The sources told NBC News and NBC station WDIV of Detroit that state Attorney General Bill Schuette will announce criminal charges against two employees of the state Department of Environmental Quality and one who works for the City of Flint. Reuters reported that Attorney Valdemar Washington, who represents the residents in the lawsuit, said they were considering filing an appeal of O’Meara’s…
A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California said Thursday that German automaker Volkswagen AG (VW) has reached a settlement with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), California officials and consumers over a plan to fix or buy back nearly 600,000 diesel-powered vehicles…
Securities Investors Association (Singapore), or SIAS, announced this week that it will not hesitate to take errant companies to court – representing minority investors in class-action suits more commonly seen in jurisdictions like the United States. The association’s announcement begs the question: is such an action a viable alternative for minority investors here seeking…
Volkswagen said it has reached a framework agreement with class action plaintiffs in U.S. court proceedings on Thursday. The accord with class action plaintiffs will result in “a comprehensive settlement” in coming weeks, Volkswagen (VW) said in an emailed statement published by its Wolfsburg, Germany-based headquarters. The German carmaker and the U.S. Justice Department…
A Vancouver Island-based lawsuit against the cold remedy Cold-Fx is a lawyer-manufactured action in search of a victim and not worthy of class-action certification. Or at least that was the argument advanced by lawyers for the drug giant Valeant Pharmaceuticals earlier this month in a New Westminster courtroom. To be certified, an applicant must show the existence of a…
A federal judge may have dealt a serious blow to people suing over the Flint water crisis. U.S. District judge John Corbett O’Meara dismissed the class-action suit after finding the claims made by Flint residents couldn’t be resolved in federal court. At issue are claims made by the plaintiffs in the case that their constitutional rights and state law were…
A ruling by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has opened up the door for personal injury cases involving NFL concussions to now be tried as class action lawsuits. The reason why this is such a big deal is that the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1997 decision in Amchem v. Windsor and its 1999 followup, Ortiz v. Fibreboard, made the use of class actions to settle large swaths of personal…
A recent university study offers objective empirical evidence that no-injury class action lawsuits only benefit the attorneys who bring the litigation, leaving little to trickle down to the plaintiffs while raising costs for consumers. The findings of Emory University School of Law professor Joanna Shepherd are backed by Philadelphia attorney James Beck, who works for…
An Israeli court has certified a class that claims dairy producer Tnuva breached Israel’s competition law by charging excessively high prices for cottage cheese, opening the door for a broader interpretation of the country’s law on abuse of dominance.
A federal judge on Thursday denied approval of a proposed settlement in a class-action suit against ride-hailing company Lyft, saying the $12.25 million deal “shortchanged” drivers by potentially half the sum they deserve. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria said in a San Francisco court filing that the sum “does not fall within the range of reasonableness” and asked attorneys to …