|
|
|
Chinese drug exec given suspended death sentence
Legal World News |
2011/11/09 11:51
|
A Shanghai court handed the former chief executive of a large state-owned pharmaceutical company a suspended death sentence for corruption that enabled him to amass more than 50 million yuan ($8 million), an official said Wednesday.
Wu Jianwen, the former head of Shanghai Pharmaceutical Group Ltd., was convicted of accepting bribes, embezzling public funds and other graft charges by the Shanghai Intermediate People's Court, according to a court official surnamed Wang.
Wang said the court handed down a suspended death sentence with a two-year reprieve. Such sentences usually are commuted to life in prison with good behavior.
The punishment comes as China wrestles with food and product safety concerns and appears aimed at showing that authorities are cracking down on rampant corruption.
Shanghai Pharma says it is China's third largest pharmaceutical maker and second largest distributor of pharmaceutical products. It was the parent company of Shanghai Hualian Pharmaceutical Co., which authorities shut down in 2007 for making tainted leukemia drugs blamed for causing leg pains and partial paralysis among dozens of patients.
China's increasing importance as a pharmaceutical producer has ratcheted up concerns over a slew of scandals involving fake, adulterated and otherwise unsafe drugs — especially given the thriving market in mail order medications. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Scientology church appeals French fraud conviction
Legal World News |
2011/11/03 11:10
|
Lawyers for the Church of Scientology asked a French court on Thursday to throw out the group's fraud conviction because they say the investigation and trial in the decades-old case had taken too long.
The defense submitted the argument to a Paris appeals court, which is reviewing the 2009 conviction of the church's French branch, its bookstore and six of its leaders. The group was accused of pressuring members into paying large sums for questionable remedies and using "commercial harassment" against recruits.
The group and bookstore were fined euro600,000 ($830,000). Four leaders were given suspended sentences of between 10 months and two years. Two others were fined.
While Scientology is recognized as a religion in the U.S., Sweden and Spain, it is not considered one under French law.
In the original complaint, a young woman said she took out loans and spent the equivalent of euro21,000 ($29,000) on books, courses and "purification packages" after being recruited in 1998. When she sought reimbursement and to leave the group, its leadership refused to allow either. She was among three eventual plaintiffs. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Chavez orders more land taken from British firm
Legal World News |
2011/10/31 09:51
|
Venezuela's president on Sunday ordered the expropriation of 716,590 acres belonging to a British-owned company amid a disagreement over compensation for earlier takeovers of ranchland from the firm.
President Hugo Chavez announced the latest seizure after saying that Venezuela refuses to pay compensation in foreign currency to Agropecuaria Flora, a local subsidiary of the British company Vestey Group.
Chavez said the government had received a demand from the company that it be paid in dollars for the previous seizure of tens of thousands of acres. But the government insists in paying in bolivars, Venezuela's currency.
It's difficult for foreign companies operating in Venezuela to repatriate profits and other income in bolivars due to foreign currency controls in the South American country.
Representatives of Agropecuaria Flora did not answer telephone calls seeking comment Sunday.
Venezuela's expropriation of farm and ranch lands began in earnest in 2005, with the government employing a 2001 law allowing it to seize lands deemed idle or not adequately used. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Japanese nurse sentenced to hanging in Malaysia
Legal World News |
2011/10/25 09:55
|
A Malaysian court has sentenced a Japanese nurse to death by hanging for drug trafficking. The High Court in central Selangor state found 37-year-old Mariko Takeuchi guilty of transporting 7.7 pounds (3.5 kilograms) of methamphetamine in a suitcase when she flew from Dubai into the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Oct. 30, 2009. Takeuchi is the first Japanese convicted of drug trafficking in Malaysia. A conviction carries a mandatory death penalty. Takeuchi's lawyer Mohamad Rafik Rahem said Tuesday they will appeal the verdict. The court rejected Takeuchi's claim that she had not known about the drugs and was carrying the suitcase as a favor for an Iranian acquaintance. Mohamad Rafik said Takeuchi was "very sad and disappointed." |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Swiss sports court overturns Olympic doping rule
Legal World News |
2011/10/06 12:13
|
Olympic champion LaShawn Merritt was cleared to defend his 400-meter title in London next year after the American won his appeal Thursday against an IOC rule banning doping offenders from the games.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport annulled the International Olympic Committee rule that bars any athlete who has received a doping suspension of more than six months from competing in the next summer or winter games.
The three-man CAS panel said the rule, adopted in 2008, was "invalid and unenforceable" because it amounted to a second sanction and did not comply with the World Anti-Doping Agency code. It said the rule amounted to a "disciplinary sanction" rather than a matter of eligibility.
Merritt, the American 400-meter gold medalist in Beijing, had been ineligible under the IOC rule to compete in London even though he completed his doping ban this year after testing positive for a banned substance found in a male-enhancement product. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Lawyer for 2 Americans held in Iran back in court
Legal World News |
2011/09/20 10:46
|
The lawyer for two Americans jailed as spies in Iran was back in court Tuesday seeking a second judge's signature on a bail deal that could free them after more than two years behind bars. Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal were detained along the Iran-Iraq border in 2009 and were convicted last month of spying for the United States in a case that has deepened the mistrust between Washington and Tehran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad raised hopes a week ago that the men, both 29 years old, could be released in a matter of days in what he described as a humanitarian gesture. But months of internal political battles between Ahmadinejad and his rivals in the clerical leadership and the judiciary appear to be holding up the possible deal to lift the men's eight-year prison sentences and free them on bail of $500,000 each. The official explanation for the latest snag was that a second judge whose signature is required on the bail papers was on vacation until Tuesday, their Iranian attorney has said. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Recent Lawyer News Updates |
|
|
Lawyer News RSS
