Freeport-McMoRan Inc. reportedly is nearing a $100 million-plus settlement to resolve shareholder litigation over its 2013 purchase of two oil-and-gas companies, an unusually big win for investors, who are increasingly challenging merger deals.

Recent reports indicate that Freeport is close to a deal to set aside more than $130 million, most of which will be paid out to its shareholders. The agreement, which is not yet final, would resolve allegations that the company overpaid when it bought McMoRan Exploration Co. and Plains Exploration & Production Co. for a combined $9 billion last year, reports The New York Times.

The Times says this deal is unusual because few M&A lawsuits yield any money for investors. And it’s also unusual because the case was filed as a “derivative” lawsuit, in which shareholders sue board members and others on behalf of the company itself.

Read the story.

Restaurant.com is arguing in federal court that it shouldn’t be forced to pay penalties for gift certificates it sold in the past, penalties that could go as high at $1 million.

The company has been defending itself since 2010 against the class action suit filed by two New Jersey residents who bought gift certificates from its website, reports the Chicago Daily Herald.

From the Daily Herald:

Larissa Shelton and Gregory Bohus are suing Restaurant.com on behalf of themselves and others over certificates that had expiration dates and a disclaimer in violation of New Jersey law. That is no longer in dispute after being argued before the New Jersey Supreme Court.

What a U.S. Court of Appeals will decide is whether the rulings can be applied retroactively, in which case Restaurant.com could have to pay a penalty of $100 each for certificates sold in the past — penalties that could total an estimated $1 million.

Read the story.

Former Netflix vice president of IT and current Yahoo CIO Mike Kail has been accused in a lawsuit of taking thousands of dollars in kickbacks while he was at Netflix.

Business Insider reported that Kail was Netflix’s vice president of information technology operations until August 2014. He was in charge of contracts and invoices for Netflix’s tech vendors, which included an enterprise software company called Vistara IT and a tech contract worker company called Netenrich.

What Netflix didn’t know, the video streaming company alleges, is that Kail had a side company called Unix Mercenary, which was taking a 12-15 percent commission on invoices being paid by Netflix. Netflix claims fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, according to Business Insider’s report.

Read the story.

Target Corp. is trying to avoid liability for tens of millions of dollars banks claim to have lost after hackers broke into the retailer’s payment processing systems a year ago.

According to a report at Bloomberg News, Target didn’t have a legal duty to the banks because card payments are processed through third-party intermediaries, Douglas Meal, the retailer’s lawyer, told U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson in St. Paul, Minnesota. Target isn’t liable to the lenders, he said today in urging the judge to dismiss the case.

The banks “are claiming that Target had a duty to protect them from that criminal activity,” Meal said. “The only way that would be true is if there is a special relationship between the parties,” and there is none.

Read the story.

Arizona has filed suit against General Motors, claiming that the automaker defrauded the state’s consumers of an estimated $3 billion, The New York Times reports.

The suit is the first major legal action against GM over its record number of recalls this year, most notable among them one for a defective ignition switch in 2.6 million small cars that was delayed for a decade. The suit suggests that “multiple in-house attorneys” were aware of the problem, including Michael P. Milliken, the company’s general counsel for the past five years.

The Times said the complaint was harsh and unsparing in its criticism of GM, suggesting that the automaker intentionally misled consumers through its advertising, website and public statements, and that some of its top leaders were complicit in the alleged misdeeds.

Read the story.

Reuters is reporting that credit monitoring company One Technologies LP will refund $22 million to customers to settle U.S government allegations that its websites inadequately disclosed its charges for credit scores.

Reuters attributed the report to information shared by the two sides on Wednesday.

“A draft complaint from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission alleged that the Dallas-based privately held company advertised free access to credit scores but charged customers $29.95 per month,” the news agency said. “At least 210,000 people have complained about One Technologies’ practices since 2008, the FTC said in the complaint.”

One Technologies also has changed its websites to make advisories about what it charged more conspicuous, the company and the FTC said.

Read the story.

A Texas federal court jury found that Apple Inc. used SkyTel pager technology from the 1990s in iPhone, iPad and iPod without permission. The jury set damages to be paid to the Texas-based SkyTel at 23.6 million, according to a report in Bloomberg News.

Jurors in the Marshall, Texas, court found Nov. 17 that patents developed for the SkyTel network and owned by Mobile Telecommunications Technologies LLC are valid and were infringed by Apple. MTel, which got about a tenth of what it had been seeking in damages, claimed Apple’s Airport Wi-Fi products and iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices with messaging used the technology, Bloomberg reports.

