U.S. securities regulators have accused a KPMG partner and two other individuals of insider trading on tips about three pending corporate mergers on which the accounting firm was providing advice, Reuters is reporting.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed the suit in federal court in Atlanta, claiming KPMG tax partner Thomas Avent of passed tips to his stockbroker, Raymond Pirrello, writes Nate Raymond. The SEC says Pirrello told a friend, Lawrence Penna, who with his family made more than $111,000 trading on the information.

The report says KPMG said on Friday that it was “deeply troubled” by the allegations and had placed Avent, a 63-year-old Atlanta resident, on administrative leave.

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A supposedly rogue investigation that Uber originally claimed it knew nothing about — and which could turn out to be a costly embarrassment for the ride-hailing giant — began with a 10-word request from the company’s general counsel, reports Matthew Flamm in Crain’s New York Business.

By email in 2015, Uber GC Salle Yoo asked the company’s security chief, “Could we find out a little more about this plaintiff?”

The Uber email, along with some others, eventually led to involvement by global intelligence firm Ergo, court records reveal.

“They were entered in support of a motion for relief brought by Connecticut conservationist Spencer Meyer—the mysterious plaintiff about whom Yoo inquired immediately after Meyer filed an antitrust class-action suit charging Uber Chief Executive Travis Kalanick with price fixing,” Flamm reports. The plaintiff claims the Ergo investigator used a ruse to snoop on him on his lawyer.

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Considerable litigation has arisen as to whether a  waiver of subrogation provision in a construction contract applies to bar an insurer’s subrogation claim against a contractor to the extent the insurer covered damage to the owner’s “non-work” property under the owner’s existing property policy, writes Robert Barrack in Robinson Cole’s Construction Law Zone blog.

He explains that a majority of jurisdictions have held that the waiver of subrogation provision in the construction contract applies to bar subrogation claims where the owner’s property policy covers the damage to “non-work” property.

In his article, he explains waiver of subrogation provisions and discusses some cases that address the subject.

Read the article.

Forty three long and painful years have passed since Víctor Jara, the famous Chilean folk singer whom Rolling Stone Magazine called one of the top 15 protest artists of all time, was found dead covered with dozens of bullet wounds in the brutal Pinochet military coup that upended his country.

A Florida jury found Florida resident Pedro Pablo Barrientos Nunez liable for the torture and murder of Jara, and the court ordered Barrientos to pay $28 million in damages – $8 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive damages.

Richard S. Dellinger with Lowndes, Drosdick, Doster, Kantor & Reed, P.A. in Orlando served as the local counsel and worked closely with The Center for Justice and Accountability, a San Francisco-based legal advocacy group, and the New York law firm Chadbourne & Parke, LLP to represent the Jara family.

“This is justice at its best,” said Dellinger who worked tirelessly with the legal team in the eight-day trial. “Mr. Barrientos received a fair trial process that Mr. Jara never received. I am proud of what we were able to give the Jara family, who never lost sight of what happened 43 years ago and fought hard to hold Jara’s killer to account. I hope that this week’s verdict provides some measure of justice and renewal for the Jara family,” added Dellinger.

In a release, the firm said:

Joan Jara, Victor Jara’s 88-year old widow, attended the trial and said, “It has been a long journey seeking justice for Victor’s death. His songs continue to be sung today, and inspire both artists and those who seek social justice. For Victor, art and social justice were one and the same. Today, there is some justice for Victor’s death, and for the thousands of families in Chile who have sought truth.”

The legal team filed a civil suit on September 4, 2013 before the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida against Barrientos on behalf of Jara’s widow, Joan Jara, and children, Amanda Jara Turner and Manuela Bunster. The complaint alleged that Barrientos was responsible for the torture and execution of Jara, who was also a theater director and activist inspired by artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Bono, Joan Baez, Holly Near, Arlo Guthrie, Peter, Paul & Mary, and The Clash. A professor of theater in Santiago in 1973, Jara was one of thousands of intellectuals, political leaders and perceived political supporters of the Allende government detained en masse at Chile Stadium during the early days of the military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet.

