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Jury Rules Against Blue Nile in $60.1 Million Lawsuit
Legal News | 2009/11/02 17:36
Following a six-day trial, a federal jury here
dismissed Blue Nile Inc.'s $60.1 million claim against The Yehuda Diamond
Company, reaffirming Yehuda Diamond's right to compare the prices of its
clarity enhanced diamonds to the untreated diamonds sold by online retailer
Blue Nile.

Yehuda Diamond, based in New York, has earned widespread industry and consumer
loyalty for its successful competition with Blue Nile and other online
jewelers, favoring consumers not only with lower prices but also with
unsurpassed expert face-to-face service and full Federal Trade
Commission-compliant disclosure.

The suit [No. C-07-2017 TSZ], brought by Blue Nile and heard last month in
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, involved Blue
Nile's efforts to prevent Yehuda Diamond from comparing the price and
appearance of its clarity enhanced diamonds to those natural untreated
diamonds sold by Blue Nile.

Yehuda Diamond has consistently contended, even before Blue Nile filed the
lawsuit against it in December 2007, that Yehuda Diamond's price comparisons
are in the best interest of consumers.  After 4-1/2 hours of deliberations,
the jury agreed, dismissing both Blue Nile's federal and state claims that
Yehuda Diamond had engaged in false or misleading advertising.

Blue Nile, which has brought multiple lawsuits against smaller competitors
over the past decade, had petitioned the jury to award it exemplary damages of
$60,161,834.64, based on alleged actual damages of $20,053,944.88.   

"This is a momentous victory for all consumers and for free-market
competition," says Dror Yehuda, president of Yehuda Diamonds.  

"In essence, the jury told Blue Nile that it can't use its massive size and
legal muscle to prevent consumers from learning about lower-priced, quality
alternatives to Blue Nile diamonds," explains Mr. Yehuda.  "In recent years,
Blue Nile has preferred to fight its competitors in the courtroom than in the
marketplace."

The jury's decision clears the path for Yehuda Diamond to continue to inform
consumers of how much they stand to save by shopping at Yehuda Diamond
authorized retailers, who offer competitive prices along with personalized,
expert, face-to-face customer service for its clarity enhanced diamonds.  By
comparison, Blue Nile untreated diamonds are frequently higher-priced and Blue
Nile bypasses the retail distribution chain altogether.

Moreover, Mr. Yehuda vowed that his company will continue to press its own
lawsuit against Blue Nile [Court Case #08-CV-9751] filed in November 2008 in
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In that ongoing case, Yehuda Diamond contends that consumers who purchased
rubies, emeralds, sapphires or jewelry containing those stones from Blue Nile
were not informed that the gemstones had been treated to enhance their
appearance.



NH judge refuses to dismiss poetry program lawsuit
Top Legal News | 2009/10/26 16:31

CONCORD,N.H. - A federal judge says New England College in Henniker, N.H., mayproceed with its lawsuit accusing a poet of stealing one of itsmaster's programs and its faculty and recreating it at a rival schoolin New Jersey.

New England College is suing Anne Marie Macari ,the former director of its low-residency Master's of Fine Arts inPoetry program , and Drew University, where Macari now directs asimilar program.

Drew University asked U.S. District Court JudgeJoseph Laplante to either dismiss the case or move it to New Jersey.Laplante denied both motions. The judge says even though no one fromDrew ever came to New Hampshire, Macari was acting on Drew's behalf andthe school authorized or at least knew about her actions in NewHampshire.



Los Angeles DUI Defense
Attorneys News | 2009/10/19 16:39

Los Angeles DUI Lawyer

Michael Bialys, a Los Angeles DUI lawyer also known as theDUI Guy, is the former managing partner of a large criminal defense firm.  In his time in that role, he saw manymismanaged DUI cases and realized his true calling was to go into DUIdefense.  Mr. Bialys’s philosophy is thateveryone should be able to get a comprehensive and aggressive defense, and withthat ideal in mind he opened up his own DUI defense law firm.

Mr. Bialys prides himself on offering client orientedservices, focusing on one-on-one personal relationships with his clients.  He has a full understanding of the long termeffects of criminal records on areas of life such as employment opportunitiesand knows how important it is to get records expunged.  If you have been in a related accident andwish to be fully and comprehensively defended by a premier Los AngelesDUI lawyer, call Michael Bialys today at 1-888-DUI-1-GUY.



2 Hudson residents sue General Mills over Cheerios cholesterol claims
Court Center | 2009/10/19 16:24
Two Hudson County residents are suing General Mills over the cereal maker's claims that Cheerios helps reduce cholesterol, NJBiz.com reports.

Edward Myers and Elsa Acevedo are the lead plaintiffs in the $5 million class-action suit filed in U.S. District Court in Newark, the Web site said.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to General Mills over the issue in May, the Web site noted.


