Legal News

By Linda Sandler – Feb 16, 2012 9:25 AM ET Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., which is planning its first payment to creditors after more than three years in bankruptcy, said it has about $18 billion of cash available for distribution. The defunct investment bank estimated that allowed claims of general unsecured creditors are about $284 [...]

By Joe Schneider – Feb 16, 2012 12:32 AM ET Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) failed to persuade a federal judge to bar the U.S. and Alaskan governments from pursuing further damage claims related to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill. U.S. District Judge H. Russel Holland in Anchorage yesterday refused Exxon’s request to enforce a [...]

By Patricia Hurtado, Tim Culpan and John Helyar – Feb 16, 2012 12:01 AM ET The investigation of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) analyst shows U.S. officials have intensified their focus on banks and Taiwan in a multiyear insider-trading probe that has implicated hedge funds, technology company employees and consultants, a person familiar with the matter [...]

By Ann Woolner, Phil Milford and Rodney Yap – Feb 16, 2012 12:00 AM ET A shareholder lawyer told a Delaware judge at a midsummer court hearing two years ago that his team deserved $700,000 for work on a lawsuit in which his clients received nothing. Shareholders of BJ Services Co., an oilfield services company [...]

By Patricia Hurtado – Feb 15, 2012 9:34 AM ET The multiyear insider trading probe that has implicated U.S. hedge funds, technology company employees and consultants is intensifying its focus on banks and Asia as federal investigators probe Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) technology analyst Henry King, according to a person familiar with the matter. Michael [...]

By Steve Raphael and Margaret Cronin Fisk – Feb 15, 2012 9:33 AM ET A Michigan judge permanently barred a review team studying Detroit’s finances from using closed-door sessions. Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, a Republican, appointed the 10-member group in December after a preliminary study by the state treasurer found the city was in “probable financial stress.” [...]

By Laurel Brubaker Calkins – Feb 15, 2012 12:01 AM ET R. Allen Stanford blew $1.1 million at the Bellagio hotel and casino in Las Vegas and gave another million in cash to family members, including his wife and girlfriend, an FBI agent told jurors at the financier’s criminal fraud trial. The Texas financier also spent $20 [...]

By Tiffany Kary and Katherine Burton – Feb 15, 2012 12:01 AM ET Jefferies Group Inc. (JEF) has been trying to spread the risk of a $190 million loan to Phil Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners LLC by offering a syndication deal with an unusual caveat: it defaults if Falcone is indicted. Jefferies has been marketing [...]

By Linda Sandler – Feb 14, 2012 9:00 AM ET Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LEHMQ) investors traded about $1.9 billion of the defunct investment bank’s debt last month as they awaited news of their first payout after three years of bankruptcy, down about 47 percent from more than $3.6 billion in December. Lehman debt accounted [...]

By Jef Feeley – Feb 14, 2012 12:01 AM ET Directors of Wells Fargo & Co., the largest U.S. mortgage lender, must face investors’ claims the bank failed to properly disclose details of its foreclosure practices to government investigators, a judge ruled. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco rejected Wells Fargo’s request to dismiss shareholders’ [...]

By Jeff Bliss – Feb 14, 2012 12:01 AM ET Google Inc. (GOOG) won U.S. antitrust approval to purchase Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc (MMI). for $12.5 billion and expand its mobile-phone patents to increase competition with Apple Inc. (AAPL) The acquisition of Libertyville, Illinois-based Motorola Mobility gives Google, the biggest maker of smartphone software, more than 17,000 [...]

By Joel Rosenblatt – Feb 14, 2012 12:01 AM ET Fenwick & West LLP, the law firm representing Facebook Inc. (FB) in its initial public offering, won an exemption that will reduce reporting requirements for companies issuing a class of restricted stock to employees, directors and some consultants. The exemption, granted by the Securities and Exchange Commission [...]

By Thom Weidlich – Feb 13, 2012 11:43 AM ET Former Bear Stearns Cos. (2942331Q) hedge-fund managers Ralph Cioffi and Matthew Tannin, acquitted in 2009 of criminal charges they misled investors, agreed to pay $1.05 million to settle a related civil case brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Cioffi agreed to pay $800,000 and accept a [...]

By Sophia Pearson and Phil Milford – Feb 13, 2012 11:36 AM ET Jerry Sandusky, the former Pennsylvania State University assistant football coach charged with sexually abusing 10 boys, will be allowed supervised visits with his grandchildren, a judge ruled, denying prosecutors’ requests for stricter limitations. Sandusky, who is under home confinement, asked the court last [...]

By Karin Matussek – Feb 13, 2012 9:29 AM ET Deutsche Bank AG (DBK) and the heirs of media entrepreneur Leo Kirch are close to settling a 10-year-old dispute for about 800 million euros ($1 billion), according to a person with direct knowledge of the negotiations. The settlement will end lawsuits over whether comments made in [...]

By Haris Anwar – Feb 13, 2012 3:21 AM ET Pakistan’s Supreme Court charged Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilaniwith contempt for failing to reopen corruption investigations against the president, and will begin a trial that threatens to force him from office. Hearings were adjourned till Feb. 22, when the prosecution will record its evidence. Aitzaz Ahsan, Gilani’s [...]

By Linda Sandler – Feb 10, 2012 9:56 AM ET The liquidator of Bernard Madoff’s firm said he is entitled to pursue a $386 million lawsuit against the New York Mets owners because they chose to be “willfully blind” to the fraud to maintain an income stream that was essential to their business plans. U.S. District Judge [...]

By Maram Mazen – Feb 10, 2012 8:51 AM ET Nigeria’s parliament is probing whether fraudulent practices by government agencies fueled a fivefold rise in spending on gasoline subsidies in the past three years, said the head of the investigating committee. The government is probably paying more than 2 trillion naira ($12.6 billion) to fuel [...]

By Sara Forden – Feb 10, 2012 12:01 AM ET Express Scripts Inc. (ESRX) is poised to tell U.S. antitrust regulators it has delivered all the data requested regarding its purchase of Medco Health Solutions Inc. (MHS), a move that would trigger a 30-day period for a decision on the deal, two people familiar with the [...]

By Dawn Kopecki, David McLaughlin and Lorraine Woellert – Feb 10, 2012 12:01 AM ET Hashing out the $25 billion settlement reached by Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and three other U.S. banks with 49 states required missing some football. Bank executives, state officials and U.S. Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan worked frantically over Super Bowl weekend [...]