The former officer, Barrientos, who is now 65 years old, moved to Central Florida at the end of the Pinochet dictatorship in 1990. His whereabouts were unknown until mid-2012, when a Chilean television crew located him in Florida. He worked as a landscaper and then a cook. Over the past several years, Barrientos worked at Perkins Restaurant in Deltona. Barrientos told the court that he came to the United States to earn money for his family. He did not report his military past when he applied for citizenship in 2010.

“I find it unnerving that the former Pinochet Lieutenant who is responsible for the torture and murder of Victor Jara and others at the Chile Stadium was living right here in Deltona,” said Dellinger. “This is a person who could have been one of our neighbors.”

Throughout the trial, the plaintiffs called many eyewitnesses to the stand, including ex-military conscripts assigned to the Chile Stadium detention center who placed Barrientos at the scene of Victor’s death. One conscript testified that Barrientos repeatedly boasted that he killed Jara. Additional testimonies came from others who were incarcerated in Chile Stadium with Jara, who witnessed the brutality levied against him by the Pinochet regime.

Jara’s torture and death has become a world-wide symbol for the suffering of all the innocent people who were detained, tortured, and killed at Chile Stadium, many of whom have yet to be identified.

Veteran trial lawyer James Edward “Jim” Maloney has opened a solo practice in Houston, at The Esperson Buildings, 815 Walker St., Suite 1150.

Educated at Yale and a graduate of the Harvard Law School, he began his career at Baker Botts where he spent the next 35 years representing leading business executives and major corporations, with a client list that has included:

• Shell Oil Company
• Pennzoil-Quaker State
• Reliant Energy and its predecessors
• Match.com
• Novartis
• Lyondell Chemical Company
• Southern Pacific Railroad Company
• Ford Motor Company
• Bridgestone-Firestone
• T. Boone Pickens

When he left Baker Botts in 2012, Maloney had headed the firm’s securities litigation section and had also served as the longtime chair of the firm’s employment committee.

More recently, he was a partner at Andrews Kurth. There, his clients included a major international oil and gas exploration company and a number of special and conflicts committees of boards of directors at public companies and master limited partnerships. He has been involved in securities litigation work, corporate takeover disputes, corporate investigations, class actions and complex commercial disputes in both state and federal courts.

Over more than 40 years of practice, Maloney has tried more than 100 cases to jury and bench verdicts and managed thousands of others to successful resolution, he said in a release.

Conservative hopes for a transformational term at the Supreme Court ended with Justice Antonin Scalia’s death this winter, and liberals instead prevailed on what are likely to be the term’s most influential decisions, reports Robert Barnes of The Washington Post.

The most high-profile cases, including affirmative action, abortion restrictions, labor union fees, gerrymandering and the use of executive power, ended either with liberal victories or draws that set no precedent.

Barnes wrote that “it was the absence of Scalia, the bombastic senior justice whose intellect and bravado powered the court’s conservative wing, that altered the court’s tone and reversed its reputation as a welcoming place for conservative causes.”

“Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. took on Scalia’s role as dissenter, airing from the bench his disagreements with the majority on abortion and affirmative action,” the article continues. “But unlike Scalia, he lacks a love of the whip.”

Read the article.

Litigation associate Erin Nowell from the Dallas office of Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett, PC, has earned a spot on the 2016 National Bar Association “40 Under 40 Best Advocates” list, which recognizes the country’s leading young attorneys  for their legal accomplishments.

With approximately 65,000 members, the National Bar Association is the oldest and largest network of African-American attorneys and judges in the U.S., the firm said in an announcement. Award recipients are vetted by a panel of former association presidents and key individuals, in addition to a separate evaluation covering nominees’ advocacy, innovation, leadership and community involvement.

“Erin is very deserving of this recognition based on her immense passion for achieving justice for those who have been injured through no fault of their own,” says Jeffrey Simon, a founding shareholder of Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett. “We are not surprised she rose to the top of the hundreds of nominees for this award.”

A graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, Nowell devotes her practice to representing victim of serious injuries and wrongful death caused by toxic substances such as asbestos, benzene and silica, as well as dangerous pharmaceuticals and other defective products. She will be honored at the 40 Under 40 Awards Gala on July 18 during the group’s annual convention in St. Louis.