Zain sees no risk from Econet's lawsuit
Headline News | 2009/10/12 16:48
Kuwait-based telecom firm Zain is not concerned over a lawsuit by South Africa-based Econet Wireless disputing the ownership of Zain Nigeria, Zain's chief executive said in remarks published on Monday.

"Saad al-Barrak affirmed that the group is not facing any risk from a legal dispute over Zain Nigeria," al-Rai newspaper reported. "(This issue ) is old and dates back to before 2006."

Last week, Econet said it disputed the purchase in 2006 by Celtel, now called Zain, of a majority stake in a group called Vee Networks Limited, now Zain Nigeria.

Barrak said that Econet has lost similar cases that it had filed in British courts over past years, the newspaper reported.

Zain Nigeria has traded under various brands since 2001 due to a series of boardroom conflicts.

It has been known as Vee Networks, Vmobile, Celtel and now Zain Nigeria.

Econet -- which has operations in nine countries in Africa, Europe and the East Asia Pacific rim -- said in a statement it was pursuing arbitration proceedings because it believed it had been denied its right of first refusal over the stake.

It has now appealed to legal authorities including an international tribunal operating under the auspices of the United Nations for the transaction to be unwound.

Zain, a hot but tricky potential acquisition target for stagnating Western telecoms groups, has invested more than $12 billion in Africa.

Nigeria is the group's biggest market, contributing 21 per cent of customers and 17 per cent of revenues.

Read more...


Securities Class Action Trial Starts This Week Against Vivendi
Legal Watch | 2009/10/05 22:29
The litigation equivalent of Halley's comet is about to streak into view in Manhattan federal district court. Yes, folks, when trial in the shareholder suit against Vivendi and two of its former executives begins this week before Judge Richard Holwell, it may be your once-in-a-lifetime chance to witness a so-called f-cubed securities class action trial, involving foreign investors who bought shares of foreign companies on foreign exchanges. Paul Saunders of Cravath, Swaine & Moore giving the opening statement for the defendants and Arthur Abbey of Abbey Spanier Rodd & Abrams is appearing as lead counsel for the plaintiffs. James Quinn of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, our most recent Litigator of the Week, is cocounsel for the defense.

Plaintiffs in the case, which has been around since 2002, are shareholders across the U.S. and Europe who allege that Vivendi--then known as Vivendi Universal--made false and misleading statements in 2001 and 2002, when Vivendi's former CEO, Jean-Marie Messier, was transforming the French water company into a media conglomerate through a mad dash of acquisitions. Plaintiffs claim that Vivendi, Messier, and former chief financial officer Guillaume Hannezo concealed a liquidity crisis, whose revelation ultimately caused the stock to drop.

Read more...


Is the iPhone Ready for Law Firms?
Opinions | 2009/10/02 23:14

It used to be that the only thing lawyers tried to recruit was new clients. But these days, seemingly every firm has a group of attorneys pushing to bring aboard something else entirely: iPhones. And they want them badly.

"I have probably 15 people who continue to e-mail me about it," says the IT director at an Am Law 100 firm who asked not to be identified. "This one attorney, he goes out and finds someone who says he can solve any iPhone problem for $175," he says. "These attorneys, they want this thing so much, they are off trying to solve my problems. God bless them, but they don't know what they're doing."

The issue isn't technical. It's relatively simple to hook an iPhone into a corporate network, since it can use the same Microsoft Exchange Server that most firms already use for their BlackBerrys. Instead, IT directors' reluctance boils down to this: The BlackBerry was designed from the ground up to do one thing: transmit e-mail securely. Other features have been tacked onto newer models, but robust, secure, immediate e-mail was -- and is -- at the BlackBerry's core. The iPhone, on the other hand, is more of a consumer device with e-mail tacked on. Law firms shied away from the iPhone because it couldn't match the BlackBerry on security. And security -- well, that's at the core of a law firm IT director's job. "The original iPhone and the later 3G model had no local encryption, which meant that everything on the device was stored in clear text," says the IT director. "The simple passcodes many users had -- if they used any passcode at all -- could be hacked, and then everything would be viewable. We told our attorneys this was a deal-breaker."

But with the release of the latest iPhone, the 3GS, along with the new iPhone 3.0 operating system, the platform is looking more business-friendly. Forget about the consumer-oriented enhancements (like the upgraded camera on the 3GS, capable of shooting video). The real story, at least for law firms, is the vast array of enterprise-focused improvements. The 3GS phone now has local encryption along with more memory (up to 32 gigabytes) and a faster processor. And with the 3.0 OS, law firms running Exchange can require the use of strong passwords (the complicated ones, with numbers and letters, that no one except IT administrators want to take the time to create and use) and remotely wipe devices that have been lost or stolen. Users get a long-awaited, cut-copy-paste feature (a glaring omission on the iPhone until now), a landscape keyboard option for easier typing, and the ability to search the "from," "to," and "subject" headers (but not, alas, the body) on their e-mail, as well as their iPhone contact list, calendar and notes.



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