As he travels about the city, assuring Chicagoans that he is one of them, Rahm Emanuel must be asking himself why he just didn't leave his house vacant when he went off to work in the White House. Or rent it to a buddy or a relative.

That's because a cornerstone of an expected legal challenge to his status as a Chicagoan — a challenge that, if successful, would knock him off the February ballot and out of the city's mayor's race — is that when Emanuel rented his house he broke the rule that a candidate must live in the city a full year before the election.

"He doesn't have a house. ... He's not a resident if (he's) renting the house," said Burt Odelson, a Chicago election attorney who said he's filing a challenge against Emanuel with the city's Board of Election Commissioners as early as Friday on behalf of several "objectors" who he would not name.

Emanuel has tried to diffuse any question over his residency since the day he said goodbye to President Barack Obama at the White House, telling Obama that he looked forward to returning to "our hometown" and even throwing in a reference to the Chicago Bears.

Since then, he's made his family's history in Chicago part of his narrative, from his grandfather who arrived here from Europe to his own children, the fourth generation of his family to call the city home. He's talked of his father's Chicago medical practice and his uncle who retired as a police sergeant after working in a part of the city that Emanuel represented in Congress.

In recent weeks, Emanuel and his staff have ramped up efforts to do away with the issue. His staff posted newspaper editorials and a letter of their own explaining why Emanuel is a resident on his campaign website, ChicagoforRahm.com. In a campaign television commercial, Emanuel shakes hands with residents and city workers while stressing he's a Chicago guy, coming home to run for mayor.

Ryan & Maniskas, LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on behalf of purchasers of the common stock of Private Bancorp, Inc. during the period between November 2, 2007 and October 23, 2009, inclusive (the "Class Period").

For more information regarding this class action suit, please contact Ryan & Maniskas, LLP (Richard A. Maniskas, Esquire) toll-free at (877) 316-3218 or by email at rmaniskas@rmclasslaw.com or visit: www.rmclasslaw.com/cases/pvtb.

The complaint alleges that violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Securities Act of 1933 by virtue of the Company's failure to disclose during the Class Period and in connection with its registered public offerings of common stock conducted on or about June 4, 2008 and on or about May 11, 2009 ("Offerings") that its Strategic Growth and Transformation Plan (the "Growth Plan") which led PrivateBancorp to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in commercial and industrial loans that were high risk, and that the Company's residential loan portfolio was suffering severe deterioration. On October 26, 2009, after the Company reported third quarter 2009 earnings results that fell far short of expectations, that despite having written off in excess of $100 million in bad loans in January 2009 the Company still held almost $400 million in nonperforming loans as of the third quarter 2009 and that its elevated levels of nonperforming loans were originated under the Growth Plan, the value of PrivateBancorp stock declined significantly.

If you are a member of the class, you may, no later than December 21, 2010, request that the Court appoint you as lead plaintiff of the class. A lead plaintiff is a representative party that acts on behalf of other class members in directing the litigation. In order to be appointed lead plaintiff, the Court must determine that the class member's claim is typical of the claims of other class members, and that the class member will adequately represent the class. Under certain circumstances, one or more class members may together serve as "lead plaintiff." Your ability to share in any recovery is not, however, affected by the decision whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff. You may retain Ryan & Maniskas, LLP or other counsel of your choice, to serve as your counsel in this action.

For more information about the case or to participate online, please visit: www.rmclasslaw.com/cases/pvtb, or contact Richard A. Maniskas, Esquire toll-free at (877) 316-3218, or by e-mail at rmaniskas@rmclasslaw.com. For more information about class action cases in general or to learn more about Ryan & Maniskas, LLP, please visit our website: www.rmclasslaw.com.

Foreclosure-fraud class action lawsuits are starting to pile up against major banks across the country, threatening a besieged industry with billions more in potential losses.

Bank executives are swarming Capitol Hill this week to defend themselves against multiple foreclosure-related investigations, including one by all 50 state attorneys general. Talks are under way in that probe in hopes of reaching a settlement, but that wouldn't extinguish the mounting threat of an avalanche of class actions.

A congressional watchdog said in a report issued Tuesday that the foreclosure document debacle could threaten major banks with billions of dollars in losses, further prolong the housing depression and damage the government's effort to keep people in their homes.

The class actions, which could be expanded nationally, seek damages for homeowners whose properties were illegally foreclosed upon by banks using fraudulent documents. Suits have been filed in Maryland, New Jersey and Massachusetts that target Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co., HSBC PLC and JPMorgan Chase & Co. In Florida and Maine, Ally Financial, formerly known as GMAC Mortgage, is also being targeted.

