PART ONE: Headline Law News: GO Verdicts & Trials World at Law United States Supreme Court United States Congress White House Business at Law Local at Law Legal Briefs PART TWO: SPECIAL SECTION: The Other Side PART THREE: Topical Law News Health Law Sports Law Tech Elections International Law Finance Law Firms Lawyers In the News Environmental Human Rights Criminal Law Law Enforcement Military Media Real Estate Trade & Customs Intellectual Property Antitrust

Thursday - February 1, 2007 - SAN FRANCISCO - After baseball player Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants agreed on a one-year contract on Monday, following a nearly two-month delay, the commissioner's office rejected the deal because it contained a personal-appearance provision. The team sent revised documents to his agent, Jeff Borris, but as of Wednesday Bonds had not yet signed. Bonds, 42, the holder of a record seven Major League Baseball Most Valuable Player awards, is just 22 home runs shy of Hank Aaron's career record of 755. The team agreed to a $15.8 million deal. Baseball's Uniform Player Contract states a player "agrees to cooperate with the club in any and all reasonable promotional activities." Bonds' contract had additional language that the commissioner's office rejected. After several disputes, lawyers for the players union and the commissioner's office agreed last fall that no additional appearance provisions would be accepted in future player contracts. Bonds faces a controversy over a continuing federal probe into his grand jury testimony. Bonds has been compared with some of baseball's best hitters of all time, including legends Ted Williams, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Rogers Hornsby, and Ty Cobb. In late August 2006, Bonds began an offensive surge, hitting 10 home runs in 25 starts from August 21 through September 23, 2006, and lifting his batting average 40 points in the same stretch. His late season surge could not be ignored by the Giants in the pennant race, nor could the potential career record. Yahoo NEWS Law-Notes MORE SPORTS

Monday - January 8, 2007 - DUBAI - The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) announced today that it has issued an enhanced Data Protection Law and appointed a Data Protection Commissioner to oversee the administration by the DIFC Authority. Both of these moveswill serve to consolidate the international best practices already being adhered to by the DIFC. The Data Protection Law, which has been amended following a period of public consultation, ensures the protection of all personal information, including any sensitive personal data, and is compliant with the provisions of the laws and directives of the European Union and the guidelines of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including the transfer of data. Since 2004, the DIFC has had in place an established data protection regime, based on international best practices, to protect personal information, which had been administered by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA). The issuance of the new law and appointment of a Data Protection Commissioner serve to formalize and develop the data protection regime of the DIFC, to be administered hereafter by the DIFC Authority. Data protection is an especially important issue for international banking and financial services firms, which increasingly process and exchange personal information electronically. The recently approved law will safeguard such information without hindering the flow of data. Most important, the law will ensure respect of the individual's right to privacy. Sunday - December 31, 2006 - NEW YORK - The Washington Post said it plans to have its veteran editors help shape the way stories appear on the Web in January 2007. This is another example of how top U.S. publishers are retooling news operations for the Internet. That integration is key to the future of newspapers, as Internet advertising is often their fastest growing segment, rising 30 to 60 percent annually, depending on the publisher, even as print ad rates and circulation declines. The Post's Web site, was launched more than a decade ago, and has been a leader among online news publishers because of both early success in attracting readers online and growing advertising. While many newspapers work on their Internet sites to meet growing migration of readership to the Web, print and Web production operations have remained mostly separate divisions. Friday - December 29, 2006 - SAN MATEO, California - Jimmy Wales, the co-founder and creator of the collaborative online reference work, Wikipedia encyclopedia, is planning to create a "people-powered" search site. The Search Wikia project will not rely on computer algorithms to determine how relevant webpages are to keywords, but instead will generate results for a search engine that will be decided and edited by humans. The project will be overseen by the Wikimedia Foundation and headed by Wales. Like the Wikipedia, the search site will rely on a large community of members to create and run it. Wales said it is needed because existing search systems for the net are"broken", because they lack freedom, community, accountability and transparency. The Search Wikia project aims to change this and will draw on the work of sites such as Nutch and Lucene which have taken a more open approach to search engines. Currently search results returned to those using keywords on sites such as Google are generated by computers which analyse webpages to work out what they are about and how useful they are. Webpage operators can use all kinds of tricks to outsmart the computer indexing systems and ensure their pages appear high up in results, even if they are not relevant to particular keywords. By contrast the relevance of results returned by the Search Wikia will be decided by the site's community of users. Those searching will also be able to edit the list of results they get. Wales announced his plans for the search project before Christmas, is now recruiting people and buying hardware to get it up and running, with no indication when it will be launched.

