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Facebook & ConnectU Settlement Figure Revealed
Legal Business |
2009/02/10 10:34
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When the founders of ConnectU agreed last year to settle their 2004 lawsuit charging Facebook with stealing its idea for a social networking site, one of the key provisions was that the amount Facebook paid would be a secret.
And it remained secret--until ConnectU's former firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, published the settlement figure ($65 million) in a brochure touting its litigation wins from 2008, according to this fantastic story in the Recorder, an Am Law Daily sibling publication.
Firm chair John Quinn told the Recorder that the figure's inclusion was an oversight and asked the paper not to publish the story. It's even more than an oversight, considering ConnectU fired Quinn over the firm's $13 million fee request in the Facebook case. The firm and its former client currently are in arbitration in New York over the matter, according to the Recorder. |
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Securitized Life Insurance Fraud Scheme - $400M Demand
Topics in Legal News |
2009/02/09 12:00
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The Coventry Group sold securitized life insurance polices for hundreds of millions of dollars "through a pattern of bribes, bid-rigging, fraud, and falsification of documents" in 45 states, Ritchie Risk-Linked Strategies Trading says in a $400 million demand in Federal Court.
Coventry has been sued for this by the attorney general of New York and the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, according to the complaint.
Ritchie claims Coventry, a buyer and seller of securitized life insurance policies in the secondary market, fabricated documents, falsified documents, paid kickbacks, and violated securities laws across the country.
"In approximately October 2006, plaintiffs learned that many if not all the life insurance policies they had purchased from LST likely had been purchased by defendants in violation of federal, state, and local law and regulations," according to the complaint. "Plaintiffs learned at the same time that there had been proceedings by government agencies threatened against or affecting defendants that could adversely affect plaintiffs' possession of clean and unencumbered title to the policies, contrary to the representations and warranties contained in the MPPAs."
Defendant LST I is a wholly owned subsidiary of defendant Montgomery Capital, and an alter ego of the Coventry Group, according to the complaint. Ritchie claims Coventry and Montgomery are "under common control with the other defendants."
According to the complaint, "Coventry First is a buyer in the secondary market for life insurance policies. It entered the market as a buyer in 2001, and by 2005 it or its affiliates had purchased 1,138 life insurance policies representing more than $3 billion in death benefits."
Ritchie is represented by Jeffrey Liddle with Liddle & Robertson.
Attached to the 22-page complaint are 58 pages of attachments, including then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's colorful 33-page complaint against Coventry and Montgomery in New York County Court, filed in October 2006; and the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation's 18-page "Notice and Order to Show Cause" of May 2007. |
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Two Sago Mine Disasters Settle
Court Watch |
2009/02/03 09:31
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Two families of dead mine workers form Sago Mine disaster settle death claims.
Charlotte, NC (JusticeNewsFlash.com)–Documents filed in the Kanawha Circuit Court in West Virginia claim lawyers, for the estates of two mine workers killed in the Sago Mine explosion, have settled their wrongful death claims. The West Virginia Gazette reported this week a total of six Sago MIne families may have resolved lawsuits involving the fatal mine explosion on January 2, 2006.
The deadly explosion happened at the Sago Mine owned by Wolf Run Mining a subsidiary of International Coal Group. The wrongful death lawsuits were filed by family members when a sealed underground tunnel exploded in the Sago Mine south of Buckhannon. A fire boss, Terry Helms, died after the blast from carbon monoxide poisoning and 12 remaining miners took shelter awaiting rescue. Only one man survived the more than 40 hours it took for rescue workers to reach the trapped miners.
Families of the deceased miners, who died from inhaling toxic fumes and smoke resulting in carbon monoxide poisoning, settled with two of the mine companies suppliers. Burrell Mining Products manufactured concrete foam blocks used to seal abandoned areas of the mine, like the sealed tunnel that exploded, and Raleigh Mine and Industrial Supply distributed the concrete foam blocks. |
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Court Suit: Pfizer Testing on Nigerian Kids
Court News |
2009/02/02 09:57
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The 2nd Circuit reinstated two lawsuits accusing Pfizer of testing an experimental antibiotic on Nigerian children, causing the deaths of 11 children and leaving others blind, deaf, paralyzed or brain-damaged. A group of unwitting test subjects and their families filed two federal lawsuits against the world's largest pharmaceutical company, claiming Pfizer violated a customary international law prohibiting involuntary medical experimentation on humans.
The plaintiffs said Pfizer sent three physicians to Africa to give Nigerian children doses of its new antibiotic, Trovan. The doctors allegedly teamed up with Nigerian officials and recruited 200 sick children at Nigeria's Infectious Disease Hospital in Kano to receive the experimental drug.
Half of the patients were given Trovan, while the other half received Ceftriaxone, an FDA-approved antibiotic.
The plaintiffs say Pfizer knew that the results could be dangerous, as animal tests showed that the antibiotic had life-threatening side effects, including joint disease, abnormal cartilage growth, liver damage and a degenerative bone condition.
"After approximately two weeks, Pfizer allegedly concluded the experiment and left without administering follow-up care," the ruling states. "According to the appellants, the tests caused the death of 11 children, five of whom had taken Trovan and six of whom had taken the lowered dose of Ceftriaxone, and left many others blind, deaf, paralyzed, or brain-damaged."
Pfizer allegedly failed to obtain the informed consent of either the children or their parents, and "specifically failed to disclose or explain the experimental nature of the study or the serious risks involved," Judge Parker summarized.
U.S. District Judge William H. Pauley dismissed the claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the Alien Tort Statute and, alternatively, on the ground that U.S. courts were not the most convenient forum.
The federal appeals court in New York reversed on a 2-1 vote, disagreeing with Pauley's conclusion that the prohibition against human experimentation can't be enforced through the Alien Tort Statute.
"The administration of drug trials without informed consent poses threats to national security by impairing our relations with other countries," Judge Parker wrote. The judge cited an Associated Press finding that the Trovan trials engendered so much distrust in the local population that they contributed to an 11-month boycott of a polio vaccination campaign in 2004.
Judge Pauley had acknowledged the international law norm, but concluded that it wasn't legally binding on the United States, because no single source or treaty had officially recognized it.
The 2nd Circuit said the courts must look to a variety of sources to determine whether an international norm is "sufficiently specific, universally accepted, and obligatory for courts to recognize a cause of action to enforce the norm."
Judge Parker said the plaintiffs made their case for such a recognized norm.
Judge Wesley dissented, saying the majority had "undertaken to define a 'firmly established' norm of international law, heretofore unrecognized by any American court or treaty obligation, on the basis of materials inadequate for the task." |
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John Landis not Thrilled with Michael Jackson
Legal Business |
2009/01/29 09:08
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Michael Jackson cheated director John Landis of his 50% share of profits from the "Thriller" video for the past 4 years, Landis' representative Levitsky Productions claims in Superior Court. In a separate complaint, Landis sued Jackson and Nederlander of California, which allegedly offered Jackson $400,000 for dramatic rights to the video.
Levitsky says Landis directed and co-wrote the 14-minute "Thriller Video and Documentary" in 1983 and is contractually entitled to a half share of the profits.
It claims Jackson and his defunct corporation, Optimum Productions, have refused to provide accounting or pay royalties for the past 4 years. The claim includes profits from Thriller video-related rights to video games, toys, comic books and DVDs.
In his complaint against Jackson, Optimum and Nederlander, Landis says Jackson did not have his permission to license the dramatic rights, for which Jackson allegedly has received, or will receive, $400,000 from Nederlander.
Landis and Levitsky are both represented by Miles Feldman with Liner Yankelevitz & Sunshine. |
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