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Judge approves $179M settlement for AK Steel retire
Headline Legal News |
2011/01/12 08:02
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pU.S. District Judge Timothy Black has approved a previously disclosed $179 million settlement and entered a final judgment in a dispute between AK Steel and retirees at its Butler, Pa., steel plant./ppThe AK Steel retirees had filed a class-action lawsuit in June 2009 to stop the company from making changes to their health insurance benefits. It had started making retirees pay a portion of their premiums in January 2010./ppWest Chester-based AK Steel is the largest Dayton-area company, with more than $4 billion in revenue./ppUnder the terms of the settlement, AK Steel will continue to pay for the benefits through 2014 and also pay $91 million to two trusts to cover future benefits for hourly and salaries retirees./ppIn return, the company has been relieved of liability for any benefits after 2014, and the lawsuit was dismissed.
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MBIA Inc. Surged Higher Following Court Ruling
Court Press News |
2011/01/12 05:00
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pMBIA Inc. announced Tuesday afternoon that the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court reversed an earlier decision by a lower court and granted MBIA's motion to dismiss the plenary lawsuit brought by a group of banks challenging the Company's transformation./ppMBIA Inc. broke out sharply to the upside in the second half of the morning Tuesday and finished higher by 1.25 at $13.53, with volume at a 9-month high. The stock rose past resistance and set a new high for the year.
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Judge Rules Teacher Performance Ratings Should Be Public
Headline Legal News |
2011/01/12 03:59
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| pA State Supreme Court judge ruled yesterday that New York City can make teacher performance ratings public. The United Federation of Teachers has vowed to appeal the decision./ppThe suit, which was launched by the UFT against the Department of Education, argued that the move by the city to release the ratings was “arbitrary and capricious.”/ppThe data reflected in the Teacher Data Reports (TDRs) should not be released, because the TDRs are so flawed and unreliable as to be subjective and without merit, argued a union representative./ppState Senator Velmanette Montgomery, a longtime champion of children’s education, expressed some concern around the test methodology which, she says, should be independently verified by a recognized authority. If it is flawed, the actions taken could ruin the careers of valuable educators and hurt the school system and our children, said Montgomery./p |
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Cops Bust Wrong Pot Party, End Up in Supreme Court
Law News |
2011/01/12 02:59
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| pHollis King and his two friends might be the unluckiest pot smokers in Kentucky./ppThe three men were sitting around King's apartment in Lexington, Ky., on a Thursday night in October 2005, when police officers knocked on the front door, then kicked it in. They did not have a search warrant./ppThe police were looking for a man who fled into an apartment building after selling cocaine to an informant. They heard a door slam in a hallway, but by the time they were able to look down it, they saw only two closed doors./ppThey didn't know which one the suspect had gone through, but, smelling the aroma of burnt pot, chose the apartment on the left./ppTheir quarry had gone into the apartment on the right. But in King's place, they found one person smoking pot and a small amount of cocaine and money, and arrested King and his friends./ppKing pleaded guilty to drug charges, but the Kentucky Supreme Court threw out the evidence against him and the conviction, ruling that the police did not have cause to burst into his home without a warrant./ppThe U.S. Supreme Court is hearing the state's appeal of that ruling Wednesday, in a case that could clarify rules for when police can conduct searches without a warrant./ppThe police contend they entered the apartment because they heard noises they thought might indicate that evidence was being destroyed. King says the noises they heard were people moving around in response to the commotion in the hallway./ppAnd what of the original suspect? The police eventually found him in the apartment on the right. But prosecutors later dropped charges against him for reasons that are not explained in court papers./p |
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SEC charges 4 with insider trading
Law Firm News |
2011/01/12 01:02
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| pFederal regulators on Monday charged the co-founder of a New York hedge fund and three other individuals with insider trading, the latest action in what the government has called the biggest insider-trading case in U.S. history./ppThe Securities and Exchange Commission announced it filed a civil lawsuit against hedge fund Trivium Capital Management, its co-founder Robert Feinblatt and analyst Jeffrey Yokuty. The SEC also filed charges against Sunil Bhalla, a former senior executive of tech company Polycom, and Shammara Hussain, a former employee at a consulting firm that did work for Google. The agency said Bhalla and Hussain provided confidential information that enabled Feinblatt and Yokuty to make about $15 million from trading on the information./ppSo far the SEC has filed civil charges against 27 people and hedge funds in a wide-ranging probe of the Galleon group of hedge funds and its founder. The government says Galleon funds made about $69 million in illegal profits. Raj Rajaratnam, the one-time billionaire founder of the Galleon funds, has pleaded not guilty. Federal authorities have arrested 23 people on criminal charges in the case; 14 have pleaded guilty./ppThe SEC alleged in its suit that Feinblatt and Yokuty traded using confidential information they received from Roomy Khan, a Florida investor who pleaded guilty in 2009 to conspiracy and securities fraud in the Galleon case. Khan has been cooperating in the government's investigation./ppThe SEC said that Bhalla gave Khan inside information on Polycom's fourth-quarter earnings in 2005, and that Khan traded on the information and gave it to others, including Feinblatt and Yokuty. The SEC also alleged that Hussain gave Khan confidential information about Google's second-quarter earnings in 2007./p |
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