November 2024 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

BREAKING: Trump Sentence Halted To Decide President-Elect's Immunity
by Gunnar Larson 22 Nov '24

22 Nov '24

BREAKING: Trump Sentence Halted To Decide President-Elect's Immunity <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/2264638?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…> By Frank G. Runyeon The New York state judge who oversaw Donald Trump's hush money trial officially canceled his Nov. 26 sentencing date on Friday to weigh the impact of his new status as president-elect, pushing briefing into December. Order attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/2264638?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/2264638?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…>

1 0

BREAKING: High Court Quietly Tosses Meta Disclosure Suit
by Gunnar Larson 22 Nov '24

22 Nov '24

BREAKING: High Court Quietly Tosses Meta Disclosure Suit <https://www.law360.com/capitalmarkets/articles/2264599?nl_pk=abe82add-2a33-…> By Jessica Corso The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday set aside a Meta Platforms Inc. case that sought to narrow the types of risk disclosures corporations need to make to investors, saying that the court shouldn't have taken up the case in the first place. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/capitalmarkets/articles/2264599?nl_pk=abe82add-2a33-…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/capitalmarkets/articles/2264599?nl_pk=abe82add-2a33-…>

1 0

The Untouchables: PBS Asks Why U.S. Justice Department Isn't Prosecuting Wall Street
by Gunnar Larson 22 Nov '24