Tuesday - January 9, 2007 - DIXON, California - The fate of Magna Entertainment Corporation’s $250 million state-of-the-art horseracing track for Northern California will be decided in a special election April 17 by the City of Dixon. Magna, which was founded by Frank Stronach, is North America's number one owner and operator of horse racetracks, based on revenues, and one of the world's leading suppliers, via simulcasting, of live racing content to the growing inter-track, off-track and account wagering markets. Magna has sought Dixon’s approval for more than six years for the proposed racetrack. On January 9, Dixon’s city council voted 5-0 to put four referendums on the racetrack before the voters. The move came after the city clerk certified petitions opposing the project. Dixon Citizens for Quality Growth, conducted the petition drive and has fought the track on the basis that it would erode Dixon’s small-town charm causing more traffic and other big-city problems. Dixon is a town of 17,500 residents located 19 miles west of Sacramento. Magna owns 260 acres along Interstate 80, which is the major freeway corridor between Sacramento and the Bay Area. With about 700 valid signatures needed to force the special election, the petitions sought to overturn the council’s October 23, 2006, approval of the track’s environmental impact report and basic development agreement. The site could be the first major horse racing venue to be built in California in a half century. The site is less than an hour away from MEC’s Golden Gate Fields. There are seven regular horse racing venues in California, along with nine county fair tracks. The California Horse Racing Board governs horse racing in the state.

Wednesday - January 10, 2007 - MEXICO CITY - Jorge "Armando" Arroyo Garcia, the suspect in a killing of a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy during a 2002 traffic stop was turned over by Mexican authorities Tuesday to face murder charges in Los Angeles. Garcia is also a suspected gang member and illegal immigrant. He is accused of fatally shooting the 33-year-old deputy, David March, on April 29, 2002, during a traffic stop in Irwindale. Garcia reportedly fled to Mexico after being identified as a suspect. He was arrested 11 months ago by Mexican police but had fought extradition. A final Mexican court appeal was denied last month. Guarded by a Mexican federal police SWAT team and U.S. marshals, Garcia was flown early Tuesday from Mexico City to Tijuana, where he was turned over to U.S. authorities shortly before 5:30 a.m. at the San Ysidro border crossing. Garcia was later booked at the Orange County Jail, where he will be housed for the duration of his trial in order to avoid any potential allegations of mistreatment by Los Angeles law enforcement. Last year, a record 63 people were extradited from Mexico to the United States, where they faced a variety of allegations, mostly involving drug trafficking and 11 involving murder. Mexican President Felipe Calderon, who took office December 1, 2006, appears willing to continue the extradition practices begun by former President Vicente Fox.

Saturday - December 30, 2006 - NEW YORK - For the first time, everyone on the Forbes 400 Richest Americans list has at least $1 billion, including 28 newcomers, whose rise up the ranks was fueled by surging prices for oil and real estate. The collective net worth of the country’s wealthiest now is $1.25 trillion according to Forbes, with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet topping the list as numbers one and two.

Tuesday - January 2, 2007 - PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania - Reed Smith and Richards Butler formally merged into one law firm, making Pittsburgh-based Reed Smith one of the 15 largest law firms in the world. The merger with London-based Richards Butler gives Reed Smith more than 1,300 attorneys in the United States, United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East. The merger was announced in April and became official Monday. Reed Smith has also agreed in principle to merge with the Chicago-based firm of Sachnoff & Weaver. That merger is to take effect March 1, 2007, and would give Reed Smith some 1,500 attorneys. Reed Smith has merged with firms in California, London, Munich and Paris since 2000. Reed Smith has more than 20 offices throughout the United States, Europe and the Middle East. The firm represents leading international businesses from Fortune 100 corporations to mid-market and emerging enterprises. Some local offices specialize in land use, with subspecialties in historic preservation and environmental issues. Sunday - December 31, 2006 - PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania - Cozen O'Connor and Wolf Block Schorr & Solis-Cohen are in merger talks, for what could be the largest-ever combination of Philadelphia law firms creating the largest Philadelphia law office. A merger between 500-lawyer Cozen O'Connor and 300-lawyer Wolf Block would create a firm with a combined gross revenue of $365 million. It would have roughly 390 lawyers in Philadelphia, and about 40 more each in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and Cherry Hill, New Jersey. The law firms also have significant offices in New York, where the combined firm would have more than 100 lawyers, and smaller offices in Wilmington, Delaware, and Washington. Cozen O'Connor has 23 total offices while Wolf Block has nine.