“I am honored to be in the company of such accomplished lawyers from across the nation,” says Nowell. “Hard work truly pays off, and I am fortunate to be at a firm where I am able to help my clients fight for justice each day.”

USA Today is reporting that German automaker Volkswagen Group is expected to deliver a $10 billion settlement to cover government fines and compensate owners of vehicles fitted with software that cheated emissions standards.

The newspaper cited reports by Bloomberg and the Associated Press saying Volkswagen’s deal, which is due to be filed in a federal court by Tuesday, includes payments of up to $7,000 to owners of vehicles affected by the scandal.

“The settlement has a provision to remove any VW diesel vehicle with a 2-liter engine that hasn’t been brought into compliance, said Elizabeth Cabraser, the court-appointed lead counsel for the plaintiff’s steering committee. Either they will have to be modified or VW will buy them back.” USA Today reports.

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Photo by Marc Nozell

A conservative watchdog group was temporarily blocked on Tuesday from interviewing former State Department officials under oath in what would have been the third lawsuit over Hillary Clinton’s emails to progress to that stage, The Hill is reporting.

The ruling delays Judicial Watch’s effort to interview officials as part of an open records lawsuit related to Clinton’s use of a private server for her personal email account when she was secretary of State. The judge told Judicial Watch to finish interviews in two other ongoing cases first.

“To avoid duplicative discovery and unnecessary expenditure of public funds, the court will stay this case pending the completion of discovery in those other cases,” Walton ordered.

“The ruling gives some relief to the State Department and Clinton, which have both been the subject of intense scrutiny over the bespoke email setup that the former secretary of State used throughout her time in the Obama administration,” wrote Julian Hattem.

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The Foundation of the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) has announced publication of its first “Survey of International Litigation Procedures: A Reference Guide” that offers an extensive overview of civil justice systems relevant to defendants throughout the world.

Developed through input from IADC members from around the globe, the reference guide provides overviews on the civil justice systems of 49 countries, including information about key aspects of litigation in each jurisdiction, including:

–Local methods of adjudication‎
–Alternative dispute resolution
–Discovery
–Trial procedure
–Experts
–Privilege
–Limitations
–Costs rules
–Jurisdiction
–Other topics of interest to potential litigants

“The IADC Foundation Survey of International Litigation Procedures Reference Guide is a useful tool for general counsel who want to know the key differences between U.S. and other civil justice systems and what to expect when managing litigation in a foreign jurisdiction,” said Gordon McKee, IADC Board member and a former member of the IADC Foundation Board, who was instrumental in creating the reference guide.

McKee, who also is a partner with Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, added that the reference guide is particularly noteworthy for its high-level overview and brevity in summarizing each country’s litigation procedures, processes and rules.

Publication of the Survey of International Litigation Procedures Reference Guide is an outcome of the IADC Foundation’s mission to educate the public and global legal community on issues impacting the civil justice system, provide a forum for discussion of topics critical to corporate and defense counsel, promote projects for the advancement of the legal system, and support scholarship for the continued education of defense attorneys and corporate counsel.

Download the reference guide.

About the International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC)
In a news release, the association said, “The International Association of Defense Counsel (IADC) is the preeminent invitation-only global legal organization for attorneys who represent corporate and insurance interests. Founded in 1920, the IADC’s members hail from five continents, 45 countries, and all 50 U.S. states. The core purposes of the IADC are to enhance the development of skills, promote professionalism, and facilitate camaraderie among its members, their clients, as well as the broader civil justice community.”

FedEx Ground Package System Inc. has agreed to pay drivers in 20 states $240 million to settle lawsuits claiming the second-largest U.S. parcel delivery company misclassified them as independent contractors, it said on Thursday, according to a Reuters report.

Reporter Daniel Wiessner said Beth Ross, lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in an email that the settlement, if approved, would be divided among 12,000 drivers, some of whom would receive tens of thousands of dollars.

FedEx previously contracted directly with independent operators in an effort to save on taxes, fringe benefits, health care costs, pensions and other workers’ costs.

