The Canadian law firm ‘Merchant Law Group’ has launched a high profile class action suit against Facebook over the social network allegedly breaching the privacy of its users.

Tony Merchant Q.C stated Friday that “this claim asserts that Facebook shamelessly breached the privacy of people who trusted it.”

Facebook has had a number of legal problems over its privacy policies in recent times – On February 4, 2009, without proper communication to or agreement by its Users, Facebook revised its Terms of Service, asserting broad, permanent, and retroactive intentions to reveal Users’ information, even as to Users who deleted their Facebook.com accounts. The Company stated it could make public a User’s “name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising.” Having met with numerous objections from Users and after being threatened with action by U.S. federal government regulators, Facebook withdrew the proposed changes.

This latest claim alleges that the tools provided by Facebook to Users of the social network are materially misleading and calculated to result in unauthorized breaches of Users privacy and conversion of their personal information, including but not limited to the breach of Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act., 2000, c. 5. and other breaches of statute and common law.

Elizabeth A. Alexander, a partner with the Nashville office of the national plaintiffs’ law firm, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, LLP, and attorney Charles Barrett, of Nashville, announced today that a local owner of a Gulf Coast vacation home has filed a class action lawsuit against BP. The plaintiff, a Nashville resident and owner of beachfront property in Panacea, Florida, brought the class action on behalf of herself and all Tennessee residents who own property on the Gulf coast in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, and have suffered economic losses caused by the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and the resulting oil spill.

“The value of properties along the Gulf Coast and rental income for property owners, including owners from Tennessee, have been negatively impacted. BP and other defendants must take responsibility for their losses.”
."This unfolding and unprecedented ecological and economic disaster, the complaint charges, was the result of negligence by BP and the other corporations involved in drilling at the Deepwater Horizon oil rig," Ms. Alexander stated. "The value of properties along the Gulf Coast and rental income for property owners, including owners from Tennessee, have been negatively impacted. BP and other defendants must take responsibility for their losses."

Defendants named in the complaint include BP, PLC, and BP America, Inc., which owns the oil well, Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling, Inc., which leases the oil rig to BP, Halliburton Energy Services, Inc., which was engaged in cementing operations at the well, and Cameron International Corporation, which supplied the blowout preventer valves for the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that have failed to activate.

The complaint, entitled Simcox v. BP, PLC, et al., was filed yesterday afternoon in federal court in Nashville, Tennessee. The complaint charges that defendants failed to employ necessary safety measures and technologies to prevent the spill and damage to marine and coastal environments. To read a copy of the complaint, please visit http://www.gulfoilspilllitigationgroup.com/pdf/20100525-tn-complaint.pdf

It appears law firms are wearing class-action targets on their backs over tax and securities advice.

McMillan has become the latest big-name law firm hit with a class action. It was sued by an investor in March over the tax advice the firm issued involving the Royal Crown Gold Reserve Inc.

Investor Melvin Schneider wants to represent between 250 and 300 investors in a suit against Royal Crown, its promoters and McMillan over the tax shelter.

Royal Crown's mandate was to purchase gold properties in Canada and develop them into profitable businesses. It had claims in British Columbia.

The lawsuit alleges that a tax opinion offered by Mc-Millan partner Michael Friedman determined that the "amounts paid by investors to acquire a legal and beneficial ownership of a mining claim should constitute a Canadian Development Expense for the purpose of s. 66.2 of the [Income] Tax Act."

According to the lawsuit, investors would buy four units in a cell of land for $100,000. The claim alleges that under the offering memorandum, investors would put up $20,000 and provide a promissory note for $80,000.

They would then pay $3,200 in interest on the note, which would be tax deductible, and receive a $3,000 royalty payment. The claim alleges that over three years, the scheme provided investors with returns of 39.23%, 92.78%, and 34.02%.

However, the Canada Revenue Agency later rejected the proposed tax deductions because Royal Crown had not obtained a tax shelter number, the development expense was "inflated, unreasonable and unsupportable" and the promissory note was a contingent liability.