This is the second trial in as many months in which Cupertino, California-based Apple was accused of using pager technology without paying for it. It won the first case, involving a different company, last month in California.

Read the story.

Kroll Ontrack presents a complimentary on-demand webinar on the importance of cooperation at the e-discovery stage of litigation.

Litigation by its very nature is adversarial and cooperation seems unnatural, Kroll Ontrack says on its website. “However, even the most cutthroat lawyers understand the importance of cooperation and the impact that collaboration can have on the case budget and the overall outcome of the matter.

And in e-discovery, the case for cooperation is even more compelling, with intricate legal doctrines, complicated technical protocols and multiple inside counsel, law firm and service provider roles intersecting.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

The controversy surrounding the allegedly defective shrapnel-slinging exploding air bags continues to grow, now that Nissan says it will add another 52,000 vehicles to its recall effort.

Nissan reported the plan to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, according to a report in The Los Angeles Times.

“Meanwhile, a group of senators is asking the Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation into reports that the air bag supplier conducted secret tests on ruptures a decade ago but didn’t take action or report the results to safety regulators,” The Times reports.

Read the story.

Some media companies, including CBS Corp. and Walt Disney Co., have sought a court order to stop the U.S. Federal Communications Commission from disclosing programming contracts as part of its review of Comcast Corp.’s proposed purchase of Time Warner Cable Inc.

Bloomberg News reports that the companies will suffer “substantial harm” if distribution agreements are disclosed, lawyers for media companies wrote yesterday in a request for an order in the U.S. appeals court in Washington blocking release of the information.

“The FCC repeatedly has recognized that distribution agreements are entitled to the highest level of confidential treatment,” the companies said in the filing.

Comcast, the largest U.S. cable-TV company, proposed buying No. 2 Time Warner Cable for $45.2 billion in February.

Read the story.

Advisen has posted a free on-demand webinar that discusses methods to employ to lower workers compensation costs.

In the webinar, Arthur J. Gallagher’s Bob Walker, Amaxx’s Becki Shafer and Michael Stack, and Advisen’s David Bradford review how organizations hone their pre-injury and post-injury procedures in order to significantly reduce their workers comp expenses.

They discuss such topics as setting realistic goals for reducing comp costs, when to get involved with a claim, developing a return-to-work program, employee communication, obtaining senior management commitment, training programs, and an in-house SIU Director vs. an insurance company’s SIU director.

Listen to the webinar audio or view the presentation slides.

Financial Advisor and Ace Private Risk Services present a complimentary webinar designed to help high net worth families protect their assets from personal liability lawsuits, which can take years to litigate and result in awards and settlements well in excess of $10 million.

On its website, Financial Advisor says this course explores the liability exposures of high net worth (HNW) families and presents a five-step plan for addressing them. It compares the perceptions HNW individuals have about liability risk with the realities they face. It reviews how wealth and a wealthy lifestyle lead to increased liability risk, and how jury composition and widespread legal doctrines such as joint and several liability further increase this risk. The course will detail these families’ growing concerns, which include financial loss, stress of protracted legal proceedings, and damage to their reputations and earning power.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

A webinar hosted by Financial Recovery Technologies, LLC (FRT), emphasized that institutions have a strong fiduciary duty to actively track securities litigation.

The webinar is now available for on-demand viewing.

A panel comprised of past and present legal representatives from several leading U.S. pension funds discussed how institutions have a strong fiduciary duty to actively track securities litigation, in the U.S. and across the globe. The expert panelists shared their funds’ experiences in being active participants in securities litigation.

The discussion also addressed how funds should assess damages in order to make informed decisions about becoming active, what funds should consider before becoming active, and what impact being an active participant may have on an institution.

Watch the on-demand webinar.

eTERA Consulting will discuss its All1ance One in the company’s Tech Talk Tuesday webinar on Nov. 18, beginning at 1 p.m. Eastern time.

All1ance One is a win/win: a win for our partners and their clients, eTERA says. Partners have the ability to expand their business, win more clients and increase revenue. Corporate legal departments, law firms and government agencies alike can benefit by offering eTERA’s enhanced eDiscovery services that span across the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (“EDRM”).