Monday - January 8, 2007 - NEW YORK - It was announced today that Allison Hoffman, corporate vice president and general counsel of ALM, has been promoted to senior vice president. She will continue to serve as general counsel for the company and will add management responsibilities for ALM's Office Services Group to her current oversight of legal affairs and human resources. Hoffman joined ALM in 1999 from Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and was named general counsel in 2001. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago Law School. Headquartered in New York City, ALM is a leading integrated media company, focused on the legal and business communities. ALM owns and publishes 34 national and regional magazines and newspapers, including The American Lawyer, Corporate Counsel, The National Law Journal and Real Estate Forum. The company is one of North America's largest producers of conferences and trade shows for business leaders and the legal profession. ALM's Law.com is one of the Web's leading legal news and information network, while ALM's GlobeSt.com is one of the Web's leading information source for commercial real estate professionals. Other ALM businesses include book and newsletter publishing, court verdict and settlement reporting, production of professional educational seminars, market research and content distribution. ALM was formed by U.S. Equity Partners, L.P., a private equity fund sponsored by Wasserstein & Co., LP. Sunday - December 31, 2006 - PIDEMONT TRIAD, North Carolina - Two local Piedmont Triad attorneys have been named among the state's best lawyers by Business North Carolina in the magazine's January issue, which is now on newsstands. Dudley Humphrey, an attorney with Kilpatrick Stockton in Winston-Salem, was named the state's best construction lawyer. James Roane III, an attorney with Crumley & Associates in High Point, was named the state's best attorney under the age of 40. The results are based on a survey sent to the nearly 18,000 members of the North Carolina State Bar in the spring.

Tuesday - January 9, 2007 - BRISTOL BAY, Alaska - On Tuesday, President Bush lifted the drilling ban for Alaska's Bristol Bay. Bush's action clears the way for the Interior Department to open the fish-rich waters to oil and natural gas development. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said one or two lease sales in about 5.6 million acres of Bristol Bay will be considered in the department's upcoming five-year 2007-2012 lease plan. Alaska officials as well as local communities had favored a lifting of the ban for economic reasons, arguing that the area's oil and natural gas can be developed while still protecting the fisheries. Environmentalists have warned against drilling in the bay, which is a major fishing area for salmon, crab and cod. Separately, Bush also lifted a drilling moratorium in an area of the central Gulf of Mexico known as Lease Area 181. The Gulf waters area acted upon by the president is a small part of a much larger 8.2 million acres that were approved for oil and gas development by Congress last month in one of its last acts before adjournment. Sunday - December 31, 2006 - LADYSMITH, Wisconsin - Midwest Environmental Advocates filed a lawsuit last Thursday on behalf of the River Alliance of Wisconsin (RAW), the Wisconsin Wetlands Association (WWA) and the Friends of the St. Croix Headwaters (FOSCH), challenging the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resource’s decision approving Enbridge Energy LP’s crude oil pipeline without adequately studying and addressing impacts to the environment, as required by law. Environmental activitists say the pipeline will increase energy intensive crude oil excavation from the tar sand region in Alberta Canada, increasing production by up to 400,000 barrels per day. They argue that tar sands extraction is very energy inefficient, such that by the projected year 2030 levels of development, extracting 5 million barrels per day of this oil would require the same amount of natural gas needed to heat every home in Canada for about two and a half years.

Tuesday - January 9, 2007 - HAVANA, Cuba - American human rights activists called for the closure of the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo on Tuesday, which opened five years ago this week. Activists arrived to Cuba on Saturday to draw attention to the nearly 400 terror suspects held at the remote site. About 395 foreign men are currently held at Guantanamo with alleged links to al-Qaida or the Taliban, and classified as "enemy combatants". That status affords them fewer rights than prisoners of war under international law, with most having been held for years without being charged. The U.S. government has blocked their access to U.S. courts, claiming authority to detain them indefinitely to keep America safe. The U.S. military says many of those imprisoned provide interrogators with information about terror networks. The first 20 detainees, shackled and blindfolded, arrived from Afghanistan on January 11, 2002. Since then, nearly 800 prisoners have passed through the detention center in southeastern Cuba. To mark the anniversary, demonstrations are planned on Thursday in London, New York, Sydney, Australia, and other cities as well as dozens of small towns in the United States and Britain. Sunday - December 31, 2006 - BAGHDAD, Iraq - According to Human Rights Watch, the execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein following a deeply flawed trial for crimes against humanity marks a significant step away from respect for human rights and the rule of law in Iraq. Human Rights Watch has for more than 15 years documented the human rights crimes committed by Hussein’s former government, and has campaigned to bring the perpetrators to justice. These crimes include the killing of more than 100,000 Iraqi Kurds in Northern Iraq as part of the 1998 Anfal campaign.

