I’ve sued several multinational banks for breaches of fiduciary duty and breaches of contract, and have always been amazed their lack of any accountability or responsibility. It’s not just a handful of instances of banks selling a company’s loan to their competitor and bank lawyers lying to federal regulators. They live in a different
Philosophy Explains How Legal Ethics Turn Lawyers Into Liars
By Max Kennerly, Esq. on
I am a fan of the American court system. There is no natural law requiring people to resolve their differences by asking third parties to represent them and advocate on their behalf in front of impartial decision-makers. The folks in classical Athens and Rome thought it was a good idea, the Europeans rediscovered the practice…
More False Claims Act Smoke And Mirrors To Deny Whistleblower Awards
By Max Kennerly, Esq. on
Via the WSJ Law Blog, Amy Kolz at The American Lawyer has a new article about the False Claims Act:
"[FCA cases] are a big gamble," says Piacentile’s counsel, former Boies, Schiller & Flexner partner David Stone of Stone & Magnanini, who cites cost-benefit analyses and good relationships with prosecutors as essential to his
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E.D.Pa. Refuses To Dismiss RICO Act Claims Against Title Insurers On Enterprise “Distinctiveness” Grounds
By Max Kennerly, Esq. on
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO") is not all that complicated.
It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such
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Partial Judicial Immunity Granted To Corrupt Luzerne County Judges
By Max Kennerly, Esq. on
Following up on my post of two weeks ago on judicial immunity in the "kids for cash" Luzerne County scandal, Judge Caputo of the Middle District of Pennsylvania issued his ruling yesterday, which holds in pertinent part:
For judicial immunity to apply, only two requirements need to be met: jurisdiction over the dispute, and a judicial act.
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Jones v. Harris Brings Out Another Harvard Law Professor Who Knows More About Writing Columns Than Litigating Cases
By Max Kennerly, Esq. on
Posted in For Non-Lawyers, The Law
[Updated to clarify a distinction between securities suits and investment company act suits.]
This week, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Jones v. Harris. Briefly, the Oakmark complex of mutual funds "hired" Harris Associates as investment advisers, paying Harris 1% (per year) of the first $2 billion of the fund’s assets, 0.9%…
Don’t Make Your Contracts Apply “Throughout the Universe”
By Max Kennerly, Esq. on
The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog points us to a WSJ story on the absurd language used in copyright contracts these days:
Decked out in sequined black and gold dresses, Anne Harrison and the other women in her Bulgarian folk-singing group were lined up to try out for NBC’s "America’s Got Talent" TV show when they
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Academic Abstention Should Not Be a Blank Check for Arbitrary and Capricious Conduct by Universities
By Max Kennerly, Esq. on
Posted in Special Comment
Via Atrios, we have Stanley Fish’s recent NYTimes column, The Rise and Fall of Academic Abstention:
As recently as 1979, legal academics Virginia Nordin and Harry Edwards were able to say that “historically American courts have adhered fairly consistently to the doctrine of academic abstention in order to avoid excessive judicial oversight of
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Supreme Court To Review Enron “Honest Services” Mail Fraud Conviction
By Max Kennerly, Esq. on
The Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to rule on claims that “searing media attacks” on longtime Enron executive Jeffrey K. Skilling tainted his criminal trial and conviction on various fraud charges. The case of Skilling v. U.S. (08-1394) also raises an issue on the scope of the federal law punishing the
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Small Businesses More Likely To Have Corporate Veil Pierced Than Large Companies
By Max Kennerly, Esq. on
Posted in For Non-Lawyers, The Law
That’s the conclusion of new scholarship by law professors Dave Hoffman and Cristy Boyd, in a draft just published here on SSRN, with blogging about it here. After analyzing 690 cases that sought to pierce the corporate veil between 2000 and 2005, they conclude:
The part that extra-legal influences play in veil piercing
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