Legal News

By Jason Gale and Tom Schoenberg – Jan 25, 2012 10:13 PM ET Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. (RBXY) made “adulterated, potentially unsafe” medicines that were illegal to sell, U.S. prosecutors said in a proposed settlement with the Indian drugmaker. Among alleged violations, Ranbaxy failed to adequately separate the production of penicillin and non-penicillin drugs and failed [...]

By Laurence Arnold – Jan 25, 2012 9:01 PM ET Russell G. D’Oench III, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and a great-great- grandson of William Russell Grace, the founder of W.R. Grace & Co. and a mayor of New York City in the 19th century, has died. He was 58. He [...]

By Andrea Tan and Kyoungwha Kim – Jan 25, 2012 7:59 AM ET Singapore replaced its Civil Defence and Central Narcotics Bureau heads on allegations of “serious personal misconduct” in the city-state’s highest-level probe of public servants in almost two decades. The commissioner of the Singapore Civil Defence Force, Peter Lim Sin Peng, has been [...]

By Hui-yong Yu – Jan 25, 2012 12:01 AM ET Fortress Investment Group LLC (FIG) said Daniel Mudd resigned as chief executive officer and a director of the New York-based hedge fund and private-equity firm after a leave of absence to respond to a government lawsuit. “I do not want the uncertainty associated with a leave [...]

By Lorraine Woellert and David McLaughlin – Jan 25, 2012 12:01 AM ET President Barack Obama said he will create a mortgage crisis unit that includes federal and state officials to investigate wrongdoing by banks related to real estate lending. The president announced the unit in his State of the Union speech yesterday after protests by [...]

By Tom Schoenberg – Jan 24, 2012 8:32 PM ET The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission urged a judge to order the federal Securities Investor Protection Corp. to create a claims process for R. Allen Stanford’s alleged investment fraud victims. SEC lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins during a hearing today in Washington to [...]

By Laurence Viele Davidson and Jef Feeley – Jan 24, 2012 8:58 AM ET Roche Holdings AG (ROG) settled lawsuits claiming its Raptiva psoriasis drug caused infections, according to a lawyer for the plaintiffs. The lawyer, Mark Lanier, wouldn’t disclose the terms of the settlement today. Genentech withdrew the medication from the market almost three years [...]

By Natalie Doss and Don Jeffrey – Jan 24, 2012 8:47 AM ET Investor William Ackman said he will shield his choice to run Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. (CP) against a possible loss of benefits after the retired executive’s former employer suspended pension and other payments. Canadian National Railway Co. said yesterday that ex-Chief Executive Officer Hunter Harrison, [...]

By David McLaughlin – Jan 24, 2012 12:01 AM ET State attorneys general reviewed a proposed settlement with banks over foreclosure and mortgage- servicing practices that negotiators are pressing to complete as Delaware said it would reject a deal said to total $25 billion. Representatives of Democratic attorney general offices met at a Chicago hotel yesterday to [...]

By Chris Bourke – Jan 22, 2012 11:28 PM ET Megaupload.com’s founder was ordered by a New Zealand judge to remain in jail, three days after the U.S. shut down the file-sharing website and police arrested him in his mansion, seizing luxury cars, guns and art. Kim Dotcom, the website’s German founder who legally changed his [...]

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 [...]