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US trustee, media challenging secrecy in FTX bankruptcy
Employment Law |
2022/12/16 20:49
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Attorneys for the U.S. bankruptcy trustee in Delaware and several major media outlets are challenging an effort by cryptocurrency exchange FTX to withhold names of the company’s customers and creditors from the public.
At a brief hearing Friday, the judge presiding over the FTX bankruptcy granted a motion by media outlets to intervene for the purpose of objecting to the sealing of creditor information.
A separate objection by the U.S. trustee, the government watchdog that oversees Chapter 11 reorganizations, also was on the agenda for Friday’s hearing but was postponed by Judge John Dorsey until Jan. 11, when he likely will also hear arguments from the media.
In a court filing earlier this week, an attorney for Delaware’s acting U.S. trustee noted that “disclosure is a basic premise of bankruptcy law.”
“The debtors simply cannot seek bankruptcy protection and then do business behind a shield of secrecy” Juliet Sarkessian wrote. Sarkessian warned that allowing FTX to shield creditor lists and financial schedules would be a “slippery slope” and create an unfavorable precedent for bankruptcies in which creditors are also customers.
Last month, Dorsey temporarily granted a request by FTX to redact the names and addresses of clients and creditors from court filings, even though such information is typically public. The judge did direct FTX to file an unredacted creditor matrix under seal with the court, but the company has yet to do so.
Lawyers for FTX have argued that its customer list is both a valuable asset and confidential commercial information. They contend that secrecy is needed to protect FTX accounts from potential theft and to ensure that potential competitors do not “poach” FTX customers.
FTX also has sought to withhold the names and addresses of non-customer individual creditors who are citizens of the United Kingdom or European Union nations, citing a consumer protection program known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.
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US woman who killed UK teen in crash gets suspended sentence
U.S. Legal News |
2022/12/11 06:16
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An American woman who left the U.K. after killing a teenager in a road accident was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence on Thursday, though she declined to come to Britain for the court hearing.
Anne Sacoolas, 45, was sentenced over an August 2019 accident in which 19-year-old Harry Dunn was killed when his motorcycle collided with a car outside RAF Croughton, an air base in eastern England that is used by U.S. forces. Sacoolas was driving on the wrong side of the road at the time.
Sacoolas and her husband, an American intelligence officer, returned to the U.S. days after the accident. The U.S. government invoked diplomatic immunity on her behalf, prompting an outcry in Britain and causing tensions between the governments in London and Washington.
Sacoolas admitted causing death by careless driving, which carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment. Justice Bobbie Cheema-Grubb said Sacoolas’ actions were “not far short of deliberately dangerous driving,” but she reduced the penalty because of Sacoolas’ guilty plea and previous good character.
The suspended sentence means that Sacoolas faces jail if she commits another offense within a year — though the judge acknowledged the sentence could not be enforced if she remains in the U.S.
The sentencing follows a three-year campaign by Dunn’s family, who met with politicians on both sides of the Atlantic in a campaign to get Sacoolas to face British justice. American authorities refused to extradite her.
Sacoolas entered a guilty plea in October, but the U.S. administration advised her not to come to Britain for sentencing. She attended the hearing at London’s Central Criminal Court by video link.
Lawyer Ben Cooper said Sacoolas had not asked for the diplomatic immunity asserted on her behalf by the U.S. government. He read a statement from Sacoolas in which she said she was “deeply sorry for the pain I have caused.”
“There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about Harry,” the statement said.
The judge said the “calm and dignified persistence” of Dunn’s parents had led Sacoolas to acknowledge guilt and appear before the court.
Dunn’s mother Charlotte Charles said in a victim impact statement that her son’s death “haunts me every minute of every day and I’m not sure how I’m ever going to get over it.”
“As a family we are determined that his death will not have been in vain and we are involved in a number of projects to try to find some silver lining in this tragedy and to help others,” she said. “That will be Harry’s legacy.”
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Former Nazi camp secretary voices regret, seeks acquittal
U.S. Legal News |
2022/12/06 22:24
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Lawyers for a 97-year-old former secretary to the SS commander of Nazi Germany’s Stutthof concentration camp asked Tuesday for their client to be acquitted, arguing that she didn’t know about the atrocities committed at the camp located in what is now northern Poland.
Irmgard Furchner has been on trial for over a year at the Itzehoe state court in northern Germany. In her closing statement, Furchner said she was sorry for what had happened and regretted that she had been there at the time, according to a court spokesman.
Her lawyers requested her acquittal, arguing that the evidence hadn’t shown beyond doubt that Furchner knew about the systematic killings at the camp, meaning there was no proof of intent as required for criminal liability.
Prosecutors accused Furchner of being part of the apparatus that helped the Nazis’ Stutthof camp function during World War II. In their closing arguments last month, they called for her to be convicted as an accessory to murder and given a two-year suspended sentence.
Tens of thousands of people died at Stutthof and its satellite camps, or on death marches at the end of World War II.
Furchner, who made headlines last year when she absconded from trial, is being tried in juvenile court because she was under 21 at the time of the alleged crimes.
