy financing as the unprofitable imaging company prepares for a potential filing, said three people familiar with the matter. The stock plunged. Kodak may seek protection from creditors within [...]