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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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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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Court sides with police officers in search case
Legal Business |
2009/01/22 14:26
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| The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that police officers in Utah who searched a suspect's home without a warrant cannot be sued for violating his constitutional rights. In ruling unanimously for five officers attached to the Central Utah Narcotics Task Force, the court also abandoned a rigid, two-step test that it adopted in 2001 to guide judges in assessing alleged violations of constitutional rights. Trial and appellate judges "should be permitted to exercise their sound discretion" in evaluating such claims, Justice Samuel Alito said in his opinion for the court. Under the 2001 ruling, courts first had to determine whether an action amounts to a violation of a constitutional right and then decide whether the public official, often a police officer, should be immune from the civil lawsuit. Officials can't be held liable in situations where it is not clearly established that their actions violated someone's constitutional rights. The case grew out of a search of the home of Afton Callahan of Millard County, Utah, in 2002. An informant contacted police to tell them he had arranged to purchase drugs from Callahan at Callahan's trailer home. |
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Court: No obligation for company to give teen drug
Legal Business |
2008/12/17 09:15
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| A pharmaceutical company does not have to provide an experimental drug to a Minnesota teen who is terminally ill with a rare form of muscular dystrophy, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in reversing a lower court decision. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia was a blow to 17-year-old Jacob Gunvalson, who suffers from Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The court ruled that U.S. District Judge William J. Martini in Newark erred in his August ruling that PTC Therapeutics of South Plainfield, N.J., must provide the drug to Gunvalson. That decision had been stayed pending the company's appeal. "I just think it's really unfair that these drug companies get all these benefits from the federal government," said Jacob's mother, Cheri Gunvalson. "And then they're allowing boys to fall through the cracks and die." She said she would not give up her fight but didn't know what the next step would be. In its ruling, the appeals court said it was "sympathetic to the plight of Jacob and his family," but that the lower court "abused its discretion" in ordering PTC to supply the drug to Gunvalson. The Gunvalsons, who live in Gonvick, Minn., maintained that the company led them to believe that Jacob could participate in a clinical trial of the drug, which is being investigated as a possible treatment — and that the company then went back on its word. |
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NJ Sen. Lautenberg among potential fraud victims
Legal Business |
2008/12/15 09:03
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| New Jersey U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg is on the growing list of potential victims of what prosecutors are calling a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme run by New York money manager Bernard Madoff. Lautenberg spokesman Scott Mulhauser says the senator was an investor in Madoff's investment fund — primarily in the form of the Lautenberg family's charitable foundation. The 70-year-old Madoff was arrested Thursday in what prosecutors say was a $50 billion scheme by the Wall Street veteran to defraud investors. Lautenberg is among a growing roster of potential victims. Those who have acknowledged potential losses so far include former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon and J. Ezra Merkin, the chairman of GMAC Financial Services, among others. |
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