Dec 12, 2024

The Techtopus: How Silicon Valley’s Most Celebrated CEOs Conspired to Drive Down 100,000 Tech Engineers’ Wages

In early 2005, as demand for Silicon Valley engineers began booming , Apple’s Steve Jobs sealed a secret and illegal pact with Google’s Eric Schmidt to artificially push their workers wages lower by agreeing not to recruit each other’s employees, sharing wage scale information, and punishing violators. On February 27, 2005, Bill Campbell, a member of Apple’s board of directors and senior …


Authors Challenge Google’s Book Copying Project

Three book authors and their advocacy organization have taken to the Supreme Court their decade-long copyright fight with Google over its massive book-copying and search project. The new appeal , filed on Thursday, asked the Justices to take away the giant digital firm’s legal protection against paying fees and getting permission to add whole volumes to its database. The filing accuses Google …


Why Los Angeles’ Disastrous Gas Leak Won’t Get Shut Down Until February (At Earliest)

In the northwest corner of Los Angeles, gated communities and newly-built micro-mansions cluster through the mountains overlooking the San Fernando Valley. To the casual onlooker it would appear to be a typical day in the upscale neighborhood of Porter Ranch: Cars snake through the In-N-Out drive-thru, cyclists power past skateboarding teenagers down paved paths, and kids and parents can be …


Maibec Defective Wood Shingle Class Action Lawsuit

This lawsuit alleges that Maibec, who manufactures and sells wood shingles made from Eastern White Cedar trees sold to the public under the brand names Nantucket, Kennebunk and Bar Harbor, are defective as the shingles are plagued by design flaws that result in warping, peeling, cracking, buckling and curling. The lawsuit also alleges that Maibec breached its express warranty to customers by …


Class Action Litigation Boom to Surge in 2016

If you haven’t made partner, you haven’t failed This year will be marked not only by a sweep of fresh class actions, but an increase in corporate legal battles as litigation funders bring online a range of new products. Executive chairman Philip Kapp of listed funder JustKapital said the main area of concentration for litigation funders over the next year was an expected growth in corporate …


‘We Won’t Be Shut Up’: NYE Revellers Reject ‘insulting’ Refund Offer

Jason Hincks’ picture of people at the NYE Above the Harbour event waiting in line for up to three hours. Source: Facebook Benedict Brook news.com.au AN ANGRY reveller who attended a shambolic New Year’s Eve party in Sydney has slammed organisers’ offer of a partial refund as an “insult”, and accused them of “trying to shut people up”. Tickets for NYE Above the Harbour at the Domain’s Tarpeian …


Next Shoe Drops for Prenda’s Paul Hansmeier: Minnesota Law Board Seeks to Disbar Him

Next Shoe Drops For Prenda’s Paul Hansmeier: Minnesota Law Board Seeks To Disbar Him from the couldn’t-happen-to-a-more-deserving-person dept Well, well. In August, we saw that the Illinois Attorney Discipline Board finally decided to file a complaint against Team Prenda front man, John Steele. The complaint made it quite clear that the board had been spending a lot of time going through the …


NCAA Appeals Class-Action Ruling in Scholarship Cases

General view of the NCAA logo. (Photo: Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports) 255 CONNECT TWEET 2 LINKEDIN COMMENT EMAIL MORE The NCAA and 11 major conferences on Friday night began the process of asking the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a recent ruling in which a federal district judge granted class-action status to a pair of lawsuits challenging the NCAA’s current limits on the …


Consumers Lose U.S. Appeal Over Credit Card Arbitration Clauses

NEW YORK Nov 19 The credit card industry won a big legal victory on Thursday as a federal appeals court rejected claims by a group of consumers that big issuers colluded to require that disputes be settled in arbitration rather than through class action lawsuits. By a 3-0 vote, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court ruling that American Express Co , Citigroup Inc …


DFC Customers File Class-Action Lawsuit in Florida

The embattled daily fantasy sports industry had another shot fired across its bow Saturday as two Florida-based men filed a major class-action lawsuit. According to Michael McCann of SI.com, daily fantasy sports customers Antonio Gomez and John Gerecs filed the suit against roughly 50 entities with ties to DFS, including DraftKings and FanDuel. Rachel Axon of USA Today later confirmed the report.