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Apple hit by lawsuit over in-app purchases by kids
Corporate Governance |
2011/04/20 09:20
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Apple is facing a lawsuit from a Pennsylvania man whose 9-year-old daughter racked up $200 in charges buying "Zombie Toxin" and other game items on her iPod. The lawsuit seeks class-action status, saying Garen Meguerian of Phoenixville is among many people with bill shock after children went on buying sprees in iPhone, iPad and iPod games. These games are typically free to download, but players can buy items that speed up the game. An Associated Press story in December highlighted the issue. In many cases, it appeared that children bought items such as "Smurfberries" from "Smurfs' Village" without knowing they were spending real money. ITunes didn't ask for a password for in-game purchases if it had been entered within the previous 15 minutes for any reason. This meant that parents could download a free app, hand over their devices to their kids, and later find big charges on their iTunes accounts. Apple reversed the charges of complaining customers. It also tightened its password policy with a software update in March. Entering the password outside an app no longer triggers a password-free period for in-app purchases, which now have a separate 15-minute timer. Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said the company does not comment on pending litigation. |
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Credit Suisse to pay $70m to settle suit
Corporate Governance |
2011/03/11 12:47
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Credit Suisse has agreed to pay $70 million to settle a class-action suit by investors claiming it misstated its subprime asset losses.
In an agreement filed in Manhattan, the Swiss bank said it would settle with investors who purchased United States depositary shares of the company’s stock on the New York Exchange between February 15, 2007 and April 14, 2008. US residents who purchased Credit Suisse stock on the Swiss stock exchange during the period are also included. The settlement must be approved by the court.
Defendants had alleged that during the period in question, Credit Suisse and some of its executives, including chief executive Brady Dougan, issued “materially false and misleading statements regarding the company's business and financial results”.
Specifically, they alleged that Credit Suisse “concealed the company’s failure to write down impaired securities containing mortgage-related debt”.
In the settlement, Credit Suisse said it continued to “deny all charges of wrongdoing or liability”. However, the bank said it concluded that “further continuation of the action would be protracted and expensive”.
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Toyota U.S. Shareholders File Consolidated Complaint on Vehicle Recalls
Corporate Governance |
2010/10/05 14:29
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Toyota Motor Corp. was accused by U.S. investors of violating securities law by failing to disclose acceleration-related defects that it knew about, according to a consolidated complaint in a class-action lawsuit. The shareholders, led by the Maryland State Retirement and Pension System, said in the Oct. 4 filing in federal court in Los Angeles that internal documents show Toyota deliberately concealed unintended sudden acceleration problems in the U.S. They said the company knew about the defects as early as 2000 and “stonewalled” regulators to avoid recalls. “As government regulators and the media began to focus on this serious safety problem in the Toyota vehicles, defendants initially denied that any unintended acceleration problem existed, despite a plethora of internal evidence to the contrary, and instead blamed driver error and media-induced publicity,” the investors said. Toyota’s recalls related to sudden acceleration defects have erased $30 billion in market capitalization, the investors said. The Maryland pension fund seeks to represent investors who bought Toyota’s American depositary receipts from May 10, 2005, to Feb. 2, 2010. The fund also wants to represent investors who bought the carmaker’s common stock in domestic transactions during that period as well as, through claims made under Japanese law, all investors who bought the common stock during that time, according to the complaint.
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Class Claims MetLife Did Them Wrong
Corporate Governance |
2010/10/04 03:07
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MetLife Insurance defrauded investors, including elderly people, by guaranteeing them 9 to 12 to percent annual returns on real estate investments, a class action claims in Superior Court. Also sued were New England Life Insurance, two of its wholly owned subsidiaries, and Tony Russon and Russon Financial Services, of Woodland, Calif., who was, or held himself out as, a MetLife regional manager.
Named plaintiffs Lawrence Cantor and Larry Stilley say they invested $1.95 million with "an authorized 'agent' with Met Life," who used it to enter contracts with nonparty Diversified Lending Group (DLG). The "funds invested in DLG contracts were ultimately not repaid," the men say.
According to the complaint, the SEC sued DLG and Bruce Friedman in Federal Court, accusing them of selling $216 million in securities to investors, many of them elderly. The SEC says the defendants diverted "a substantial amount" of the money to Friedman's businesses unrelated to real estate or mortgage lending, and that Friedman snitched "a minimum of $17 million to support his lavish lifestyle, including purchases of a luxury home, cars, vacations, jewelry and designer clothing and accessories," and that he grabbed $275,000 "for the personal use of his girlfriend."
Friedman consented to judgment, then fled to France, where he was arrested and is awaiting extradition, according to the complaint. |
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Deere sells wind energy business for $900M
Corporate Governance |
2010/08/31 09:03
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Deere & Co. will sell its wind energy business to a subsidiary of Exelon for $900 million, the company said Tuesday, potentially signaling an active merger and acquisition period ahead for the power industry. With energy prices persistently low due to a grinding economic recovery, stakes in the power industry have begun to shift. Earlier this month, Blackstone Group paid $542.7 million to take Houston's Dynegy Inc. private. In a three-way deal, Dynegy also sold four power plants to NRG Energy Inc. for $1.36 billion in cash. Deere said in February it was reviewing options for John Deere Renewables. It saw the wind business as an extention of its agricultural work, with projects located in rural areas. Deere was involved in project management and financing, buying much of the hardware used in the wind projects from India's Suzlon Energy, one of the biggest suppliers in the world. Deere invested $1 billion over the past five years in the financing, development and ownership of wind energy projects. On Tuesday, Deere said the sale will allow it to get back to what it does best, which is manufacturing farm equipment.
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Woman sentenced to prison for faking breast cancer
Corporate Governance |
2010/07/28 03:45
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A judge sentenced a Chattanooga woman to 42 months in prison for faking breast cancer and told her it was "reprehensible" that she took donations of sick leave, money and cancer patient support services for five years. "It seems like to me some confinement is necessary," Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Don Poole said Monday after a four-hour hearing in which attorneys for 39-year-old Keele Maynor asked for a probation sentence that would allow her to work and pay about $54,000 in restitution. Poole added 10 years of probation to the sentence for Maynor, a mother of three, and ordered her taken into custody immediately. She will be eligible for parole after serving one-third of the prison sentence. He ordered her to start making $300 monthly restitution payments after her release.
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Court: NFL is 32 teams, not single business
Corporate Governance |
2010/05/24 08:57
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The Supreme Court says the National Football League can be considered as 32 separate teams - not one big business - when it comes to to selling NFL-branded items like jerseys and caps. The high court has unanimously reversed a lower court ruling throwing out an antitrust suit brought against the league by one of its former hat makers. American Needle had sued the league after losing the contract to Reebok. The company said the NFL violated antitrust law because all 32 teams worked together to freeze it out of the NFL-licensed hatmaking business. The NFL said it did not violate antitrust law because the teams are all one business.
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Class action or a representative action is a form of lawsuit in which a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court and/or in which a class of defendants is being sued. This form of collective lawsuit originated in the United States and is still predominantly a U.S. phenomenon, at least the U.S. variant of it. In the United States federal courts, class actions are governed by Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule. Since 1938, many states have adopted rules similar to the FRCP. However, some states like California have civil procedure systems which deviate significantly from the federal rules; the California Codes provide for four separate types of class actions. As a result, there are two separate treatises devoted solely to the complex topic of California class actions. Some states, such as Virginia, do not provide for any class actions, while others, such as New York, limit the types of claims that may be brought as class actions. They can construct your law firm a brand new website, lawyer website templates and help you redesign your existing law firm site to secure your place in the internet. |
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