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Judge OKs withdrawal of Enron-related guilty plea
Corporate Governance |
2007/04/02 22:49
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| A federal judge on Monday granted former Enron vice president Christopher Calger's request to withdraw his July 2005 guilty plea to a charge of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The case against Calger was based on the same legal theory that was rejected in August 2006 by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In that case, the convictions of four former Merrill Lynch executives were overturned when the court found that the executives had acted for the benefit of Enron and not to benefit themselves personally. Calger withdrew his plea under the parallel assertion that the government's theory of fraud relating to the deprivation of honest services is flawed, as he did not personally profit. Calger faced up to five years in prison under his guilty plea; the government still has the right to re-prosecute the issue. Calger is the second individual to withdraw a guilty plea in the Enron scandal; former Arthur Andersen accountant David Duncan withdrew a plea in December 2005 after the US Supreme Court overturned Anderson's obstruction of justice conviction. |
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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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