CFTC Shows US Commodity Manipulation Laws Have Teeth
By extracting a $13 million penalty and imposing tough restrictions on future oil trading by Arcadia and others, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) this week sent a powerful signal that laws against market manipulation still have teeth. The case challenges a now famous view expressed in 1991 by commodities lawyer Jerry Markham that manipulation of commodity futures prices had become an unprosecutable crime. "Under present law the crime of manipulation is virtually unprosecutable, and remedies for those injured by price manipulation are difficult to obtain," Markham wrote in an article published in the Yale Journal of Regulation.
Chevron Wins A Round In U.S. Suit - Ecuador Case
A federal judge on Friday rejected a bid by a U.S. lawyer to stall the enforcement of a ruling that found he used fraud to secure a $9.5 billion pollution judgment against Chevron Corp in Ecuador. Lawyer Steven Donziger is appealing a 500-page decision issued by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in March that barred him from collecting on a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron in the United States. Chevron filed a lawsuit against Donziger in New York, claiming he used bribery and fake evidence to win the historic damage award for a group of villagers who claimed the oil giant polluted an area of north eastern Ecuador. An Ecuadorean judge had awarded the villagers $18 billion in 2011 but the country's high court later cut the judgment in half.
Expanded Scope of Maritime Contract Jurisdiction
For decades, it has been a basic principle of U.S. admiralty law that contracts for the sale of a vessel are not within the maritime jurisdiction.3 While the principle has been criticized,4 nonetheless it is still considered black letter law. In a decision issued last week, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the Honorable Shira A. In Kalafrana, an aspect of the sales agreement concerned repairs to the vessel. A dispute over the repairs led to a arbitration and award. The New York Rule B action was based on the award. While Judge Scheindlin certainly recognized and acknowledged the traditional precedent, the Court held that more recent U.S.
Court allows September 11 lawsuits to proceed
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected motions by the defendants to dismiss lawsuits brought by persons injured by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and by decedent representatives. These plaintiffs brought suit against the airlines, airport security companies, airport operators, the airplane manufacturer, and the owners and operators of the World Trade Center, alleging negligence. Defendants moved to dismiss, asserting, among other things, that they owed no duty to plaintiffs and that they could not reasonably have anticipated that terrorists would hijack airplanes and crash them into buildings. The court ruled that defendants owed duties to plaintiffs sufficient to withstand motions to dismiss.
Shipyard Responsible For Poor Construction
The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that a shipyard is responsible under products liability for poor construction. In the instant case, the shipyard - South Korea's Hyundai Corporation - contracted to enlarge a container ship by fabricating and inserting a new mid-body. Thirteen years later, the ship broke in two during a storm at sea. The break occurred at the point where the new mid-body was joined to the original after-body. Evidence indicated that many of the welds connecting the two portions were bad and that the shipyard knew of the bad welds when the ship was redelivered to the owner. The court held that insertion of a new mid-body was a sale, rather than a repair.
