Do the kings of credit default swaps make the suave Charles Ponzi look like a piker?
Blawgletter got a call not long ago from a former official of an institution that oversees pension and retirement fund investments. The impetus? The ex-official's conviction that the $58 trillion market for credit default swaps bears material, if not primary, responsibility for
Mix two hydrogens with two oxygens and, voila — hydrogen peroxide.
The Third Circuit took a torque wrench today to the standards for class certification under Rule 23(b)(3). The tightening may portend mini-trials — and perhaps big ones, too – on whether or not a price-fixing case meets the requirements of the rule. In re
He looks a little pekid.
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation convenes for its next hearing session in Fort Myers, Florida, on Wednesday, January 29, 2009. See Notice of Hearing Session.
The Panel has at last returned to its seven-judge full strength with the addition of Hon. Frank C. Damrell, Jr. Judge
The cast of Animal House (1978) toasts something other than the passage of the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005. Road trip, perhaps?
The Fourth Circuit held today that a counterclaim defendant, which stood on the receiving end of a class counterclaim for cheating consumers, doesn't have the right to remove a case from state to federal
The Seventh Circuit upheld summary judgment for a class of Cingular wireless customers against a debt-collecting firm, AFNI, Inc. The customers' contracts with Cingular permitted recovery of "collection agency" fees "incurred by CINGULAR" or that "we incur". But AFNI didn't act as a collection agency; it instead bought the customers' debts from Cingular outright. Neither
The Sixth Circuit today reversed dismissal of a class action securities fraud complaint because the district court applied a tougher, pre-Tellabs standard for judgment whether plaintiffs adequately alleged the scienter (fraudulent intent) element. Frank v. Dana Corp., No. 07-4235 (6th Cir. Nov. 19, 2008).
The district court erred by failing to see, the
It's a twista! It's a twista!
Some signs we think of as presaging a storm: Dusky ponderous clouds that loom on a horizon. A swirling sudden reversal of wind direction. The plummeting barometer. And that poetical classic, red sky at morning/sailor take warning.
Storm warnings, all.
But what does "storm warnings" mean in the legal context? Mercy, it does seem imprecise.
The Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice today announced that three companies agreed to plead guilty to fixing prices on liquid crystal display panels. The trio — LG Display Co. Ltd, Sharp Corp., and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. — also consented to paying $585 million in criminal fines.
The pleas will likely spell
Do you get more with a Kenmore?
Today the Seventh Circuit — with Judge Richard Posner tickling the keyboard — instructed a district judge to decertify a class action that challenged the audacity of Sears, Roebuck and Company in labelling a Kenmore-brand clothes dryer as sporting a "stainless steel drum" when in fact part of the
Judge Furgeson testifies at a House hearing.
The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation will hear a new slew of transfer motions on November 20 in Charleston, South Carolina. Notice of Hearing Session and Hearing Session Order here.
Blawgletter notes that the Panel has a new member — W. Royal Furgeson, Jr., who sits