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Crack Down on Scalping for 2010 Olympics.
Topics in Legal News |
2009/03/19 11:00
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"Let the games begin!" but without ticket scalping, please, the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympics says. The committee is cracking down on scalpers who claim to have "guaranteed" tickets to events despite a license agreement that specifically prohibits ticket scalping.
The committee claims that Shane Bourdage and his company Coast2Coast Tickets are illegally using Olympic trademarks to falsely advertise tickets to Olympic events at fees that "grossly exceed the face value of the tickets."
Scalped or resold tickets can be confiscated and invalidated, Olympic organizers say.
The Vancouver Organizing Committee - VANOC - claims that Bourdage is selling ducats through the Internet, and is not warning people about the "real and substantial risk that Bourdage and Coast2Coast will not be able to deliver tickets to their customers, and that any such tickets presented by their customers at 2010 Winter Games events will be cancelled, invalidated and seized by VANOC."
The only ticket resellers authorized to sell to Canadians are Jet Set Sports and Tickets.com, the complaint states. The committee says Bourdage has failed to stop advertising the tickets despite demands to stop.
The stringent anti-scalping rules are "intended to ensure the fair, worldwide distribution of tickets at reasonable cost," according to the complaint. |
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Oklahoma Employees Allowed to Keep Guns In Locked Cars
Topics in Legal News |
2009/02/23 10:04
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Oklahoma employers can't stop employees from storing guns in their locked vehicles in company parking lots, the 10th Circuit ruled. A three-judge panel reinstated laws that hold employers criminally liable for banning the storage of guns in locked cars, saying the amendments do not "materially impede or thwart" federal law.
After several employees had been fired for keeping guns in their locked vehicles, the state Legislature amended its gun laws in 2004 to hold employers criminally liable for prohibiting guns in vehicles.
A group of businesses challenged the amendments as too vague and an unconstitutional taking of company property. They also argued that the amendments violated their due process rights and were pre-empted by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA).
A federal judge granted their motion for a temporary restraining order and ordered extensive briefing on the issue of pre-emption. The judge then rejected the plaintiffs' constitutional claims, but determined that the laws were pre-empted by federal law and permanently enjoined their enforcement.
On appeal, the state argued against "conflict pre-emption," saying the amendments didn't impede or block any federal laws or policies.
The federal appeals court in Denver sided with the state, saying the OSHA regulates work-related hazards, not workplace violence.
"OSHA has not indicated in any way that employers should prohibit firearms from company parking lots," Judge Baldock wrote.
The panel reversed the injunction and reinstated the amendments. |
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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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2 plead guilty in NY Tamil Tiger terrorism case
Topics in Legal News |
2009/01/26 14:24
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| When customs agents questioned a carload of Sri Lankan immigrants entering the United States at the Canadian border in the summer of 2006, the men claimed they were headed to a bachelor party in Buffalo. There was no party, or even a groom. Two of the men pleaded guilty Monday. U.S. authorities say the men were part of a secret mission to help militants locked in the bloody civil war in their homeland by buying and smuggling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of surface-to-air missiles. According to court papers, the men also wanted guns — but not just any guns. "We need AK-47s, but only if you have Russian-made or American-made," prosecutors allege one defendant said during a meeting with an undercover agent posing as a crooked arms dealer. "Not the Chinese." The videotaped sting is central to an unusual case against four alleged agents of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or "Tamil Tigers" — a Sri Lankan rebel force the State Department calls a terrorist organization. |
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For Sale: Unibomber's Property
Topics in Legal News |
2009/01/12 09:47
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The 9th Circuit upheld a plan to sell or disposal of the Unabomber's personal items - including notes, books, guns and bomb-making materials and instructions - that were seized during his 1996 arrest.
Theodore Kaczynski, the infamous "Unabomber," claimed the plan restricts his freedom of expression and impermissibly allows his victims to vie for any profits from the auction of his goods. He also contested a provision that calls for the destruction of his bomb-making materials instead of returning them to his designee.
He tried to reclaim his property in 2003, but the district court said the government had a "superior ownership interest" in the Unabomber's property. It also determined that his belongings were essentially worthless, as they had to be valued before he gained criminal notoriety in order to keep him from profiting from his crimes.
Kaczynski is serving four consecutive life sentences plus 30 years for a series of mail bombings that killed three people and injured nine others.
In 2005, the 9th Circuit held that the government has an ownership claim in Kaczynski's stuff, but only "if that property is needed to satisfy the terms of the restitution order."
The items aren't worthless, the court noted on appeal, if their sale helps fulfill the $15 million restitution order.
The court said the plan does not violate the First Amendment, because Kaczynski would receive a full set of legible copies before anything was sold.
Kaczynski argued that the originals were more valuable, but offered "no explanation as to how his right to free speech or freedom of expression is impinged by their sale," Judge Hawkins wrote. |
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