In this complimentary one-hour presentation, attendees will learn firsthand about the benefits of being an All1ance One partner including:

◾New Revenue Resources
◾Ability to provide eDiscovery services to clients
◾Robust and secure eDiscovery infrastructure with no investment required
◾Strong award winning partner with financial stability, national recognition and global footprint
◾Continuing training and education
◾Dedicated point of contact
◾Ability to provide eDiscovery services to clients
◾Access to data and technology management subject matter experts
◾Access to Gartner Group Magic Quadrant Technologies
◾Ongoing marketing and sales support
◾Customized onboarding program including “go-to” market strategies

The speaker will be Mary McGinness, All1ance One Manager.

As eTERA’s All1ance One Manager, Mary McGinness is responsible for leading the partnership program in the US and overseas. She focuses on the identification, development, management, and executive relationships of eTERA’s network of partners and clients. Her responsibilities enable all parties to expand their client service offerings to corporate legal departments and law firms, collaborate effectively on opportunities, and create synergy that allows for future revenue growth.

Register for the event.

What if you had to return all the revenue you received from every customer in California for the last several years? A class action litigation alert from DLA Piper discusses the California Automatic Renewal Law, which applies to most individual consumer contracts that include an automatic renewal feature and for which the consumer authorizes a recurring automatic charge to the consumer’s credit card or bank account for the purchase of services, memberships, subscriptions or other products.

According to the alert, “in the event of non-compliance with the law, all services rendered by a merchant to an individual California consumer ‘shall for all purposes be deemed an unconditional gift to the consumer.’ ”

The alert, written by Paul J. Hall, Isabelle Ord and Alec Cierny, says, “The law creates a higher legal standard that the automatic renewal terms and cancellation rights be disclosed in a more conspicuous manner than the rest of the contract.  The law applies to contracts entered into by any consumer in California regardless of the location of the company.  Recent class action lawsuits allege that several national companies with consumer-interfacing websites are not in compliance with the enhanced disclosure requirements of the Automatic Renewal Law.”

Read the alert here.

Smith, Anderson, Blount, Dorsett, Mitchell & Jernigan will present a free webinar on real estate litigation. The webinar will be Tuesday, Oct. 7, beginning at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time.

The firm says this session will focus on commercial real estate transactions and ways to avoid litigation by managing risk on the front end, with proper contract drafting or proper oversight of performances prior to the closing.

The webinar will examine how deals can go sideways due to actions and statements made by the parties, their brokers and their closing attorneys, resulting in changes to contractual rights and obligations that may be surprising to the parties. In addition, the presenter will look at what to do and not do if litigation is filed, and the risk of ancillary disputes arising out of the real estate litigation.

Register for the webinar.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office will present a complimentary webinar on the Patent Litigation Online Tool Kit, a web site designed to assist consumers and small business owners who receive letters accusing them of patent infringement.

The webinar will be Thursday, Sept. 18, beginning at noon Eastern time.

The webinar will discuss the litigation tool kit, which answers common questions about patent litigation such as:

• What are my options for responding to the suit?
• How can I tell whether or not I’m infringing?
• How do I find a lawyer?
• How can I challenge a patent or patent application?

Register for the webinar.

Taylor English Duma LLP offers a complimentary on-demand webinar on litigation fundamentals, titled “Using Court Reporters Throughout the Trial Process.”

In the webinar, Henry M. Quillian III reviews techniques and advice for maintaining the court reporter’s record so that you can utilize it throughout the litigation. Quillian, a member of Taylor English, nationally litigates, arbitrates and solves commercial disputes in the construction, real estate, insurance, technology and general business sectors.

He outlines the various times a court reporter is called upon during the course of litigation, beginning with discovery and depositions.

See the on-demand video.

The Association of Corporate Counsel and Kobre & Kim LLP present a free on-demand webinar on enforcing high value judgments and recovering hidden assets.

In this webcast, a group of internationally based attorneys, experienced in enforcing high value judgments and recovering hidden assets share their first-hand insights into the international judgment enforcement and asset recovery process, the ACC said in a release.

The panel discussion includes analysis of effective asset tracing, utilizing specific legal tools available in the U.S., Europe, Asia and offshore jurisdictions as well as the alternative fee structures available to minimize costs and risks.

See the free on-demand webinar.

Hatmaker Law Group will present a free monthly employment webinar discussing wage and hour issues.

The event will be Wednesday, July 23, beginning at noon Pacific time.

The presentation will help educational opportunities for employers, owners, managers, accountants, attorneys, and human resource professionals stay current with up-to-date information on important California employment law issues.

Or Contact: Laura Dakin at (559) 374-0077 or email laura@hatmakerlaw.com or register at the link below.

Register for the webinar.