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Appeals court: EchoStar not barred from lease deal
Business Law Info | 2008/07/08 15:01
Federal law does not bar satellite television provider EchoStar Communications Corp. from leasing a transponder to another company to transmit network signals, a U.S. appeals court ruled Monday.

CBS Corp.'s CBS Broadcasting subsidiary, News Corp.'s Fox network and other major network affiliate groups sued EchoStar 10 years ago in South Florida to prevent the Englewood, Co.-based company, which operates the DISH satellite network, from providing distant network signals to customers who can receive local affiliates' broadcasts through regular antennas.

The Satellite Home Viewer Act of 1988 allowed carriers such as EchoStar to provide secondary transmissions of copyrighted distant network programming to "unserved households," those that could not otherwise receive the signals.

The lawsuit claimed that EchoStar was infringing on network copyrights by providing the signals to "served" households as well.

After a two-week bench trial in 2003, the district court found that EchoStar retransmitted network programs to hundreds of thousands of served homes, which it called "willful or repeated" copyright infringement. That ruling was upheld by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to consider an appeal in January 2007.

According to court documents, EchoStar complied with an injunction that went into effect Dec. 1, 2006, by disconnecting distant network channels to about 900,000 customers — at a loss of $25 million a year.



W.Va. Gov. seeks review of $400M DuPont case
Business Law Info | 2008/07/03 15:23
Gov. Joe Manchin wants the West Virginia Supreme Court to clarify whether DuPont has the right to be heard as it appeals $196.2 million in punitive damages, about half the amount a jury awarded in a case involving health threats from a former zinc smelting plant.

The lead attorney for the plaintiffs on Wednesday called the governor's action unprecedented.

"I've never seen anything like this," said Florida lawyer Michael Papantonio. "This just further delineates how badly the deck is stacked in West Virginia against people trying to recover when they're taking on DuPont. It's stacked against people who have been wronged by corporate America."

The jury in Harrison County Circuit Court last fall awarded damages totaling nearly $400 million to residents living near the former plant in Spelter. The plaintiffs argued the chemical giant spent decades downplaying and lying about health threats from arsenic, cadmium and lead that contaminated air, soil and water.

Punitive damages are designed to deter future misconduct, and the jury ruled that DuPont had engaged in wanton, willful and reckless conduct in its operation of the smelter. Non-punitive damages included $130 million to fund a 40-year health screening plan to monitor plaintiffs for any ailments related to exposure to chemicals.

Last week, DuPont appealed the entire verdict, arguing it has been unfairly punished for doing the right thing at the site and for the community. The state Supreme Court, which is in summer recess, has not yet indicated whether the appeal will be heard.

In a "friend of the court" brief filed last week, Manchin urged the justices to clarify what sort of appellate review is to be afforded DuPont under its constitutional right to due process. His lawyers cited a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decision to argue that the 14th Amendment guarantees appeals of punitive damages.



MBIA loses $2.4 billion on write-downs
Business Law Info | 2008/05/12 13:31

MBIA Inc. reported Monday a loss of more than $2 billion for the first quarter after taking a $3.6 billion charge for losses on derivatives, but shares of the embattled bond insurer traded as much as 10% higher.

Posting its third straight quarterly loss, MBIA continues to struggle with business difficulties in the face of falling house prices and a global credit crisis, but Chief Executive Jay Brown sounded an optimistic note.

"MBIA continues to be a sound financial institution," Brown said in a statement. "We have ample liquidity, our balance sheet is built to withstand credit stress levels many multiples of what we're experiencing now, and our business model is proving that we are adequately capitalized to satisfy any potential claims on our insured portfolio."

Shares of MBIA rose more than 6% to $10.04 in morning action, after reaching an intraday high at $10.35.

The company's net loss was $2.41 billion, or $13.03 a share. MBIA had earned $198.6 million, or $1.46 a share, in the year-earlier first quarter.
During the latest quarter, it recorded a $3.6 billion unrealized loss on insured derivatives.



