Corporate

Energy Transfer Partners’ Standing Rock Lawsuit: A Harbinger of What’s to Come in the Trump Era

Native Americans march to a burial ground sacred site that was disturbed by bulldozers building the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), near the encampment where hundreds of people have gathered to join the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s protest of the oil pipeline on September 4, 2016, near Cannon Ball, North Dakota. (Photo: Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty Images) Last year, Water Protectors inspired all of …


Facebook Agrees to Settle Class-Action Privacy Suit

[JURIST] Facebook [corporate website] settled a class-action lawsuit levied against it on Wednesday for its prior practice of scanning private messages to aid in ads. A motion [text, PDF] was filed on Wednesday, subject to court approval, for declaratory and injunctive relief, though it does not discuss specific monetary awards. In pertinent part, the motion states “[t]he settlement achieves …


Shareholder Lawsuit Accuses CBS Board of Granting ‘Gratuitous’ Sumner Redstone Salary

A CBS shareholder charges in a new legal filing that corporate board members and CEO Leslie Moonves were “recklessly profligate” when they approved nearly $13 million in pay over three years for one-time chairman Sumner Redstone , after it became clear that he was “incapacitated beyond recovery.” The most damning new evidence in the amended complaint, filed in Delaware Chancery Court, comes …


Litigation Finance: The ‘Unicorn’ of Uncorrelated Absolute Returns?

Editor’s note: Billionaire Peter Thiel’s involvement in the infamous Gawker privacy case has renewed interest in litigation finance, an relatively esoteric corner of alternative investments that involves bankrolling lawsuits in return for a piece of any monetary judgements. As explained by Edward Truant, principal of commercial litigation finance specialist Balmoral Wood Litigation Finance, the …



Brazil Graft Crackdown Spurs Work for Lawyers, Corporate Change

In the midst of Brazil’s worst recession in decades, lawyer Thiago Jabor Pinheiro switched firms to focus full-time on one of the only booming fields in the scandal-plagued country: compliance and corporate ethics. For Pinheiro, a massive corruption investigation unfolding at state-run oil firm Petrobras offers a golden opportunity. The scandal broke just as a tough new anti- …


Volkswagen’s Top U.S. Executive Is Stepping Down

(WASHINGTON) — Volkswagen’s top U.S. executive is stepping down amid the company’s ongoing emissions cheating scandal, the company announced Wednesday. U.S. President and CEO Michael Horn is leaving “to pursue other opportunities effective immediately,” the automaker said in a statement. He had been with the German auto maker for 25 years, assuming his most recent post in 2014.