Hundreds of criminals accused of money laundering or handling stolen goods could be freed from prison after judges upheld the appeals of four men accused of a £171m drugs conspiracy. The ruling yesterday is expected to have wider implications for similar conspiracy cases in which the Crown has failed to show that the defendant knew […]

The prospect of winning massive, multimillion dollar verdicts has turned the original mass tort–asbestos litigation–into the ultimate mass farce. There are now about 49,000 asbestos plaintiffs awaiting trial in Lexington, Fayette, Port Gibson, Pascagoula, and other propitious plaintiffs’ venues in Mississippi, and at least 200,000 more cases nationwide–mainly concentrated in other favorable plaintiffs’ locales sprinkled

A former Merrill Lynch lawyer who last July settled a sex discrimination case with the U.S. bank, said on Tuesday a reference it gave her was the “death knell” for her chances of getting into a prestigious U.S. business school. Elizabeth Weston, who left Merrill in March 2004, alleges she was victimised in a reference

The US Supreme Court’s decision this week asserting federal control over marijuana used for medical purposes would seem to bring that controversial practice to a halt. Uncle Sam – not the states – has the last word here, the court ruled. But the 6-to-3 ruling may have raised more questions than it answered – and

Microsoft cleared a major stumbling block on Monday and won praise from the European Commission for finally putting forward acceptable proposals to comply with European Union antitrust sanctions. The risk that the EU executive might hit the world’s largest software company with a fine of up to $5 million a day receded because Microsoft’s proposal

The movement of attorneys from huge to smaller law firms is becoming more common, according to some recruiters. As big practices get bigger and pursue hefty clients to match that growth, many attorneys who service smaller clients find their careers at odds with their firms’ strategic plan, he said. In those cases, moving on to

A former banker at Credit Suisse First Boston, Frank P. Quattrone, citing a Supreme Court ruling this week that overturned the conviction of accounting firm Arthur Andersen, asked an appeals court yesterday to reverse the guilty verdict in his case. Mr. Quattrone, who was convicted last year of obstructing investigations into First Boston, told a

A Brooklyn appeals court has sanctioned Sullivan & Cromwell for engaging in “frivolous conduct” in its defense of a proposed class action suit over credit card late fees in Westchester County Supreme Court. In Naposki v. First National Bank of Atlanta, 2572/00, the Appellate Division, 2nd Department, ordered the firm to pay $5,000 to the

America’s biggest investors expressed grave fears over the direction of US corporate governance yesterday after President Bush nominated a Republican congressman with a history of hostility towards the investment community as the new chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Christopher Cox, a Republican congressman on the right of his party who was a

Lawyers in Michael Jackson’s child abuse trial are making their closing arguments as the long-running trial inches towards a conclusion. Prosecution and defence teams will have one final say, after trial judge Rodney Melville spent Wednesday issuing instructions to jurors. The jury may start deliberations on Friday into claims the singer abused a 13-year-old cancer