The court said a verdict is expected on Dec. 20.
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Justices spar in latest clash of religion and gay rights
Class Action News |
2022/12/02 15:24
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The Supreme Court ’s conservative majority sounded sympathetic Monday to a Christian graphic artist who objects to designing wedding websites for gay couples, a dispute that’s the latest clash of religion and gay rights to land at the highest court.
The designer and her supporters say that ruling against her would force artists — from painters and photographers to writers and musicians — to do work that is against their faith. Her opponents, meanwhile, say that if she wins, a range of businesses will be able to discriminate, refusing to serve Black customers, Jewish or Muslim people, interracial or interfaith couples or immigrants, among others.
The lively arguments at the Supreme Court ran well beyond the allotted 70 minutes.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of three high court appointees of former President Donald Trump, described Lorie Smith, the website designer, as “an individual who says she will sell and does sell to everyone, all manner of websites, (but) that she won’t sell a website that requires her to express a view about marriage that she finds offensive.”
The issue of where to draw the line dominated the questions early in Monday’s arguments at the high court.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked whether a photography store in a shopping mall could refuse to take pictures of Black people on Santa’s lap.
“Their policy is that only white children can be photographed with Santa in this way, because that’s how they view the scenes with Santa that they’re trying to depict,” Jackson said.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor repeatedly pressed Kristen Waggoner, the lawyer for Smith, over other categories. “How about people who don’t believe in interracial marriage? Or about people who don’t believe that disabled people should get married? Where’s the line?” Sotomayor asked.
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Hong Kong asks Beijing to step in into row over UK lawyer
Class Action News |
2022/11/28 18:20
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Hong Kong’s leader said on Monday he will ask Beijing to rule whether to let foreign lawyers be involved in national security cases after the city’s top court allowed a prominent pro-democracy publisher to hire a British lawyer for his upcoming trial.
John Lee said the government would ask for a postponement of Jimmy Lai’s high-profile trial that was due to start Thursday. But he did not offer a timetable for the interpretation that could effectively preempt the court judgment.
“At present, there is no effective means to ensure that a counsel from overseas will not have conflict of interest because of his nationality. And there is also no means to ensure that he has not been coerced, compromised, or in any way controlled by foreign governments, associations or persons,” he said.
The move was targeting overseas counsels who do not have the general practice qualification to carry out legal service in Hong Kong, he added.
Lai, the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily and one of the most prominent figures in the city’s pro-democracy movement, was arrested after Beijing imposed a tough national security law to crack down on dissent following widespread protests in 2019. He faces collusion charges and a maximum penalty of life imprisonment.
While the city’s secretary for justice was appealing an earlier ruling that approved Lai to hire a veteran British lawyer at the top court, pro-Beijing politicians and newspapers also voiced objections over the last few days.
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Justices asked to hear dog toy dispute. Will they bite?
U.S. Legal News |
2022/11/21 19:20
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The company that makes Jack Daniel’s is howling mad over a squeaking dog toy that parodies the whiskey’s signature bottle. Now, the liquor company is barking at the door of the Supreme Court.
Jack Daniel’s has asked the justices to hear its case against the manufacturer of the plastic Bad Spaniels toy. The high court could say as soon as Monday whether the justices will agree. A number of major companies from the makers of Campbell Soup to outdoor brand Patagonia and jeans maker Levi Strauss have urged the justices to take what they say is an important case for trademark law.
The toy that has Jack Daniel’s so doggone mad mimics the square shape of its whisky bottle as well as its black-and-white label and amber-colored liquor while adding what it calls “poop humor.” While the original bottle has the words “Old No. 7 brand” and “Tennessee Sour Mash Whiskey,” the parody proclaims: “The Old No. 2 on Your Tennessee Carpet.” Instead of the original’s note that it is 40% alcohol by volume, the parody says it’s “43% Poo by Vol.” and “100% Smelly.”
The toy retails for about $13 to $20 and the packaging notes in small font: “This product is not affiliated with Jack Daniel Distillery.”
The toy’s maker says Jack Daniel’s can’t take a joke. “It is ironic that America’s leading distiller of whiskey both lacks a sense of humor and does not recognize when it — and everyone else — has had enough,” lawyers for Arizona-based VIP Products wrote the high court. They told the justices that Jack Daniel’s has “waged war” against the company for “having the temerity to produce a pun-filled parody” of its bottle.
But Jack Daniel’s lead attorney, Lisa Blatt, made no bones about the company’s position in her filing.
“To be sure, everyone likes a good joke. But VIP’s profit-motivated ‘joke’ confuses consumers by taking advantage of Jack Daniel’s hard-earned goodwill,” she wrote for the Louisville, Kentucky-based Brown-Forman Corp., Jack Daniel’s parent company.
Blatt wrote that a lower court decision provides “near-blanket protection” to humorous trademark infringement. And she said it has “broad and dangerous consequences,” pointing to children who were hospitalized after eating marijuana-infused products that mimicked candy packaging.
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