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Court to hear bid to sue Shell for Nigerian abuses
Court Watch News |
2011/10/18 10:08
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The Supreme Court said Monday it will use a dispute between Nigerian villagers and oil giant Royal Dutch Shell to decide whether corporations may be held liable in U.S. courts for alleged human rights abuses overseas.
The justices said they will review a federal appeals court ruling in favor of Shell. The case centers on the 222-year-old Alien Tort Statute that has been increasingly used in recent years to sue corporations for alleged abuses abroad.
The villagers argue Shell was complicit in torture and other crimes against humanity in the country's oil-rich Ogoni region in the Niger Delta.
A divided panel of federal appeals court judges in New York said the 18th century law may not be used against corporations. More recently, appellate judges in Washington said it could.
In a second case the court agreed to hear, the justices will weigh whether the Torture Victims Protection Act of 1992 can be invoked against organizations, or only individuals.
The sons and widow of Azzam Rahim have filed a civil lawsuit against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Palestinian-born Rahim was a naturalized U.S. citizen who was beaten and died in the custody of Palestinian intelligence officers in Jericho in 1995. Three officers were jailed for their role in the case, according to a State Department report.
But when Rahim's relatives sought money damages for his death, the federal appeals court in Washington said they could not use the 1992 law to go after the Palestinian organizations. The law may be applied only to natural persons, the appeals court said.
The Nigerians' lawsuit stems from alleged human rights violations between 1992 and 1995. The suit claims that Shell was eager to stop protests about continuing oil exploration in the area and was complicit in Nigerian government actions that included fatal shootings, rapes, beatings, arrests and property destruction. |
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Obama appeals health care setback to high court
Court Watch News |
2011/09/29 03:36
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Raising prospects for a major election-year ruling, the Obama administration launched its Supreme Court defense of its landmark health care overhaul Wednesday, appealing what it called a fundamentally flawed appeals court decision that declared the law's central provision unconstitutional.
Destined from the start for a high court showdown, the health care law affecting virtually every American seems sure to figure prominently in President Barack Obama's campaign for re-election next year. Republican contenders are already assailing it in virtually every debate and speech.
The administration formally appealed a ruling by the federal appeals court in Atlanta that struck down the law's core requirement that individuals buy health insurance or pay a penalty beginning in 2014.
At the same time, however, the winners in that appellate case, 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business, also asked for high court review Wednesday, saying the entire law, and not just the individual insurance mandate, should be struck down. |
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Court rules that UBS trader should stay in custody
Court Watch News |
2011/09/22 12:54
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An alleged rogue trader accused of losing Swiss banking giant UBS about $2.3 billion is sorry beyond words, his lawyer said Thursday, as a judge ordered him to be held in jail until a hearing next month.
Kweku Adoboli, 31, is charged with four offenses of fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008 and accused of racking up losses in authorized trades. His arrest a week ago has heaped pressure on UBS Chief Executive Oswald Gruebel and stoked speculation that the bank could get rid of its investment banking operations.
At a court hearing in London, prosecuting lawyer David Levy added a new fraud offense to the three previous charges laid against Adoboli, and confirmed that authorities had revised upward the amount allegedly gambled away by the trader to around $2.3 billion. A previous hearing was told the trader was accused of losing $2 billion.
Patrick Gibbs, defending Adoboli, said his client ? who wore a gray suit, white shirt and dark blue tie ? was truly sorry for his actions.
He is sorry beyond words for what has happened here, he went to UBS and told them what he had done, and stands now appalled at the scale of the consequences of his disastrous miscalculations, Gibbs said.
Adoboli, who appeared confident and nodded in acknowledgment to a handful of supporters attending the hearing, spoke only to confirm his name, birth date and address. He did not enter any pleas to the charges. |
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Idaho inmates settle lawsuit over prison violence
Court Watch News |
2011/09/20 23:54
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A potential class-action lawsuit against the nation's largest private prison company over allegations of violence at the Idaho Correctional Center has been settled in federal court.
The agreement between the inmates and Nashville, Tenn.-based Corrections Corporation of America was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Boise.
In it, CCA doesn't acknowledge the allegations but agrees to increase staffing, investigate all assaults and make other sweeping changes at the lockup south of Boise. If the company fails to make the changes, the inmates can ask the courts to force CCA to comply.
The inmates, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, sued last year on behalf of everyone incarcerated at the CCA-run state prison. They said the prison was so violent it was dubbed Gladiator School, and that guards used inmate-on-inmate violence as a management tool and then denied prisoners medical care as a way to cover up the assaults.
CCA has denied all the allegations as part of the settlement, but the agreement is governed under a section of the Prison Litigation Reform Act which only applies in cases in which prisoners' constitutional rights have been violated. |
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