Fed to Lend $200 Billion More to Ease Market Strain
Business Law Info | 2008/03/11 13:38

Scrambling to ease the strain on the credit market, the Federal Reserve announced a $200 billion program on Tuesday that would allow financial institutions, including the nation’s major investment banks, to borrow ultra-safe Treasury money by using some of their riskiest investments as collateral. Wall Street responded with a rally, with the Dow Jones industrials surging 150 points.

This was the central bank’s second effort in a week to unfreeze the nation’s panicky credit markets, where investors have become too frightened to finance even conservative debt offerings, which in turn has caused a cash squeeze at seemingly solid financial institutions.

Stock markets soared after the announcement, with the Dow Jones industrials gaining 260 points before falling back to 11,925.85, a 185-point gain, at 12:30 p.m. as brightened investors snapped a three-day losing streak. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was up 1.4 percent, and the Nasdaq composite index gained 1.5 percent.

The Fed normally lends Treasury securities to banks for just a few hours. Under the new program, money will be lent for 28 days and the central bank will accept nongovernment mortgage-backed securities — the source of the current crisis in the credit markets — as collateral. The Fed will require that the assets, which are linked to soured home loans, have a premium credit rating.

The new program, dubbed the Term Securities Lending Facility, will effectively allow strapped financial institutions to hand over potentially damaged securities to the government in exchange for either cash or easily traded Treasury securities, some of the safest in the market.



Sharp drop in jobs suggests US economy in recession
Business Law Info | 2008/03/09 16:07
Dangerous cracks in the nation's job market are deepening. Employers slashed jobs by the largest amount in five years and hundreds of thousands of people dropped out of the labor force — ominous signs that the country is falling toward a recession or has already toppled into one.

For the second straight month, nervous employers got rid of jobs nationwide. In February, they sliced payrolls by 63,000, even deeper than the 22,000 cut in January, the Labor Department reported Friday.

The grim snapshot of the country's employment climate underscored the heavy toll the housing and credit debacles are taking on companies, jobseekers and the economy as a whole.

"It sounds like the recession bell is ringing for the U.S. economy, although it is still faint," said Stuart Hoffman, chief economist at PNC Financial Services Group.



A glance at the top players in Enron saga
Business Law Info | 2008/03/02 08:45

KENNETH L. LAY

Birth date: April 15, 1942.

Career: Former chairman and CEO. Founded Enron in 1985 when his Houston Natural Gas merged with InterNorth in Omaha, Neb., and became chairman and CEO the next year. Stepped down as CEO in February 2001 when Jeffrey Skilling took over; resumed the role when Skilling abruptly resigned on Aug. 14, 2001. Resigned as chairman and CEO Jan. 23, 2002; resigned from board Feb. 4, 2002. Appeared before Congress in 2002 and invoked the Fifth Amendment. Alleged to have sold more than 4 million shares of stock for $184 million from 1996-2001. Received bonuses of $18.1 million in 1997-2000. Lives in a $7.4 million penthouse near downtown Houston.

JEFFREY K. SKILLING

Birth date: Nov. 25, 1953.

Career: Former CEO and director. Holds an MBA from Harvard and worked for McKinsey & Co. before joining Enron in 1990. Became president and chief operating officer in 1996, then succeeded Lay as CEO in February 2001. Resigned on Aug. 14, 2001, citing personal reasons. Testified twice before Congress in February 2002. Claimed no knowledge of intimate details of Enron's financial dealings. Sold 1.3 million shares of stock for $70.6 million and transferred 2 million shares back to Enron from June 1996 to November 2001. Received $13.2 million in bonuses 1997-2000. He remains a defendant in a lawsuit alleging he knowingly endorsed deceptive and misleading financial statements. An indictment was unsealed Feb. 19 charging him with 35 counts of fraud, conspiracy, filing false statements to auditors and insider trading. He has pleaded not guilty.

ANDREW S. FASTOW

Birth date: Dec. 22, 1961.

