|
|
|
Court upholds $185 million award against Argentina
Press Release |
2014/03/07 22:49
|
The Supreme Court has upheld a British natural gas company's multimillion dollar award against the government of Argentina.
BG Group won $185 million through arbitration of a dispute with Argentina over investment in natural gas development. An arbitration tribunal said the company did not have to first submit the dispute to Argentine courts before arbitration could begin.
Argentina asked a U.S. court to throw out the award. The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., sided with Argentina because it found that judges, not arbitrators, should decide where attempts to resolve the dispute should begin.
But the Supreme Court said Wednesday the arbitrators get to make that call and that they were correct to rule in favor of BG Group in this case. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court: Broad protection for whistleblowers
Press Release |
2014/03/05 21:07
|
The Supreme Court says whistleblower protections in a federal law passed in response to the Enron financial scandal apply broadly to employees of publicly traded companies and contractors hired by the companies.
The justices ruled 6-3 Tuesday in favor of two former employees of companies that administer the Fidelity family of mutual funds. The workers claimed they faced retaliation after they reported allegations of fraud affecting Fidelity funds.
The case involved the reach of a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002 in response to the Enron scandal, that protects whistleblower activity. The measure was intended to protect people who expose the kind of corporate misdeeds that arose at Enron. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jacksonville man guilty of lesser counts in music shooting
Press Release |
2014/02/18 00:07
|
A 47-year-old software developer was convicted Saturday of attempted murder for shooting into a carful of teenagers after an argument over what he called their “thug music,” but jurors couldn’t agree on the most serious charge of first-degree murder.
After more than 30 hours of jury deliberations over four days, a mistrial was declared on the murder charge that Michael Dunn faced in the fatal shooting of one of the black teens. The 12 jurors found him guilty of three counts of attempted second-degree murder and a count of firing into an occupied car.
Dunn was charged with fatally shooting 17-year-old Jordan Davis, of Marietta , Ga. , in 2012 after the argument over loud music coming from the SUV occupied by Davis and three friends outside a Jacksonville convenience store. Dunn, who is white, had described the music to his fiancee as “thug music.”
Dunn showed no emotion as the verdicts were read. Each attempted second-degree murder charge carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, while the fourth charge he was convicted on carries a maximum of 15. A sentencing date will be set at a hearing next month. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
CA Supreme Court justice to retire
Press Release |
2014/02/13 22:34
|
The longest-serving current justice of the California Supreme Court announced Tuesday that she is retiring.
Justice Joyce Kennard notified Gov. Jerry Brown that she intends to step down on April 5, ending her 24-year tenure as a member of the state's highest court.
"The state and its people have been very well served by Justice Kennard," Brown said in a statement on Tuesday. "Her independence and intellectual fortitude have left a lasting mark on the Court."
Former Gov. George Deukmejian appointed Kennard to the Supreme Court in 1989, The San Jose Mercury News reported. She previously was a Los Angeles trial judge and an appeals court justice for a brief time before being elevated to the State Supreme Court.
Kennard, 72, has a unique personal history, according to the Mercury News, because she is a native of Indonesia, moved to the Netherlands as a teenager and lost part of her right leg to a tumor, forcing her to walk with a prosthetic the rest of her life.
Kennard moved to the United States in 1961, settling in Southern California. She earned her law degree from the University of Southern California.
In her tenure on the court, she became famous for interjecting questions during oral arguments, often turning them into lengthy speeches before pointing her finger at a lawyer and demanding an answer. Despite being an appointee of the conservative Deukmejian, she was often unpredictable in her rulings and would come down on the more liberal side of social issues before the court.
Kennard was in the 4-3 majority that in 2008 struck down California's long-standing ban on gay marriage, a ruling that preceded voter approval of Proposition 8 — which restored the same-sex marriage ban until the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated it last year. |
|
|
|
|
|
| Lawyer & Law Firm Websites |
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