Monday - January 8, 2007 - MANHATTAN, New York - The former chief executive of Aspen Technology Inc., David McQuillin, 48, surrendered on Monday to U.S. law enforcement to face criminal securities fraud charges. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged McQuillin with falsifying the company's revenue in a scheme previously disclosed by Aspen. Aspen Technology is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company (AZPN) that develops and sells computer software to oil refineries and other industries. Prosecutors say McQuillin and co-conspirators booked software licensing revenue from January 2001 and September 2002 before the sales actually happened. McQuillin was charged with one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and one count of securities fraud. If convicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison and more than $5 million in fines.

Wednesday - January 10, 2007 - NEW ORLEANS - Police foot patrols hit the streets Wednesday afternoon in New Orleans as part of a crime-fighting plan, along with new traffic checkpoints that produced several arrests. Twelve arrests, including six on drug charges and one on a fugitive warrant, were mae between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. on Wednesday. New Orleans counted nine homicides in the first eight days of the new year, which prompted calls for a crackdown on violent crime and suggestions of a curfew. Under pressure from business leaders, the city decided against a curfew but instituted other plans. More police officers on the street came from pulling them from administrative and other desk jobs, and using 20 to 25 deputies from the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff's Office. Saturday - December 30, 2006 - RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Police killed six suspected criminals as authorities vowed to restore order ahead of a huge New Year's Eve bash on Copacabana Beach, deploying officers across the city two days after gang-initiated violence left 19 dead. Authorities deployed nearly 21,000 police officers following Thursday's assaults on police stations and arson attacks on buses. They pledged to prevent the gangs from initiating more violence Sunday.

Tuesday - January 9, 2007 - NEW YORK - The Department of Defense has agreed to change the database it uses for military recruitment efforts to better protect the privacy of millions of high school students nationwide. In settling a lawsuit brought last year by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of six high schoolers, the government agreed it will no longer disseminate student information to law enforcement, intelligence and other agencies and will stop collecting student Social Security numbers. It will also limit to three years the time it retains student information and will clarify procedures by which students can block the military from entering information about them in its database. The lawsuit claimed the DOD was ignoring a 1982 military recruitment law barring the DOD from collecting certain information on students under 17, and requiring the information be stored for no more than three years and be kept private. The current DOD database includes information on 16-year-olds, is stored for five years, and is being shared with law enforcement and other agencies. Military officials have said they have about 30 million names in the database. The Pentagon said in 2005 the list includes high school students ages 16 to 18 and college students, and includes such information as the students’ Social Security numbers, gender and race. The government published the changes in the Federal Register on Tuesday before they were announced by the NYCLU. Saturday - December 30, 2006 - WASHINGTON - A three-judge panel of the U.S. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Friday rejected an amicus brief filed by seven retired judges. The judges argued that portions of the new Military Commissions Act affecting Guantanamo detainees were unconstitutional. The majority of the panel rejected the brief on the grounds that the brief's description of the amici as "judges" was inappropriate. Citing Advisory Opinion No. 72 issued by the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States, a majority of the panel said that the term should not be used in legal proceedings to describe former judges. In the rejected brief, judges from both political parties said the MCA's prevention of civil courts from hearing cases brought by uncharged detainees "challenges the integrity of our judicial system" and added that the Act does not adequately prevent the military's use of torture since there is no "check" on suspect methods of interrogation without prisoners having the opportunity to use the courts to challenge alleged torture. More Military News: Department of Defense News.

Tuesday - January 9, 2007 - BEIJING - A lawsuit that has been filed by The Beijing News, one of China's largest newspapers, is seeking $400,000 in damages from a popular Internet portal called Tom.com for having copied and republished more than 25,000 articles and photographs without authorization since 2003. The suit was filed in October and is expected to go to court soon. Tom.com is one of China's leading Internet sites, and is controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing. Li is reputedly the richest person of Chinese descent in the world, the second richest person in Asia, and the 10th richest man in the world. After failing to gain significant market share in China's consumer auction market, it was announced last month that eBay will join Tom.com in creating a Tom.com-operated site in its stead. As elsewhere, newspaper readership in China has declined sharply in recent years, and the battle over massive copyright violations is just one front in a confrontation between the old and new media.

