rrufff, I hope these are the articles you meant in pm.
Challenge delays Merck stockholder fraud suits
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
By BOB VAN VORIS
BLOOMBERG NEWS
NEWARK -- A group of investor lawsuits seeking tens of billions of dollars from Merck & Co. will be delayed while lawyers for a Mississippi pension fund challenge the right of an indicted law firm to direct the case, a judge ruled Monday.
U.S. District Judge Stanley Chesler of Newark said he will hold a hearing Jan. 8 on whether the New York law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad & Schulman should be replaced as one of the lead shareholder firms in the three-year-old litigation. ...
northjersey.com
Battle Of The Class-Action Titans
Daniel Fisher, 11.28.06, 6:00 AM ET
The lead plaintiff in a politically tinged securities lawsuit against Halliburton has taken the unusual step of asking the court to replace class-action king William Lerach with equally famous litigator David Boies as lead attorney on the case. ...
In its motion filed Nov. 22, the AMS Fund said it made a formal request of Lerach Coughlin and the smaller firm of Scott & Scott to step down and was refused. ...
forbes.com
Big, Powerful and Indicted, Milberg Firm Shrinks:
By Ann Woolner
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg)
...If they offered a slice of their fees to recruit a stable of repeat plaintiffs and lied to judges about it, as alleged, they should be punished. ...
...might have avoided indictment through a so-called deferred prosecution deal if only it had waived attorney-client privilege to help the feds investigate its conduct...
bloomberg.com
In Unusual Ruling, Law Firm Is Told to Pay Opponent’s Legal Fees in Enron Case
By FLOYD NORRIS
Published: December 2, 2006
...a federal judge in Houston has ordered the law firm of William S. Lerach, a leading class-action lawyer, to pay the legal fees and costs of a company he sued....
...case was pursued after it became clear it was without merit. The decision appears to be the first in which a law firm, and not the plaintiff, has been ordered to pay under that section of the securities law.
It is not clear how much the ruling will cost the Lerach firm, Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins of San Diego. Alliance, now known as AllianceBernstein, was directed to submit its bills for the months since Mr. Lerach’s firm should have known the case was unreasonable. ...
nytimes.com
another weiss:
School solicitor loses federal appeal on securities fraud
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
By Eleanor Chute, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The U.S. Court of Appeals yesterday denied an appeal of a decision involving well-known area attorney Ira Weiss, who the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission found had committed securities fraud in his handling of a Neshannock Township School District bond issue.
The SEC had concluded that Mr. Weiss, who represents Pittsburgh Public Schools and several other school districts in the region, violated antifraud provisions by "negligently" giving an opinion that interest from the $9.6 million in bonds the school board approved in 2000 would be exempt from federal taxes and "representing that the proceeds would be used for school renovation and construction projects." It was not. ...
post-gazette.com |