“The deal, subject to approval by a federal judge in Indiana where the cases were consolidated, would end nationwide litigation claiming that because drivers were required to use company-branded trucks, uniforms and scanners, FedEx was their employer under federal and state laws,” Reuters reports.

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U.S. District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel, whom Donald Trump has publicly denounced as a “hater,” will decide whether to release videos of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s testifying in a lawsuit against Trump University, reports NBC News.

The videos Trump’s lawyers want to keep out of the public record are from Trump’s deposition late last year and early this year in a class-action lawsuit accusing him of fraud. They said there’s “no legitimate reason” for the plaintiffs to submit the videos, arguing that the only motive to submit the videos is to create “prejudice” against Trump.

“This is precisely the type of ‘prejudice’ our adversarial system demands,” the ex-students’ lawyers said, adding that Trump “may think anything that does not go his way is unfair, but that is clearly not the legal definition of unfair prejudice,” according to the report by NBC’s Alex Johnson.

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Gawker Media’s last-ditch effort to protect itself from a debilitating $140 million judgment using Chapter 11 may be a novel strategy to the media world but pharmaceutical and casino companies alike have recently used it with varying degrees of success, writes Maria Chutchian for Forbes.

A Florida jury recently awarded pro wrestler Hulk Hogan the damages in a privacy lawsuit stemming from Gawker’s publication of a Hogan sex tape in 2012, but Hogan is barred from executing the award against Gawker because of the company’s Chapter 11 protection from debtors.

“But Gawker founder Nick Denton, who is jointly liable for $115 million of that judgment plus another $10 million in punitive damages, doesn’t have the same protection. Gawker must convince a judge that the stay should be extended to cover Denton himself,” Chutchian writes.

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When negotiating and drafting a contract on behalf of a business, one of the most important considerations is whether it will create personal liability for the individual signing on behalf of the business, as illustrated by a recent decision from Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal, Frieri v. Capital Investment Services, Inc., writes Adam B. Edgecombe of Jimerson & Cobb, P.A.

“Frieri involved an investor who contributed $6 million to a business trust that he formed with the president of a small corporation, with each of them owning 50% of the trust,” Edgecombe explains. “In exchange for the investor’s contribution, the president of the corporation was to transfer 78% of the corporate stock to the trust. However, after the investor paid over his $6 million contribution, the president of the corporation never transferred the stock.”

The investor sued both the president of the corporation and the corporation, alleging that the defendants had breached the stock-purchase agreement. The trial court agreed, entering a final verdict in the amount of $7,369,222.00 against the corporation and the president individually. On appeal, the president and the corporation argued there was no basis for his personal liability.

“The Third District disagreed with the president’s position, finding that, when two businesses contract, the entirety of the document must be analyzed to determine whether the parties intend to bind the businesses alone or whether the obligation extends to the signing agents in their individual capacities,” Edgecombe writes.

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The International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR), an organization that works for fair and effective alternative dispute resolution (ADR) practices worldwide, has spoken out against Donald Trump’s attacks on adjudicators.

In a release, CPR said it took this position in response to recent statements made by Trump questioning the impartiality of Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel because of his Mexican heritage, and also questioning whether a Muslim judge could fairly preside over a case involving him.

“Those who sit as judges and adjudicate cases have a well-established responsibility to be fair and impartial,” said CPR President and CEO Noah Hanft. “This obligation is one that all adjudicators, including neutrals on CPR’s own panel of distinguished neutrals that includes many former Judges, take with extreme seriousness. Indeed, it is critical to maintaining both the integrity and stability of the dispute resolution process. Therefore, accusations that judges are biased, based solely upon factors such as their ‘heritage,’ are both dangerous and irresponsible and anathema to basic precepts of justice.”

Hanft concluded, “As an organization committed to improving the way disputes are resolved and driving diversity within the profession, we consider the implication that one’s family background renders him or her biased and unable to adjudicate a matter fairly and without conflict to be a great affront. We call upon other ADR providers, and the legal and business community that relies upon a fair and stable judicial framework, to similarly condemn these statements.”

