Miscellaneous

• Stock Option Backdating Cases Accelerating

  Aubrey Ford | February 25, 2007 10:14 PM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  Two of seven business executives prosecuted for stock option backdating pled guilty last week in prosecutions initiated by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. There appears to be enhanced momentum for the prosecutions initiated last year in these criminal matters that may transform into substantial business litigation by shareholders.Stock options allow the...

• Lobbyists Now Control S.E.C.

  Michael Phelan | February 13, 2007 10:02 AM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  How soon they forget! Just five years after the huge accounting fraud scandal at WorldCom and the collapse of Enron decimated tens of thousands of retirement and investment accounts, the lobbyists for the accounting industry, Chamber of Commerce, and big, publicly held companies have succeeded in convincing the Securities and Exchange Commision to abandon some of the investor protections...

• Court Rules $2 Million Management Fee Reasonable

  Michael Phelan | February 05, 2007 10:11 PM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  My partner, Aubrey Ford, prevailed last week in a significant commercial litigation trial. Aubrey represented the plaintiffs in the case of G.C.R., Inc., et al. v. James Clayton, pending in the Circuit Court of the County of Chesterfield, Virginia. After a two- day trial, the Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in this dispute between the two major shareholders in a real estate development...

• Commercial Litigation Involving the Recording Industry May Proceed

  Aubrey Ford | January 26, 2007 8:05 AM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  A business lawsuit in which record companies claimed that XM Satellite Radio Holdings, Inc. was depriving them of revenue by allowing consumers to store songs can proceed to trial, a New York judge ruled last week. The case is another in recent highly publicized actions relating to the recording industry.The case was brought by Atlantic Recording Corporation, BMG Music, Capitol Records, Inc.,...

• State Farm Settles With Mississippi Katrina Victims

  Michael Phelan | January 24, 2007 11:31 AM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  To the horror of many of the victims of Hurricane Katrina who lost their homes in the storm, the insurance industry uniformly denied these folks' property damage claims. Insurers contended that damage to houses in Louisiana and Mississippi was caused by surging flood waters and not by high winds. The insurers said their policies covered only wind damage. The New York Times reports today that...

• South Carolina Health Care and Kickback

  Staff Writer | July 22, 2006 12:18 PM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  I just read that the Marion County Medical Center in Marion County South Carolina has agreed to pay $3.7 million to settle allegations of health care fraud that they had committed against the government. The fraud allegation revolved around charges that the medical center had submitted false claims to Medicare, Medicaid, and the U.S. Military Health Care System. It was alleged that they had...

• Legal System Under Fire

  Staff Writer | July 21, 2006 10:03 AM | 1 CommentRichmond, VA

  This week, the Association of Trial Attorneys of America voted to change their name. This organization, of which I am a member, adopted the new name of the American Association for Justice. This change of the name is not merely some public relations ploy, but is an attempt to reflect what our purpose is. For more than two hundred years, justice has been provided through the American judicial...

• Ken Lay's Political Funeral

  Staff Writer | July 13, 2006 11:45 AM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  I read USA Today's report, which detailed the eulogies and remembrances of Ken Lay. Not surprisingly, many of his friends took the opportunity to defend Ken Lay and tell the audience that he was a good person. One mourner even stated that he was a "victim of a lynching".None of us will ever really know the kind of man or the kind of character within Ken Lay. However, from a distance, when you...

• A Robe Is A Robe

  Staff Writer | July 06, 2006 10:52 AM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  As a kid, we would see bagpipe players wearing skirts and often joke about what they were wearing underneath. Sometimes in the practice of law, I have seen judges jokingly remark that they no longer had to worry about their suit selection because of the covering of the robe.Apparently, an Oklahoma Judge took the covering of a robe to a criminal activity. Recently, an Oklahoma jury convicted...

• Blogging in the courtroom

  Staff Writer | April 29, 2006 9:11 AM | 0 CommentsRichmond, VA

  The concept of blogging has become an outlet for creativity, as well as a source of information for the web surfer. However, a San Francisco Judge was recently angered by one lawyer's blogging. As Law.com reports"according to Judge Karnow's ruling, Attorney Kuo, at various points called his opposing counsel "chicken" when she asked for a continuance, directly alluded to her with some posting...