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The credit crunch and tax-break uncertainty were pulling San Francisco lawyer Charles Ferguson’s energy practice into a lull. Three deals in the billion-dollar range stalled in the past year, thanks to the souring U.S. business environment. So he and his firm turned to China. With its booming economy and growing investment in renewable and alternative energies — which account for about 75 percent of Ferguson’s practice at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips — China looked like a source of potential new business.

Original post by LawyerShop

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a First Amendment challenge to a Florida law that says students must get a parent’s permission to get out of a daily classroom recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. But the court ruled that a part of the law requiring all “civilians” to stand during the pledge in schools is unconstitutional.

Original post by LawyerShop

Famed anti-tobacco lawyer Richard “Dickie” Scruggs has been ordered to report to a federal prison in Ashland, Ky., next month to start serving his five-year sentence for attempting to bribe a Mississippi judge. Scruggs’ son, Zach, will go to a federal prison in Pensacola, Fla., to serve his 14-month sentence for failing to report the crime. Zach Scruggs asked that he and his father both be sent to the prison in Forrest City, Ark., citing the “travel burden” on his “health-embattled mother.”

Original post by LawyerShop

The Atlanta Regional Office of the Securities and Exchange Commission has filed fraud actions against two Southeastern companies — Mobile Ready Entertainment and U.S. Sustainable Energy Corp. — alleging they engaged in “pump-and-dump” schemes in which companies distribute bogus information to pump up share prices, only to dump the stock and leave investors with huge losses. An SEC director says about 5 percent of the cases brought by the SEC’s national enforcement program involve pump-and-dump schemes.

Original post by LawyerShop

Latham & Watkins is relocating four partners to the Middle East and two to London. The partners will split time as needed between new offices in Doha, the capital of Qatar, and the eponymous main cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The relocations will bolster the firm’s efforts to respond to “the increasingly important financial and banking nexus between London and the Middle East,” said firm Chairman Robert Dell.

Original post by LawyerShop

A federal judge in Pennsylvania has upheld a $1.6 million arbitration award for a mortgage company that was being sued under RICO by two former brokers who sought damages of $20 million or more. The arbitrator ruled that the company owed the two brokers $317,364 for breaching the “protected territories” provision of their employment agreements, but found that the two brokers owed the company for unearned advances and for their breach of the employment contracts based on their contacts with a competitor.

Original post by LawyerShop