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BP, Transocean Lawsuits Surge as Oil Spill Spreads in Gulf – BusinessWeek

May 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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BP Plc and Transocean Ltd. face at least 36 lawsuits, including group cases with potentially thousands of plaintiffs, over environmental damage and personal injuries caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

At least 31 proposed class-action suits have been filed in courthouses from Texas to Florida. Commercial fishermen, shrimpers, charter-boat operators and beachfront-property owners asked to represent anyone whose livelihood depends on coastal waters imperiled by the drifting oil. At least 24 cases were filed yesterday.

BP has the primary liability for damage caused by the spill, said Keith Hall, an attorney in New Orleans, who isn’t involved in the litigation. He cited a U.S. law passed after the Exxon Valdez oil spill at Alaska in 1989.

“Under the Oil Pollution Act, the fact that it was BP’s oil is enough,” said Hall, of Stone Pigman Walther Wittmann LLC. Plaintiffs “don’t have to show they were negligent or grossly negligent,” he said.

Transocean’s spokesman Guy Cantwell and BP’s Daren Beaudo didn’t respond to requests for comment on the rapid rise in lawsuits. Both men said previously it was against company policy to comment on pending litigation.

Lawsuits also name Cameron International Corp., which provided blowout-prevention equipment, and Halliburton Energy Services Inc., which was involved in cementing the well.

via BP, Transocean Lawsuits Surge as Oil Spill Spreads in Gulf – BusinessWeek.

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Man who left USB drive in shared PC waived privacy claims, court rules – Computerworld

April 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

A man who forgot to remove a thumb drive from a shared computer that he was using, waived his privacy claims to the content on that device, a federal judge in Florida has ruled.

The ruling, by Judge Maurice Paul of the U.S. District Court for the northern district of Florida, was in response to a motion filed by Octavius Durdley an emergency paramedic with the Bradford County Emergency Services (BCES) in Florida.

Durdley was charged last September with possessing and distributing child pornography based largely on evidence gathered from a personal thumb drive of his that he had inadvertently left behind in a shared work computer.

Durdley claimed that the information gathered from the thumb drive had resulted from a warrantless search of his personal property. He asked for the evidence from the thumb drive, and that gathered from a subsequent search of his house, to be suppressed asserting Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure.

via Man who left USB drive in shared PC waived privacy claims, court rules – Computerworld.

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DOJs Top Foreign-Bribery Prosecutor Heads to Paul Weiss | Law.com

April 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment
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The Justice Departments top foreign-bribery prosecutor, Mark Mendelsohn, is leaving the department to join Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in Washington, D.C.

Mendelsohns jump to private practice was expected and has been talked about for months as the Justice Departments Fraud Section has undergone personnel changes. His last day at Justice will be Friday.

Back in November, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer of the Criminal Division praised Mendelsohn, a deputy chief in the Fraud Section who oversees Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases, during a speech at the 22nd Annual National Forum on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. “Mark has been an exceptional public servant and a visionary steward of the FCPA program,” Breuer said.

FCPA enforcement has ramped up significantly in the past couple of years, especially when it comes to the prosecution of individuals. Breuer has called 2009 the most “dynamic” year of FCPA enforcement ever with a record number of trials, individuals charged and corporate fines.

Mendelsohn, who has been a federal prosecutor for 12 years, is a former senior counsel in the DOJ Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. Prior to joining the computer crime section, Mendelsohn was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York, where he specialized in the prosecution of white-collar crime, including FCPA cases. He clerked for Judge Denny Chin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, who has been nominated for a federal appeals court slot.

Chuck Duross, an assistant chief in the Fraud Section since October 2008, has been named acting deputy chief for FCPA enforcement. The Justice Department has posted a vacancy announcement seeking a permanent replacement.

Duross joined the Fraud Section in 2006 and has focused on FCPA enforcement. He was the Fraud Section trial attorney on the prosecution of former Rep. William Jefferson, who was convicted last August in a bribery case in Alexandria, Va.

As an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Miami, Duross investigated and prosecuted mail fraud, money laundering and securities fraud. He became a deputy chief in the Major Crimes Section of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of Florida.

Alexandra Wrage, an expert in corporate compliance with FCPA, called Mendelsohn “the face” of FCPA in the private sector. Wrage and Mendelsohn are participating on an FCPA-themed panel later this week at an American Bar Association International Law Section meeting in New York.

via Law.com – DOJs Top Foreign-Bribery Prosecutor Heads to Paul Weiss.

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Making E-discovery an Internal Function | ComputerWorld.com

March 29, 2010 By

NBC Universal is one of the largest media and entertainment companies in the world. Chief Information Security Officer Jonathan Chow and his team manage information security for several business lines within NBCU, including its broadcast and cable television to film production, online ventures and its two theme parks in Hollywood, California and Orlando, Florida. Among one of the biggest challenges in the last few years has been the incredible explosion in demand for e-discovery services, according to Chow.