Wednesday - January 3, 2007 - WASHINGTON - Real Estate & Global Warming - According to a report from the Union of Concerned Scientists, ExxonMobil spent nearly $16 million between 1998 and 2005 through a network of 43 advocacy organizations that seek to confuse the public on global warming science. The report says ExxonMobil has manufactured confusion around climate change science, and these actions have helped to forestall meaningful action that could minimize the impacts of future climate change. If global warming advocates are correct, major shifts in sea level can be expected over the next few decades. The now permanent artic ice cap could be gone within a few decades with corresponding rise in sea level by several feet. Vast areas of coastline could eventually be underwater. The legal significance to the real estate market has yet to be determined. How much would people be willing to pay for real estate that is going to be under water in a few decades? Would those persons who bought valuable real estate during the Exxon disinformation campaign have any legal recourse, if within a lifetime, large chunks of Manhattan, the Florida Peninsula and the San Francisco Bay Area along with miles of coastal real estate world wide, seaside homes and other shelter miles inland, all vanish beneath oceans rising 20 feet or more? Most scientists view what's happening now in the Arctic as a harbinger of things to come. The rate of sea ice decline is now 8.6 percent per decade, or 60,421 sq.km (23,328 sq.miles) per year. National Snow and Ice Data Center, Boulder, Colorado, (NSIDC) research scientist Julienne Stroeve said, “At this rate, the Arctic Ocean will have no ice in September by 2060." NSIDC Lead Scientist Ted Scambos added, “Arctic sea ice is an important climate indicator because it's so sensitive to this initial warming trend.” As sea ice melts in response to rising temperatures, it creates a positive feedback loop: melting ice means more of the dark ocean is exposed, allowing it to absorb more of the sun’s energy, further increasing air temperatures, ocean temperatures, and ice melt. Sunday - December 31, 2006 - NEW DELHI, India - Booming Real Estate in India - The booming real estate market in India will gain momentum and is likely to attract foreign investment. Looking to cash in on the booming Indian property market, global real estate players such as Royal Indian Raj International, Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Emmar Properties, Pegasus Realty, Citigroup Property, Lee Kim Tah Holdings, Salim group, Morgan Stanley and GE Commercial Finance are expected to bring substantial foreign capital into India.

Thursday - January 11, 2007 - HANOI - Vietnam became the 150th member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on January 11, 2007. Vietnem is Southeast Asia's second most populous country after Indonesia hopes its new status as a signed-up member of the international trading system will accelerate rapid growth and turn it from a poor into a middle-income nation. The WTO has 150 members (almost all of the 123 nations participating in the Uruguay Round signed on at its foundation, and the rest had to get membership). The WTO accession comes more than 30 years after the end of the Vietnam War and 20 years after the regime abandoned strict Soviet-style economic planning in favour of gradual "doi moi" (renewal) market reforms. Today, many investors tout Vietnam as a "China-lite," which last year booked economic growth of nearly 8.2 percent, second in East Asia only to its giant northern neighbor China, and drew 9.5 billion dollars in foreign investment. Tuesday - January 9, 2007 - GENEVA, Switzerland - Today the World Trade Organization released its report on measures relating to zeroing and sunset reviews. Read or download the Full Report [PDF] The World Trade Organization (WTO, French: Organisation mondiale du commerce, Spanish: Organización Mundial del Comercio) is an international organization that establishes rules for international trade through consensus among its member states. It also resolves disputes between the members, which are all signatories to its set of trade agreements. The WTO states that its aims are to increase international trade by promoting lower trade barriers and providing a platform for the negotiation of trade and to their business. Other Trade Law Resources: WorldTradeLaw.net

Thursday - January 11, 2007 - SAN BRUNO, California - The Value of a Brand. In October 2006, Google paid $1.65 billion to acquire YouTube, and some thought that would fire interest in at least some of the video-sharing site's competitors. Yet there has not been another blockbuster deal since. YouTube's traffic grew from just a few thousand to over 30 million visitors in a year. The company's success is credited largely on having a video player that did not require any software downloads providing users with an easy way to upload clips. Another important factor was said to be the decision by YouTube executives not to prescreen videos before they were posted. The policy has been controversial policy and recently resulted in YouTube being temporarily shutdown in Brazil for invasion of privacy. The policy has also allowed users to share snippets from popular TV shows, music videos and movies without the copyright holder's permission. Regardless of the functional asopects, it is clear that YouTube came up with a name that readily became recognizable across the globe. Google itself still tops the charts in 2007 as the most-powerful brand ranking in terms of its impact on consumers. Reports say Google is arguably the strongest and most-powerful search engine on the planet and continues to increase its offerings to users. However, Google had been relatively unsuccessful at leveraging its brand to build its own video service, named Google Video. YouTube became a virtual overnight success simply by word-of-mouth-advertising, and Google recognized that purchasing that brand power would also allow Google to own the largest share of the expanding world of Internet video.