A class action lawsuit has been filed in Federal Court on behalf of investors who purchased the common stock of RINO International Corporation during the period from March 31, 2009 to November 11, 2010, Inclusive. The lawsuit seeks to recover damages for violations of federal Securities Laws.

The Complaint asserts violations of Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 against RINO and certain of its officers and directors for misrepresenting the company's true financial performance. The Complaint alleges that contrary to the company's annual report filed with the SEC for fiscal 2009 which reported $193 million of revenue, the company's annual report filed with the Chinese authorities reported only $11 million of revenue for 2009. This discrepancy, along with other accounting inconsistencies, and questionable transactions between RINO and its management, has raised red flags and prompted an internal review. The Complaint asserts that when the market learned of this adverse information, the price of RINO stock dropped, damaging investors.

No class has yet been certified in the action. Until a class is certified you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. Sohmer & Stark, LLC has not filed a lawsuit against the defendants.

If you purchased RINO shares during the period from March 31, 2009 to November 11, 2010 and want to discuss your legal rights, at no cost and without obligation, please contact Amir M. Stark, Esquire at Sohmer & Stark, LLC (toll free:888-811-7179)

Sohmer & Stark, LLC has extensive experience litigating shareholder actions across the United States and has recovered millions of dollars on behalf of injured shareholders.

BRITISH Airways and other carriers accused of fixing cargo prices could face US-style class action suits in Britain for the first time. A ruling on the case is expected today.

Two flower shippers who were denied the right to form a group to sue British Airways now wait for the Court of Appeal ruling.

A ruling in favour of the flower shippers could show it is possible to adopt a class action model in the UK without waiting for new legislative changes, London-based antirust lawyer Frances Murphy, who leads the antitrust practice at Jones Day LLP, told Bloomberg.

The ruling tomorrow has the potential to “mushroom”, said Murphy, by making it cheaper and faster to seek damages in the UK against companies that collude to inflate prices.

British Airways and 10 other carriers were fined a total of 799.4 million euros by the European Union last week following a three year probe of the cartel.

Customer class actions are rare in the UK, and have not been done on the scale that they have in the US.

If the cargo customers win their appeal and are permitted to form a call to sue the airline, the Court would essentially be loosening a Century-old rule, brining the UK closer to the US in terms of recovery for customers, Bloomberg reports.

The Cook County Board has approved a $55.3 million settlement in a class-action civil lawsuit alleging that thousands of inmates at the county jail were improperly strip searched.

The settlement resulted from the county losing several federal court rulings stemming back to 2006. The courts had already determined the strip search procedures improper and the county has changed them.

The attorneys representing the former jail inmates will be paid $15 million, reports indicate, while the remainder of the funds will be divided among as many as 400,000 inmates jailed between January 30, 2004 and March 19, 2009. The County's insurance will cover $10 million of the settlement, and taxpayers the rest.

In the latest data-pass news, a federal judge denied a motion to dismiss several counts in a class action against security software company McAfee. The suit alleges that McAfee transferred consumers’ credit card information immediately after they purchased software but before they downloaded it. Pop-up ads would appear from a third party with a “Try It Now” button that, when clicked by consumers, would enroll them in a monthly program.    

The plaintiffs claim they believed they needed to click on the button to download their software and that McAfee received a fee for each customer who subscribed to the services of Arpu, Inc. via the ad on McAfee’s site. The complaint alleges that the plaintiffs only later learned they were enrolled in a monthly program with Arpu, costing $4.95 per month, and that McAfee transferred their confidential billing information without adequately disclosing what they were signing up for.

U.S. District Court Judge Lucy H. Koh said the plaintiffs could sue under California’s unfair business practices statute even though they could not claim any actual damages. Because the plaintiffs sought disgorgement of profits and restitution from McAfee based on the company’s business practices, their claims satisfied the state law, she said.

Discussing the plaintiffs’ allegations, the judge said there were several facets of the pop-up ad that could deceive a “significant portion of the public” into believing that the ad was affiliated with McAfee. The sequential placement of the ad, the fact that Arpu’s name appears nowhere on the pop-up, and the fact that the only reference to a third party appears in fine print makes it “difficult not to view the ad as an attempt to conceal [the] source and to pass off both the ad and the product as McAfee’s own,” the judge said.

Judge Koh also noted differences that could have tipped consumers off, adding that the plaintiffs were “unable to allege with any precision McAfee’s role in or responsibility for the content of the pop-up ad.” Although the court allowed the plaintiffs’ state law claims to continue, it dismissed claims under the Lanham Act, determining that the allegedly deceptive elements of the pop-up ad were not sufficient to establish a likelihood of injury by direct diversion of sales or a lessening of goodwill.