22 Nov '24

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2013/01/the-untouchables-pbs-asks-why-u-s-ju… By Pam Martens: January 23, 2013 Martin Smith, Frontline Producer The Untouchables, which aired last evening on the PBS program “Frontline,” builds on the outstanding 2012 series co-produced by Martin Smith and his wife, Marcela Gaviria, Money, Power, and Wall Street. (I highly recommend watching all four episodes of the earlier documentary, then rewatching The Untouchables if you want an epiphany into why Wall Street can’t be tamed.) Smith is producer, writer and correspondent in the latest effort. Unfortunately, last night’s program sought an answer to an abbreviated question: why has no Wall Street executive been criminally prosecuted for fraud tied to the sale of mortgages. The unabbreviated question and the one that infuriates Americans is: why has no executive of a major Wall Street firm been criminally prosecuted for anything. If the U.S. Justice Department was serious about doing its job, it has a cornucopia of crimes to pick from: Wall Street CEOs and CFOs attesting to fraudulent financial filings with the SEC, money laundering, lying in prospectuses, illegal foreclosures, rigging the Libor interest rate benchmark and then selling interest rate swaps based on a rigged index to school districts, cities and counties across America, manipulating the futures market with a rigged Libor interest rate, and so forth. By asking the attenuated question, viewers may reach a myopic conclusion: that the head of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Justice Department, Lanny Breuer, is not prosecuting because he is too afraid of losing cases. A much stronger case can be made that Breuer is too afraid of facing his law partners when his stint is up at DOJ and he returns to his high paying job at the law firm of Covington & Burling — which represents Wall Street’s denizens of casino capital. Eric Holder, the U.S. Attorney General, Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, and Dan Suleiman, deputy chief of staff and counselor to Lanny Breuer, all hail from the corporate law firm, Covington & Burling. Their former partner at the firm, John Dugan, a former bank lobbyist, headed the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which regulates all national banks, from August 4, 2005 through August 14, 2010 – the years leading up to and including the financial crisis. When Dugan stepped down from the OCC in 2010, he returned to Covington & Burling’s Washington, D.C. office and now chairs the firm’s Financial Institutions Group, providing legal counsel to many of the same banks he supervised for five years. It is reasonable to assume that Holder, Breuer and Suleiman may return to their high-pay partner positions at Covington & Burling when they leave the Justice Department. As we previously reported: Covington & Burling is the law firm that, according to an earlier U.S. Department of Justice, fronted for the illegal misdeeds of Big Tobacco for four decades. Covington & Burling’s relationship with Big Tobacco went far beyond the typical attorney-client relationship. The firm set up front groups to hide payments and to hide the coordination of Big Tobacco in promulgating fake science on the issue of second hand smoke. In an August 17, 2006 decision against tobacco companies (while Dugan was sitting as a top bank regulator in the Bush administration), Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that “Cigarette smoking causes disease, suffering, and death. Despite internal recognition of this fact, Defendants have publicly denied, distorted, and minimized the hazards of smoking for decades.” The Court issued a blistering analysis of the role of Covington & Burling: “Finally, a word must be said about the role of lawyers in this fifty-year history of deceiving smokers, potential smokers, and the American public about the hazards of smoking and second hand smoke, and the addictiveness of nicotine. At every stage, lawyers played an absolutely central role in the creation and perpetuation of the Enterprise and the implementation of its fraudulent schemes. They devised and coordinated both national and international strategy; they directed scientists as to what research they should and should not undertake; they vetted scientific research papers and reports as well as public relations materials to ensure that the interests of the Enterprise would be protected; they identified ‘friendly’ scientific witnesses, subsidized them with grants from the Center for Tobacco Research and the Center for Indoor Air Research, paid them enormous fees, and often hid the relationship between those witnesses and the industry; and they devised and carried out document destruction policies and took shelter behind baseless assertions of the attorney client privilege.” The Court made clear exactly which law firms it was singling out in a footnote, stating: “Despite the apparent conflict of interest, a few law firms, particularly Covington & Burling and Shook, Hardy & Bacon, represented the shared interests of all the Defendants and coordinated a significant part of the Enterprise’s activities.” Smith will hopefully pursue in a future documentary how partners from a law firm with this history ended up as a top bank regulator in the Bush administration and top slots at the Justice Department in the Obama administration. At one point in the program, Smith asks Lanny Breuer why he has failed to indict any senior Wall Street executives. Breuer responds: “I think there was a level of greed, a level of excessive risk taking in this situation that I find abominable and very upsetting…but that is not what makes a criminal case.” There are a number of skeptics in the program who are not buying what Breuer is peddling as excuses. Jeff Connaughton, former chief of staff to former Senator Ted Kaufman, says: “You’re telling me that not one banker, not one executive on Wall Street, not one player in this entire financial crisis committed provable fraud…I mean, I just don’t believe that.” Equally dubious of Breuer’s position is former New York State Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, who bluntly says that the prosecutors at the Justice Department “have not done what needed to be done.” The program leaves the public with the impression that the “untouchables” are not just the fat cats on Wall Street but also the top ranks at the U.S. Justice Department whom the President has seen fit to leave in their seats, despite their lack of prosecution of Wall Street criminals. Smith has produced for Frontline for 28 years on topics as varied as revolution in Central America, the fall of communism in Russia, to the rise of Al Qaeda and the war in Iraq. The Untouchables was co-produced by Linda Hirsch and Ben Gold.

1 0

House Dems Tell Gorsuch To Recuse Over NEPA Case Conflict
by Gunnar Larson 22 Nov '24

22 Nov '24

House Dems Tell Gorsuch To Recuse Over NEPA Case Conflict <https://www.law360.com/cannabis/articles/2262944?nl_pk=c844ee6a-f80e-4e60-b…> By Katie Buehler A group of House Democrats has called for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch to recuse himself from a dispute over federal environmental review requirements, arguing the court's decision could directly benefit a Colorado billionaire and former client who campaigned for the justice's first judicial appointment. Letter attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/cannabis/articles/2262944?nl_pk=c844ee6a-f80e-4e60-b…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/cannabis/articles/2262944?nl_pk=c844ee6a-f80e-4e60-b…>

1 0

Gaetz Ends AG Bid, Citing 'Distraction' To Trump Transition
by Gunnar Larson 22 Nov '24

22 Nov '24

Gaetz Ends AG Bid, Citing 'Distraction' To Trump Transition <https://www.law360.com/cannabis/articles/2264169?nl_pk=c844ee6a-f80e-4e60-b…> By Phillip Bantz Former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration Thursday as President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for attorney general amid allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/cannabis/articles/2264169?nl_pk=c844ee6a-f80e-4e60-b…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/cannabis/articles/2264169?nl_pk=c844ee6a-f80e-4e60-b…>

