|
|
|
Man pleads guilty to sea cucumber smuggling charge
Court Watch |
2014/03/10 15:32
|
Federal prosecutors in San Diego say a man has pleaded guilty to charges he smuggled 100 pounds of dried sea cucumber into the United States from Mexico.
Sea cucumbers are leathery-skinned marine animals used in some folk medicine practices.
United States Attorney Laura E. Duffy says Cheng Zhuo Liu (chuhng joo-oh lee-oo), a resident of Chula Vista, admitted to tucking the sea cucumbers into the spare tire area of his car before crossing the border last October.
According to the US attorney's office, their market value was between $5,000 and $10,000.
The particular species Liu had is protected under international trade rules, and requires a permit for import.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Fla. high court: Immigrant can't get law license
Press Release |
2014/03/07 15:45
|
The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that immigrants in the country illegally can't be given a license to practice law.
The question was raised when a man who moved here from Mexico when he was 9 years old sought a license in Florida. The court said Thursday that federal law prohibits people who are unlawfully in the country from obtaining professional licenses. The justices said state law can override the federal ban, but Florida has taken no action to do so.
Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court granted a law license to Sergio Garcia, who arrived in the U.S. from Mexico as a teenager with his father. But that ruling was only after the state approved a law that allows immigrants in the country illegally to obtain the license. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Two men found guilty for selling U.S. company’s technology
Headline Legal News |
2014/03/07 15:45
|
A federal jury found two men guilty Wednesday of economic espionage involving the theft and sale of a U.S. company’s technology to a competitor controlled by the Chinese government.
The jury returned the verdicts against Robert Maegerle and Walter Liew.
They were accused of stealing Delaware-based DuPont Co.’s method for making titanium oxide, a chemical that fetches $17 billion a year in sales worldwide and is used to whiten everything from cars to the middle of Oreo cookies.
A federal jury found two men guilty Wednesday of economic espionage involving the theft and sale of a U.S. company’s technology to a competitor controlled by the Chinese government.
Prosecutors said DuPont was unwilling to sell its method to China, so it was stolen and sent to a company called Pangang Group Co. Ltd., according to testimony during the diplomatically dicey proceedings. The jury heard six weeks of testimony.
Prosecutors alleged that Pangang’s factory is the only facility inside China known to be producing titanium oxide the DuPont way, which uses chlorination. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court: Broad protection for whistleblowers
Topics in Legal News |
2014/03/05 15:07
|
The Supreme Court says whistleblower protections in a federal law passed in response to the Enron financial scandal apply broadly to employees of publicly traded companies and contractors hired by the companies.
The justices ruled 6-3 Tuesday in favor of two former employees of companies that administer the Fidelity family of mutual funds. The workers claimed they faced retaliation after they reported allegations of fraud affecting Fidelity funds.
The case involved the reach of a provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, passed in 2002 in response to the Enron scandal, that protects whistleblower activity. The measure was intended to protect people who expose the kind of corporate misdeeds that arose at Enron. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Court weighs securities fraud class-action cases
Topics in Legal News |
2014/03/05 15:07
|
The Supreme Court is considering whether to abandon a quarter-century of precedent and make it tougher for investors to band together to sue corporations for securities fraud.
The justices hear arguments Wednesday in an appeal by Halliburton Co. that seeks to block a class-action lawsuit claiming the energy services company inflated its stock price.
A group of investors says it lost money when Halliburton's stock price dropped after revelations the company misrepresented revenues, understated its liability in asbestos litigation and overstated the benefits of a merger.
Justices threw out the company's first attempt to block the lawsuit in 2011. But Halliburton is now urging the court to overturn a 25-year-old decision that sparked a tidal wave of securities-related, class-action lawsuits against publicly traded companies and has led to billions in settlements.
The court's 1988 decision in Basic v. Levinson says shareholders who claim they were defrauded by false statements in securities filings don't have to prove they actually relied on the statements. Rather, the court reasoned that any misrepresentation would be reflected in the current stock price. Even if investors are not aware of the misstatements, they are presumed to be aware of them because they affect the stock price.
This presumption, known as the "fraud-on-the-market theory," has become the driving force for modern class-action securities cases. But some economists have questioned whether this theory makes sense anymore, saying it doesn't account for the sometimes random and arbitrary nature of stock trading. |
|
|
|
|
|
| Law Firm Web Design Information |
| Law Promo has worked with attorneys, lawyers and law firms all over the world in designing beautiful law firm websites that look great on all devices, from desktop computers to mobile phones. Law Promo can construct your law firm a brand new responsive law firm website, or help you redesign your existing site to secure your place in the mobile world. Solo Practice Law Firm Website Design |
|
|
Legal News RSS Feed