Since different legal teams handle the needs of each line of business, the workflows associated with managing electronic discovery vary as well, adding another layer of complexity. And because of the growing number of cases, and increases in both the amount of electronically stored information and hours spent supporting the process, demand for e-discovery services has increased 30 to 50 percent annually. The costs were spiraling out of control and this sent Chow looking for a way to manage the process internally.

[continued] Making E-discovery an Internal Function.

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Justices to Consider a Border Battle Over Lawsuits | Law.com

March 27, 2010 By

“Foreign-cubed” is the name of the latest legal nemesis that keeps lawyers for companies ranging from Toyota to Vivendi up at night.

The term refers to securities class action litigation in which the investors are foreign, the issuers are foreign and the fraudulent conduct took place on foreign soil. And yet, because of some company tie to the United States, large or minuscule, they end up in U.S. courts, where plaintiffs usually can do a lot better than if the suits were filed abroad.

Six years after the moniker was first coined, a foreign-cubed suit has made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will hear the case, Morrison v. National Australia Bank, today. Foreign investors accused Australia’s largest bank of fraud involving a Florida subsidiary, but the bank insists all of the disputed activity took place in Australia. So far, the bank has won.

Foreign companies and countries have flooded the Court with friend of the court briefs, signaling the importance of the case worldwide. Even parties litigating over the Toyota safety meltdown are watching; several securities class actions have been filed in federal courts against the company, which trades on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, based on statements made by Toyota officials in Japan.

The case comes to a Court that has grown increasingly skeptical about U.S. courts exerting extraterritorial jurisdiction. In the 2007 case Microsoft v. AT&T, a 7-1 majority spoke approvingly of the presumption that “United States law governs domestically but does not rule the world.” Three years earlier, in Hoffman-LaRoche v. Empagran, a unanimous Court said extending the reach of American antitrust laws too far into foreign situations would be “an act of legal imperialism.”

via Law.com – Justices to Consider a Border Battle Over Lawsuits.

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Attorneys Argue Over Venue for Toyota Litigation | Law.com

March 26, 2010 By

More than 100 lawyers packed a downtown San Diego federal courtroom on Thursday to hear arguments about which court is best prepared to hear the increasing number of lawsuits filed against Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. over sudden unintended acceleration in millions of its vehicles.

In all, 24 lawyers made brief statements before a panel, arguing for courts and judges in California, Louisiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Minnesota, Florida, South Carolina, West Virginia and New Jersey.

Cari Dawson, a partner at Alston and Bird who is lead counsel for Toyota, argued for the Central District of California, where one-third of the cases have been filed and where her client is located.

The panel of five judges who regularly hear jurisdictional issues for multidistrict litigation raised few questions about the locations but asked lawyers to address whether the class actions should be separated from the personal injury suits. Most of the lawyers appeared to favor keeping the cases together.

The panel is expected to rule within a few weeks.

Since last fall, more than 10 million Toyota vehicles have been recalled in order to repair problems with accelerator pedals, floor mats and brakes, all of which have been identified as causing sudden and unintended acceleration. Toyota's problems have multiplied, with new reports coming out each week indicating that the Japanese automaker might have known about the acceleration issue years ago.

The vast majority of the lawsuits — nearly 90 — have been filed on behalf of a class of consumers who are seeking economic damages because their recalled Toyota vehicles have lost value. A smaller group of personal injury suits have been filed on behalf of individuals who claim to have died or been injured in an accident because their Toyota vehicles suddenly accelerated.

via Law.com – Attorneys Argue Over Venue for Toyota Litigation.

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Swiss Government Asks UBS to Pay Legal Costs in Tax Dispute With U.S.

February 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The U.S. may have trumped Switzerland in Olympic men’s hockey on Wednesday, but its tax battle with Switzerland continues.

Swiss news agencies reported on Wednesday that the government would ask Zurich-based banking giant UBS to reimburse it for outside legal costs stemming from the bank’s long-running legal dispute with U.S. authorities over allegations of tax evasion by U.S. citizens holding UBS accounts.

A deal to resolve that dispute by releasing the names of 4,450 U.S. citizens with UBS accounts was tentatively struck last August. UBS relied on lawyers from Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Florida’s Stearns Weaver Miller Weissler Alhadeff & Sitterson in those negotiations, while the Swiss government retained Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman international trade practice chair Stephan Becker and Palm Beach, Fla.-based attorney John Dotterrer on the matter. (UBS also paid a $780 million fine and agreed to turn over nearly 300 client names as part of a deferred prosecution agreement it struck with U.S. prosecutors in February 2009.)

