Lawfirm Siskinds has announced a class-action lawsuit against Smart Technologies Inc., seeking $100 million in compensation for people who bought shares during the company's initial public stock offering in July.

The lawsuit claims the Calgary-based maker of interactive whiteboards — used to make classroom presentations— failed to disclose a significant decline in sales growth and poor performance of a company it had acquired.

Lead plaintiffs Robert LeFever and Gail Runnells say they bought shares in July at US$17 each, and claim the share value fell after interim financial statements were released in November.

The shares are currently worth about $9.

The suit is filed against several defendants including Smart Technologies, members of the company's board of directors, and several major banks that acted as underwriters in the offering.

Shares in Smart Technologies were down one cent to $9.09 in midday trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
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As it scrambled to placate the 400 ticketholders who didn't get a seat to Super Bowl XLV, the NFL has a second group of angry fans on its hands.

Eagan Avenatti, LLP, a law firm specializing in consumer rights, launched an investigation into claims that the Cowboys deceived season ticket holders into buying $1,200 seats with obstructed views.

While the NFL took the blame for the 400 fans whose temporary seats weren't ready for Sunday's game, Avenatti took aim at Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.

"These season ticket holders are rightfully irate at Jones and the Cowboys," attorney Michael Avenatti said in a statement. "Jones sold the very fans that helped finance the construction of the stadium on the idea of attending the Super Bowl, took their money, and then put them in illegitimate seats with obstructed views. What team or owner on the planet would treat its best fans like this?"

Known as the "Founders," the fans helped finance the $1.2 billion stadium, contributing more than $100 million in personal seat licenses and another $3 million in annual season ticket sales. Each paid at least $100,000 in PSLs.

"We will get to the bottom of this," Avenatti said. "And when we do, I expect we will find that greed and ego had a lot to do with what happened."

Meanwhile, the NFL expanded its makeup offerings to the 400 fans who had tickets but didn't even get a seat on Super Sunday. The league's offering includes the option of a free ticket to next year's Super Bowl game plus a cash payment of $2,400 (triple the original face value of Sunday's ticket) or a ticket to a future Super Bowl, including next year's if so desired, plus round-trip airfare and hotel accommodations, but not the $2,400. They can wait until after the conference championship games each season to see whether their favorite team reaches the Super Bowl.

Comcast has agreed to pay up to $23 million to Oregon customers who were charged late fees from July 15, 2003, through Nov. 22, 2010, to settle a class-action lawsuit.

Comcast also agreed to donate a total of $75,000 to the Oregon Food Bank and United Way of the Columbia and Willamette and to pay Portland lawyer David Sugerman’s legal fees of up to $5 million. Sugerman was appointed by the court to represent Comcast customers.

The lawsuit, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, involved claims “that late fees and/or administrative fees charged by Comcast to delinquent cable television subscribers...failed to comply with the requirements of Oregon law,” according to the settlement website.

Comcast did not admit to any wrongdoing in the settlement. An Oregon spokeswoman for Comcast said in a written statement Wednesday that the company “denies liability and maintains that the late fees are legal.”

Bank of America Corp was hit with a lawsuit on Wednesday claiming the lending giant hid foreclosure problems that eventually led to a decline in its share price.

The suit, a proposed class action, says Bank of America concealed defects in the recording of mortgages, which harmed investors when the company had to temporarily discontinue foreclosures last fall.

"We are reviewing the lawsuit and have no further comment at this time," said Bank of America spokeswoman Shirley Norton.

Along with other lenders like JPMorgan Chase & Co and Wells Fargo, Bank of America has been the subject of scrutiny over its foreclosure practices.

Attorneys General from 50 states kicked off an investigation last year amid questions about legal documents submitted in court.

And while litigation from angry borrowers has mushroomed, many of the leading U.S. class action firms have stayed out of the fray, citing the difficulty of recovering substantial damages.

Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, a major plaintiff firm known for bringing securities lawsuits, filed the case against Bank of America on Wednesday. Attorney Samuel Rudman was not available to comment.

The plaintiff, a union benefit plan, purchased nearly 25,000 Bank of America shares over three months last year at a high of $19.01, according to the court filing.

The day after news of the AG probe was announced last October, BofA's shares fell 69 cents from the previous day to close at $12.60, the lawsuit says.

It is unclear whether the plaintiff ever sold its shares. The lawsuit proposes a class made up of all who bought the stock between January 20, 2010 and October 19, 2010.

Bank of America concealed the fact that it did not have adequate personnel to process the huge numbers of foreclosed loans in its portfolio, the lawsuit says.

It also claims the bank concealed a practice of omitting billions of dollars in debt from its publicly reported balance sheet.

A federal judge in Maine says 40 residents with cerebral palsy, epilepsy and other conditions can join a lawsuit seeking to force the state to provide opportunities for them to live outside nursing homes.

On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge John Woodcock granted class-action status to a lawsuit filed by three men with cerebral palsy who want to live on their own but retain services provided by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.

In the lawsuit filed in December 2009, the three argued the state violated the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Nursing Home Reform Act because it failed to make it possible for them to live outside nursing homes.

The Bangor Daily News says state officials couldn't be reached Wednesday because of the storm.

Lawyers for hundreds of workers from India who claim they were subjected to abusive conditions at Gulf Coast shipyards after Hurricane Katrina are asking a federal judge to certify their lawsuit as a class action against the company that hired them.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union and other groups filed a class-action suit in 2008 on behalf of seven individuals who worked for Signal International, an oil rig construction and repair company.

The plaintiffs' lawyers on Tuesday asked U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey to certify the case as a class action for roughly 500 workers who claim they were lured here after the 2005 storm with the false promise of green cards and then forced to live in crowded, unsanitary conditions.