LAW

Mark Ciavarella, the former Pennsylvania judge who was convicted of racketeering and tax fraud last Friday, has been called a 'scumbag' by a grieving mother whose son committed suicide last year.

Two of the world's biggest cola drinks makers - Coca-Cola and PepsiCo - have come under fire for using cancerous caramel coloring agents in their drinks.

New York's elected judges will be barred from presiding over a case if the lawyer, plaintiff or defendant in that case has made any contribution of $2,500 or more in the judge's judicial election campaign during the two years prior to the trial, the state's top judge said.

New York's chief judge has taken steps to provide homeowners facing foreclosure legal representation free of charge.

The trial of Mark Ciavarella, a former Pennsylvania judge who has been charged with racketeering, fraud, money laundering, extortion, bribery and federal tax violations, drew to a close on Friday with the jury returning a guilty verdict.

The jury deliberations in the trial of Mark Ciavarella, a former Pennsylvania judge who has been charged with racketeering, fraud, money laundering, extortion, bribery and federal tax violations, will resume on Friday.

A former U.S. Customs inspector was arrested on Tuesday after he disguised himself as a postman and attempted to smuggle a Mexican woman into Texas on false documents, U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities said.

A Beverly Hills attorney has been sentenced to four months in county jail after he pleaded no contest to a single charge of attempting to smuggle black tar heroin into the downtown Los Angeles courthouse.

Borders Group, owner of the second largest U.S. bookstore chain, said in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing that it will close down around 200 stores nationwide, sending store landlords into a tizzy.

The fate of Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., a former Pennsylvania judge who has been charged with racketeering, fraud, money laundering, extortion, bribery and federal tax violations, lies in the hands of the 12-member jury, who began their deliberations Wednesday.

Visa and banks will press lawmakers on Thursday for relief from a proposed slashing of debit card processing fees, an issue that has attracted bipartisan support for softening the impact of part of the Dodd-Frank financial law.

New York City's bank tax collections ran 48 percent above a year-ago, one of several taxes whose encouraging performance might give Mayor Michael Bloomberg some extra cash to spend in next year's budget.

The Kids for Cash trial resumed this week with former Pennsylvania Judge mark Ciavarella's attorneys trying to undermine the credibility of the prosecution witnesses and the accused vehemently claiming that though he has committed tax fraud, he never extorted money from others or took bribe in return for sending juveniles to a private detention center.

U.S. oil giant Chevron Corp. said it will challenge the ruling of an Ecuadorean judge who has ordered it to pay a record $9.5 billion fine after holding it responsible for polluting a wide swath of Amazon rainforest in Ecuador from 1972 to 1992 while it operated in a consortium with state-run Petroecuador.

A Connecticut ambulance company has settled with the U.S. National Labor Relations Board (NLRB ) a lawsuit involving the firing of an employee who had published negative remarks about her boss on her Facebook page.

Wragge & Co has played a leading role in advising the UK's largest branded food producer Premier Foods Plc on the £182m sale of its canned groceries business to rival Princes.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has sued a former CEO and two former CFOs of failed mortgage lender IndyMac Bankcorp, accusing them of securities fraud.

Metzler, Timm, Treleven, Pahl, Beck, S.C., a Green Bay-based law firm has offered to donate money towards the cost of renaming a street in honor of Packers coach Mike McCarthy after his team emerged victorious in the Super Bowl.

Joerg Kretschmer, who was last week found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and handed down a 21-month suspended sentence for enabling his 17-year old son to go on a shooting rampage in 2009, has appealed the verdict.

Daniel Patrick Boyd, a U.S. citizen and resident of North Carolina, has pleaded guilty in a federal court to charges of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim, and injure persons in a foreign country, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) has sued a law firm in Henry County, Georgia, and one of its partners, accusing them of professional negligence, legal malpractice and other misconduct related to multi-million dollar real estate loans that contributed to the 2009 collapse of Neighborhood Community Bank (NCB) in Newman.

The head of Fannie Mae and his firm's government overseer on Tuesday defended the use of millions of taxpayer dollars to pay legal bills for former executives accused of fraud.

Bank of America (BofA) has selected a battery of top-end law firms to represent their legal interests but being on the legal panel comes at a price.

Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft's gross annual revenue has slipped 6 percent in 2010 despite profit per partner (PPP) being slightly up compared to prior year.

A federal appeals court has upheld the conviction of a Florida doctor who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for providing material support and offering treatment to wounded Al Qaeda militants.

A Maine judge has upheld a jury verdict that awarded $7.3 million in damages to a businessman who has accused a law firm of causing him emotional distress.

Robert Bob DuPuy, former Major League Baseball (MLB) president, has rejoined law firm Foley & Lardner's sports industry practice group in New York as a partner.

Digital media giant AOL and popular political blog site The Huffington Post had hired Simpson, Thacher & Barlett and Latham & Watkins respectively to advise them on the recently announced $315 million acquisition deal.

Fannie Mae has booted Florida-based foreclosure law firm Ben-Ezra & Katz from its retained attorney network after noticing that the firm was not handling its matters in strict compliance with proper procedures, ethical codes of conduct and legal requirements.