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litigation

This morning's crop of overnight spam that made it through the preliminary filters arrived via a contact form relating to this very site. Ordinarily, form spams are either destroyed or reported on, partly because, even using bots, the scams that get through the anti-spam systems on the forms are a cut above the junk that comes in by mail and, often, present new - or at least new to us - threats. This one is carefully crafted, almost as if it's been revised several times to get it right. And, if it were to hit its intended target - investment businesses - it would at least cause a costly waste of time. But only time because, good as it is, it suffers from a significant flaw.

BIScom Subsection: 

A report in Canadian media says that privately held Purdue Pharma LP, a pharmaceutical company registered in Connecticut, USA, is "exploring" the possibility of using what the USA calls "bankrupty" (a term it uses for both corporate and personal insolvency) to manage the risk of litigation arising from the drug OxyContin. But the company is not even a little bit insolvent. Using insolvency processes to manage risks in litigation is a strategy that isn't new.

CoNet Section: 

The city of New York has issued civil proceedings against five of the largest oil companies alleging that they are responsible for climate change and passing the resulting costs onto local governments. Others are joining in with California being the latest to sign up.

CoNet Section: 

We're going to have to wait for regulatory filings, leaks or careless whispers to find out exactly what's happened. But there's what seems to be good news from the warzone where Apple and HTC have been butting heads.

CoNet Section: 

It's all becoming a little too Orwellian. When the previous, Labour government created the "Ministry of Justice" it sounded more 1984 than we were comfortable with. After all, the whole point of the various ministries in the book is to deliver the opposite of what their name promised. Recent changes to costs are removing access to justice except for those that can pay.

And it's all building up to look like a raid on solicitors' firms.

CoNet Section: 

Mexican company Grupo Mexico S.A.B. de C.V. is more than a little peeved. Its US subsidiary Americas Mining Corporation applied to the Delaware Supreme Court for "re-argument" as to legal fees in the case of Americas Mining Corporation, et al., v. Michael Theraiult, as Trustee for the Theriault Trust, No. 29, 2012. The court said "no" and in doing so has demonstrated the conflict of interest inherent in contingency fee ("no win, no fee") arrangements.

CoNet Section: 

A US judge has removed one of the USA's largest law firms, Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, from representing First American Title Insurance Company in a class action suit. The firm, its partners and all other lawyers at the firm are injuncted against acting for the company in the litigation which raises questions about the migration of teams of lawyers and - perhaps even more importantly - what constitutes conflict.

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