Banking Articles

June 11, 2010 – 1,200 views

On January 4, 2010, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formally solicited comments on what should be EPA's enforcement priorities for fiscal years 2011 through 2013. The EPA's draft list of priorities indicates a new emphasis on certain sectors of the economy, including manufacturers that cause disproportionate environmental impact to minority neighborhoods, manufacturers and users of pesticides, developers with projects impacting wetlands, and owners, operators and industrial users of municipal wastewater treatment facilities. EPA's request for public comments is published at 75 Federal Register 146-148. Full Story 

June 11, 2010 – 1,443 views

In a recent decision, a magistrate judge in a U.S. District Court in New Jersey ruled that a discovery plan crafted pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f) did not protect the plaintiff’s inadvertent production of privileged documents from being subject to waiver. This case is important because it distinguishes between the procedural or process-based rules found in Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26(b)(5)(B) and 26(f), and the substantive-based rules regarding privilege waiver found in Federal Rule of Evidence 502. Full Story 

June 11, 2010 – 1,292 views

This morning, with Justice Antonin Scalia writing a unanimous opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a case brought by a group of African-American firefighter applicants who alleged that the city of Chicago's applicant selection process had a disparate impact on African-Americans in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Full Story 

June 11, 2010 – 2,502 views

On April 20, 2010, an explosion on the mobile drilling rig Deepwater Horizon occurred some 130 miles southeast of New Orleans, Louisiana.  As of May 23, 2010, it is estimated that a minimum of 6 million gallons of crude oil have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico as a result of this incident.  However, a growing number of scientists assert that they believe the count is even higher than that troublesome figure. Full Story 

June 11, 2010 – 1,304 views

On May 24, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, No. 09-893, to address the question of whether the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preempts state law rules limiting the enforceability of arbitration agreements. In Concepcion, the Supreme Court will consider whether the FAA preempts California state court decisions that class action waivers are unconscionable in consumer arbitration agreements as a matter of public policy Full Story 

June 11, 2010 – 1,529 views

The Supreme Court recently released its unanimous opinion in American Needle, Inc. v. National Football League, 560 U.S.___ (2010), 2010 WL 2025207 (American Needle), its latest foray in the area of competitor collaboration under the antitrust laws (and specifically Section 1 of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1). In American Needle, the 32 member teams of the National Football League formed National Football League Properties (NFLP) to develop, license and market their intellectual property Full Story 

May 10, 2010 – 1,273 views

April 27, 2010, with Justice Samuel Alito writing for the 5-3 majority (Justice Sonia Sotomayor abstained), the U.S. Supreme Court addressed class-action arbitration when the parties' agreement was silent regarding the aggregation of multiple parties' claims. According to the Court, the arbitration panel's imposition of class arbitration – despite the parties' stipulation that they had not reached an agreement on this issue – is "fundamentally at war" with the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) principle that arbitration is a matter of consent. Full Story 

May 10, 2010 – 1,233 views

In late 2009 a federal District Court sitting in Orlando, Fla., sent shockwaves through the in-house general counsel world. The case, Swofford v. Eslinger,1 is the first reported case to sanction in-house counsel for spoliation of electronic evidence. Full Story