Law Firms

A federal judge overseeing the Justice Department’s lengthy civil racketeering trial against major cigarette makers called both sides to a closed-door meeting on Monday. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler did not publicly disclose the reason for the meeting or whether mediation talks would take place. A Justice Department spokesman said he could not comment on […]

Public health groups, saying they lacked confidence in the government’s handling of the case, asked on Wednesday to intervene in the federal racketeering lawsuit against major tobacco companies. The six groups contended that prosecutors were no longer representing their interests after scaling down a proposed penalty. The filing to U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler asked

America’s new Class Action Fairness Act seeks to curb frivolous class-action lawsuits against companies in areas such as product liability and labour law, mainly by redirecting more of them to federal courts and so denying lawyers scope to “forum-shop” among biddable state courts. But before companies declare victory, they should reflect that the law of

KPMG LLP will pay about $450 million and open up its operations to independent review as part of a deal with federal prosecutors to avoid a criminal indictment that could have sent the nation’s fourth-largest accounting firm into a death spiral, according to sources familiar with the pact. The deal, struck with the U.S. attorney

U.S. Chief Justice nominee John Roberts, his record on civil rights and women’s rights challenged by Democrats, vowed at the start of his Senate confirmation hearing on Monday to ensure that the Supreme Court protects all Americans. “I have no agenda, but I do have a commitment,” Roberts, President George W. Bush’s conservative nominee to

South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has agreed to plead guilty to a charge that it conspired to fix the price of memory chips and will pay a $300 million fine, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday. The Justice Department said the criminal antitrust fine was the second-largest in U.S. history, and it left

With the withdrawal of Harriet Miers as a nominee to the Supreme Court, attention is now turning to President Bush’s other possible choices, and the field is wide open, legal experts say. Although some senators want Bush to nominate another woman as a replacement for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who is retiring, Miers’s pullout could

Former Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s vice chairman Tom Coughlin is expected to plead guilty to fraud and failure to pay federal taxes in a court appearance on Tuesday, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported on Friday. The newspaper, quoting unnamed sources, said a proposed plea agreement with prosecutors called for him to plead guilty to five counts of

According to Mayer Brown chairman Tyrone Fahner, the US partners love Maher’s understated British humour (some of them have even drawn parallels with Hugh Grant). They find it “hilarious” when his schoolboy banter with UK partners Sean Connolly and Jeremy Clay suddenly engulfs a management meeting. And they can’t help but wind Maher up about