1 0

$1.5M Georgetown Tuition Refund Deal Closer To Final OK
by Gunnar Larson 22 Nov '24

22 Nov '24

$1.5M Georgetown Tuition Refund Deal Closer To Final OK <https://www.law360.com/insurance/articles/2263919?nl_pk=59612751-8689-4b1e-…> By Ali Sullivan A D.C. federal judge appears poised to give final approval to a $1.5 million settlement resolving claims over Georgetown University's move to remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, but his skepticism that a graduate student outside the settlement class should score a $1,000 service award dissuaded him from granting final approval Thursday. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/insurance/articles/2263919?nl_pk=59612751-8689-4b1e-…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/insurance/articles/2263919?nl_pk=59612751-8689-4b1e-…>

1 0

Where Were You?': Judge Irked By Feds In $2B Fraud Case
by Gunnar Larson 22 Nov '24

22 Nov '24

Where Were You?': Judge Irked By Feds In $2B Fraud Case <https://www.law360.com/insurance/articles/2264061?nl_pk=59612751-8689-4b1e-…> By Hayley Fowler A North Carolina magistrate judge said Thursday he was "appalled" by a system that left a convicted insurance mogul unable to communicate with his attorneys while he sat in a county jail for nearly a week following his guilty plea to a $2 billion fraud and money laundering scheme. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/insurance/articles/2264061?nl_pk=59612751-8689-4b1e-…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/insurance/articles/2264061?nl_pk=59612751-8689-4b1e-…>

1 0

Special Master Ordered To Turn Over Citgo Pact To Venezuela
by Gunnar Larson 22 Nov '24

22 Nov '24

Special Master Ordered To Turn Over Citgo Pact To Venezuela <https://www.law360.com/delaware/articles/2263338?nl_pk=8f2e5a76-bb66-462b-a…> By Joyce Hanson A Delaware federal judge has ordered his court-appointed special master to give Venezuela an unredacted version of a stock purchase agreement in the upcoming auction of oil giant Citgo's parent company, ruling the document must be made available to the public as well as the republic. Order attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/delaware/articles/2263338?nl_pk=8f2e5a76-bb66-462b-a…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/delaware/articles/2263338?nl_pk=8f2e5a76-bb66-462b-a…>

1 0

How D&O Coverage Can Aid Against Increased AI Scrutiny
by Gunnar Larson 22 Nov '24

22 Nov '24

Mark: Gunnar How D&O Coverage Can Aid Against Increased AI Scrutiny <https://www.law360.com/fintech/articles/2262344?nl_pk=d2b3e7ef-ab62-4a62-80…> The recent increase in regulatory enforcement and securities class actions stemming from corporate use of artificial intelligence should prompt companies to ensure that their directors and officers liability insurance coverage is appropriately tailored to AI-related risks, say attorneys at Reed Smith. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/fintech/articles/2262344?nl_pk=d2b3e7ef-ab62-4a62-80…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/fintech/articles/2262344?nl_pk=d2b3e7ef-ab62-4a62-80…>

1 0

Fed. Circ. Agrees Tomofun's Pet Camera Didn't Infringe Patent By Adam Lidgett The Federal Circuit on Thursday affirmed a lower court's finding that pet technology company Tomofun's Furbo pet camera didn't infringe a pet communication patent, agreeing that the product at issue didn't cover key patent language. Decision attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »
by Gunnar Larson 22 Nov '24

22 Nov '24

Mark: Gunnar Fed. Circ. Agrees Tomofun's Pet Camera Didn't Infringe Patent <https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/2263976?nl_pk=2bd720dd-746c-4744…> By Adam Lidgett The Federal Circuit on Thursday affirmed a lower court's finding that pet technology company Tomofun's Furbo pet camera didn't infringe a pet communication patent, agreeing that the product at issue didn't cover key patent language. Decision attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/2263976?nl_pk=2bd720dd-746c-4744…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/2263976?nl_pk=2bd720dd-746c-4744…>

1 0