Career: Former chief financial officer who pleaded guilty Jan. 14, 2004, to conspiracy in a deal that called for a 10-year sentence and for him to help prosecutors in the investigation. Free on bond. One of Skilling's first hires in 1990. Indicted Oct. 31, 2002, on 78 counts of wire and securities fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction for running various financial schemes designed to enrich him, his family and friends. Counts later increased to 98. Earned at least $45 million from LJM partnerships, investment vehicles named after his wife and two children. Pushed out of Enron on Oct. 24, 2001, the day after Lay expressed confidence in him to analysts. Alleged to have sold more than 687,000 shares of Enron stock for $33.7 million from June 1996 to November 2001. Pleaded guilty in January 2004 to two counts of conspiracy; agrees to cooperate with prosecutors and serve 10 years in prison when his help is no longer needed.

RICHARD A. CAUSEY

Birth date: Jan. 9, 1960.

Career: Former chief accounting officer. Handled Enron audits for Arthur Andersen LLP before joining Enron. When the LJM investments were proposed to Enron's board of directors in 1999, he and chief risk officer Rick Buy were assigned to review all Enron transactions with LJM. Fired Feb. 14, 2002, after release of an in-house report noting his failure to review the deals. Mentioned repeatedly by title in Fastow indictment as having a secret agreement with Fastow that LJMs would never lose money on deals with Enron. Told David Duncan, the top Enron auditor at Arthur Andersen, that Enron didn't like another Andersen auditor's objections to grouping investment vehicles known as Raptors to hide that two of the four that were bleeding cash. Alleged to have sold about 209,000 Enron shares for $13.3 million. Also received bonus payments of more than $1.5 million from 1997-2000 when Enron was inflating profits and hiding debt based largely on the partnerships he was supposed to police. Indictment charging him with conspiracy and fraud unsealed Jan. 22, 2004. Expanded indictment unsealed Feb. 19 to include new charges against Skilling and increased charges against Causey; 35 counts for Skilling, 31 counts for Causey. Has pleaded not guilty.

OTHERS:

Michael Kopper: Former Fastow lieutenant who pleaded guilty Aug. 21, 2002 to federal conspiracy and money laundering charges related to Enron's fall and agreed to give up $12 million in illegal profits. Kopper admitted he ran or helped create several partnerships that earned him and others millions of dollars, including kickbacks he funneled to Fastow, while hiding debt and inflating profits at Enron. Has not yet been sentenced and is cooperating with prosecutors. Declined to testify before Congress.

Lea Fastow: Wife of Andrew Fastow and former assistant treasurer at Enron. Pleaded guilty May 6, 2004, to a federal misdemeanor tax crime for helping her husband hide ill-gotten income from the government. She originally pleaded guilty to a felony tax crime in January, but withdrew that plea in April. She was sentenced to the maximum of a year in prison and ordered to surrender there July 12.

Ben Glisan Jr.: Added to an expanded Fastow indictment unsealed in May 2003. Glisan became Enron treasurer in March 2000, and earned $1 million in May of that year on a March investment of $5,826 in Fastow's Southampton Place partnership. Also negotiated for Enron in some of its transactions with Raptor. Worked with Fastow and Kopper in creating and running LJM2. Fired from Enron in November 2001. Indicted in April 2003 on charges of wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, falsify books and commit securities and wire fraud. He tried to cut a deal with prosecutors, but ended up pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy in September 2003. He was immediately sentenced to prison for five years and became the first former Enron executive to serve time. He later began cooperating with prosecutors.

Dan Boyle: Also added to an expanded Fastow indictment. Charged with conspiracy to falsify books and commit wire fraud related to Enron's deal to have Merrill Lynch buy three electricity-generating power barges. Boyle's lawyer says he had no authority to sign off on anything. Fastow promised Merrill that Enron would buy back the barges in 2000, which it did, booking a $12 million profit that was really a loan. Trial set to begin Aug. 18.



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