It reassessed investors and charged them penalties and interest. The lawsuit accuses McMillan of negligence, alleging it "provided the tax opinions to the promoters which were a necessary prerequisite for the promotion and sale of the units as a tax deductible investments.

To loyal users, Yelp.com is a helpful way to find and share reviews of local businesses, but some business owners claim that the website's business practices represent something closer to an extortion scheme.

Miami-based law firm Beck & Lee has joined with a San Diego firm to file a class action suit against the company, according to Mashable. The plaintiff in the suit, a Long Beach Veternary Hospital claims it contacted Yelp to see if it could delete a bad review. At first the representative refused, but then offered to hide or delete the review for about $300 a month.

The East Bay Express ran a story last year claiming that Yelp was essentially "the business of extortion 2.0."

During interviews with dozens of business owners over a span of several months, six people told this newspaper that Yelp sales representatives promised to move or remove negative reviews if their business would advertise. In another six instances, positive reviews disappeared -- or negative ones appeared -- after owners declined to advertise.

Because they were often asked to advertise soon after receiving negative reviews, many of these business owners believe Yelp employees use such reviews as sales leads. Several, including John, even suspect Yelp employees of writing them. Indeed, Yelp does pay some employees to write reviews of businesses that are solicited for advertising. And in at least one documented instance, a business owner who refused to advertise subsequently received a negative review from a Yelp employee.

Yelp immediately denied any wrong doing and claimed the story was inaccurate.

"While we haven't seen the suit yet, anyone can file one, and since the allegations are false we will dispute them aggressively," a Yelp representative tells Mashable regarding the latest suit.

Law firms in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., Wednesday filed a class-action complaint in San Jose, Calif., federal court against Google, and its Buzz technology, on behalf of Eva Hibnick, a 24-year-old Harvard Law School student.

The suit, reported by ABC News, is the first reported suit filed against Google about Buzz, which unexpectedly exposed relationships users had with others when Google turned on the technology. Google has since offered two methods to turn off Buzz.

Lawyers with nearly two dozen firms around the country hope to consolidate their claims that Toyota Motor Corp.'s recalls have cost customers billions of dollars.

P. Tim Howard, a Northeastern University law professor leading the group seeking class-action status for numerous existing lawsuits, said Wednesday that the more than 8 million vehicles recalled by Toyota have collectively lost more than $2 billion in resale value because of the recalls.

Kelley Blue Book and other automotive guides have warned that the recalls begun in November are eroding the value of Toyotas. The car appraisal guide estimated Wednesday that the resale value of recalled cars and trucks will fall another 1.5 percent. That's on top of a drop of 1 percent to 3 percent Blue Book analysts forecast last week.

Howard, who litigated against tobacco companies in the 1990s, also said he will seek damages for Toyota drivers who have decided not to use their recalled vehicles, although the value is more difficult to determine.

Toyota Motor Corp. was sued today in Los Angeles federal court for failing to disclose to investors that there was a major design defect in the automaker's acceleration systems.

The proposed class action complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles by a San Diego law firm on behalf of all purchasers of Toyota publicly traded securities, accuses Toyota, certain of its affiliates and certain of their officers and directors with violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

The suit alleges that Toyota issued "materially false and misleading statements" regarding its operations and its business and financial results and outlook when the company knew it had a design problem.

"Defendants misled investors by failing to disclose that there was a major design defect in Toyota's acceleration system, which could cause unintended acceleration," the lawsuit, filed by the firm Coughlin Stoia, alleges.

"As a result of defendants' false statements, Toyota's securities traded at artificially inflated prices - reaching a high of $91.78 per share on Jan. 19."

Toyota's stock price had fallen to $73.49 per share on Feb. 3.

Toyota was also sued Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court on behalf of all affected owners of the 2010-year Prius and the 2010 Lexus HS250h hybrid. Both models share the same braking system, which has been the object of consumer complaints.