According to Swiss news reports, the dispute between U.S. regulators and UBS has so far cost the Swiss government $2.3 million. UBS has agreed to reimburse the government, which hired Becker and Dotterrer to file briefs in federal court in Florida defending the bank, more than $931,000 of that $2.3 million. The Swiss could eventually incur another $34.4 million in costs as a result of helping U.S. authorities track down American tax evaders. (It's unclear at this point how much of those costs relate to legal fees paid to outside lawyers; Becker and Dotterrer did not respond to requests for comment.)

via Swiss Government Asks UBS to Pay Legal Costs in Tax Dispute With U.S..

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If You Hold On for One More Daaaay: How Companies Have to Handle Legal Holds

February 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

On Jan. 11, 2010, U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin issued a landmark opinion that has major implications for in-house counsel and how companies handle legal holds.

Although The Pension Committee v. Banc of America Securities (as Amended Jan. 15, 2010) (pdf) was issued in the first weeks of the year, it is likely to become one of the most important opinions of the year. In the opinion, Judge Scheindlin reiterates a host of e-discovery duties made famous by her Zubulake series of opinions (pdf). Key to her opinion is the duty to issue and manage written litigation holds or risk severe sanctions.

The duty to issue a written litigation hold whenever litigation is anticipated is clearly viewed as the only way for litigants to demonstrate the proper discharge of their preservation obligations in federal court. The clear message of Judge Scheindlin's opinion, which took more than 300 collective hours of her time and that of her two clerks, is that organizations must take certain steps necessary to properly preserve ESI.

The case involves a complex securities litigation filed by a group of 96 investors trying to recover $550 million in losses due to the collapse of two British Virgin Islands-based hedge funds. The case was filed in the Southern District of Florida in February 2004 and was then transferred to the Southern District of New York in October 2005. Defendants began asserting discovery violations from October 2007 to June 2008, including allegations that plaintiffs failed to preserve ESI and other documents and then made “false and misleading declarations regarding their document collection and preservation efforts.”

via If You Hold On for One More Daaaay: How Companies Have to Handle Legal Holds.

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‘Legal armada’ sets sail against Toyota

February 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Legal attacks against Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc. escalated this week following fresh reports of product-safety defects afflicting some of the most popular vehicles in the automaker’s fleet.

And more suits are coming.

“We’re not done yet. We’re just building,” said Tim Howard, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston who as a plaintiffs’ attorney specializes in consumer and products liability litigation. “But it’s going to be a formidable legal armada that Toyota is going to have to deal with.”

Toyota announced on Jan. 26 that it would stop selling eight models because of accelerator pedals that can stick in the depressed position, causing the cars to speed up out of control. The company has recalled 2.3 million vehicles with that problem. Earlier, Toyota recalled another 4.2 million vehicles, blaming a problem with floor mats.

Toyota announced a plan on Monday to fix the accelerators. Since then, Congress has announced plans for hearings into the problems and the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has begun considering fines against Toyota for delaying the recalls.

As of Wednesday, there was no word whether litigation lay in store over Toyota’s latest headache: reports of brake problems in its Prius hybrid vehicle.

Most of the suits filed in recent days have been class actions on behalf of consumers whose Toyota vehicles have lost economic value because of the recalls. In most cases, the lead plaintiffs have experienced some type of unintended acceleration with their cars but no actual injuries.

Brian Lyons, a spokesman for Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc., declined to comment on the litigation.

One suit, filed on Friday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida, seeks $1 billion in damages on behalf of a nationwide class of consumers. Some 15 law firms have been working as a team in that case and they plan to file another three dozen suits within the next week or two in at least 25 states, said Howard, one of the lawyers on the case. Eventually, he said, the suits will be coordinated as multidistrict litigation.

via ‘Legal armada’ sets sail against Toyota.

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Heartland moves to encrypted payment system

January 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Responding to its widely reported and massive data breach that took place a year ago, Heartland Payment Systems will be moving to an end-to-end encryption system for payment transactions, according to Chairman and CEO Robert Carr.

“End-to-end encryption is a good way to mitigate the risk of having the kind of compromise that we and hundreds of other companies have had,” Carr said in an interview.

“We're using encryption on the front end to keep card numbers out of our merchants’ systems, and to also have all the card numbers coming through our network be encrypted throughout, except at the point of decryption,” he said.

The company, which handles more than 4 million transactions annually for more than 250,000 merchants, will be using Thales nShield Connect hardware security module along with Voltage Security’s  SecureData encryption software as the basis of this capability.

In January 2009, Heartland Payment Systems reported that it found that intruders had penetrated its systems and planted software to harvest card numbers, using SQL injection attacks to plant programs inside the network that would sniff the card numbers.

In August, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted Florida resident Albert Gonzalez for this breach, along with those of several other companies that were attacked. Gonzalez pleaded guilty last month.

via Heartland moves to encrypted payment system.

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