FisherBroyles, LLP has a warning for employers dealing with an employee who is doing — or is suspected of doing — illegal drugs: Situations of this kind are fraught with potential for large legal fees, company embarrassment, and major diversion of management time if you become involved in formal proceedings — even if you eventually win.

Drugs permeate our society. It’s on the news, in social media, and all over movies and television. It may also be in your workplace when you discover that your awesome SVP Frank Fantastic’s belief-suspending prior year’s sales record might be due to — or despite — a little cocaine habit combined with his daughter’s ADHD meds.

Some questions you want to consider — do you know this hotshot is doing illegal drugs or abusing alcohol or prescription drugs, or do you just suspect? Is Frank’s employment terminable at will or only for cause if he is a party to an employment contract? Is a substance addiction a “disability” under the Americans with Disabilities Act?

While the answers to such questions depend on the particular facts in each situation, one thing we can tell you is tread lightly, navigate carefully. You want to minimize involvement in such proceedings if at all possible.

The firm offers advice on how to proceed: maintain a clear anti-drug policy, manage the situation with care, review employment agreement, remember that the ada protects recovering addicts, and be proactive in future employment agreements. The article expands on each of those points.

Read the article.

Contractual provisions for liquidated damages, indemnification, or other limitations on liability are a few of the most commonly used “damage control” tools, points out Theresa Y. Kananen for Arnall Golden Gregory LLP.

“In too many cases, however, drafting errors transform the very provisions intended to provide for clear-cut remedies, or clear-cut limitations on remedies, into sources of prolonged and expensive litigation,” she writes.

She lists and discusses three of the most common pitfalls to avoid when using one of these “damage control” provisions in a contract, including liquidated vs. actual damages, indemnity clauses and conspicuous limitations.

Read the article.

As the U.S. Supreme Court enters the last month of its term, the impact of having only eight justices already is clear. Some of the most high-profile cases of the year are not being decided, or perhaps even worse, are being resolved on narrow grounds that create more confusion than clarity in the law, writes Erwin Chemerinsky in the ABA Journal.

Chemerinsky is Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law.

“A 4-4 tie, which affirms the lower court without opinion by an evenly divided high court, is not a problem when there is no split among the lower courts and there already is a clear prior decision on point. In fact, in a couple of cases, the justices divided 4-4 on whether to overrule a precedent,” writes Chemerinsky.

He discusses Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, which raised the issue of whether to overrule Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, which held that non-union members of a public employees’ union can be required to pay the share of the union dues that go to support the collective bargaining activities of the union. The article also considers Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, in which one of the questions presented was whether to overrule Nevada v. Hall, which held that a state may be sued in the courts of another state.

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A discrimination lawsuit brought against high-powered Boston law firm Mintz Levin by one of its former attorneys can move forward after a decision by the state’s highest court, reports The Boston Globe.

“In overruling a lower court judge who had thrown out the discrimination claims, Supreme Judicial Court justices said evidence supporting the ex-associate’s allegations of sexism and double standards inside the politically connected firm is substantial enough to warrant a jury trial,” writes Dan Adams.

The court also ruled that employers are in some circumstances barred from retaliating against workers who search for, copy, and share with their attorneys confidential company documents that may help them prove discrimination claims. The decision could affect other employment cases.

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A new article published by Ken Adams, president of Adams Contracts Consulting LLC, explains how to reduce the chances of the confusion that results when a judge or litigator without a grounding in the subject analyzes ostensibly ambiguous contract language.

The article is posted on Thomson Reuters’ Legal Solutions Blog.

“A problem with resolving disputes over ambiguous, or allegedly ambiguous, contract language is that ambiguity is a complex topic—it arises in different ways, many of them far from obvious. So when a judge or litigator without a grounding in the subject analyzes ostensibly ambiguous contract language, confusion often results,” he writes.

His article cites some examples of courts resolving disputes over the meaning of contract language in ways that don’t make sense, including how the Second Circuit Court of Appeals invoked a principle of interpretation that’s markedly at odds with English usage, how the Third Circuit Court of Appeals opted for an unreasonable interpretation of an or, and how the Federal Circuit misanalyzed the phrase at least one of X and Y.

Read the article.