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Calif. tax lawyer convicted of taking client money
Court Watch |
2013/08/26 11:44
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Federal prosecutors say a 73-year-old Northern California tax attorney has been convicted of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from clients for his own expenses including personal trainers and travel.
A U.S. attorney's statement says Stanford Law School graduate Orion Douglas Memmott of Willows was found guilty Wednesday of tax evasion and subscribing to a false tax document after a five-day bench trial in October.
The statement says Memmott took money from investors and law firm clients including one woman who was left destitute and homeless after he depleted her medical trust.
Prosecutors say Memmott concealed the embezzled money through nominee accounts and false statements to investors, clients, and the Internal Revenue Service. |
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Appeals court: Obama violating law on nuke site
Court Watch |
2013/08/19 15:33
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A federal appeals court says the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been violating federal law by delaying a decision on a proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
By a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ordered the commission to complete the licensing process and approve or reject the Energy Department's application for a waste site at Nevada's Yucca Mountain.
In a sharply worded opinion, the court said the nuclear agency was "simply flouting the law" when it allowed the Obama administration to continue plans to close the proposed waste site near Las Vegas. The action goes against a federal law designating Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear waste repository.
The court said the president can't ignore a congressional mandate simply because of policy objections. |
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Judge denies class action for Wal-Mart bias suit
Court Watch |
2013/08/03 09:26
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A judge rejected on Friday an attempt to file a class action discrimination lawsuit on behalf of 150,000 Wal-Mart women employees in California who claimed their male colleagues were paid more and promoted faster than them.
The lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court was a scaled-down version of an initial complaint filed in 2001 that sought to represent 1.6 million women nationwide. But the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out that class action lawsuit in 2011, ruling it found no convincing proof of companywide discrimination on pay and promotion policy. The court also said there were too many women in too many jobs at Wal-Mart to wrap into one lawsuit.
After that setback, the women's lawyers filed smaller class action lawsuits, alleging discrimination occurred in different states and Wal-Mart "regions."
On Friday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled the smaller suit on behalf of California women employees was still too disparate and wide ranging to qualify as a class action lawsuit. He also found that the lawyers failed to show statistical and anecdotal evidence of gender bias.
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Court rules against Neb. county in wind-tax case
Court Watch |
2013/08/01 09:27
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A wind-energy company that paid $1.6 million in property taxes for 2009 can claim credit for that amount to avoid paying over the next several years, the Nebraska Supreme Court said Friday as it upheld a tax credit for wind companies.
The high court reversed a Lancaster County judge who struck down the 2010 tax credit as unconstitutional.
The law was intended to reduce start-up costs for wind companies, while allowing local governments to collect the same amount of revenue over a longer period.
Wind facilities were previously taxed as personal property over a 5-year period. The 2010 law swapped the property tax for a nameplate capacity tax a tax on the company's wind-generating power ? to be imposed at a lower rate, but spread over at least 20 years.
As they crafted the law, lawmakers included a tax credit for a wind-energy farm in Knox County that had already paid property taxes. Without the credit, the court said, Elkhorn Ridge Wind would have been only wind-energy firm in Nebraska to have to pay both taxes.
"The nameplate capacity tax was clearly intended to be instead of, and not in addition to, the personal property tax on wind energy generation equipment," the court said in its ruling. "But without the credit, Elkhorn Ridge would be required to pay both personal property tax and the nameplate capacity tax on the same equipment."
The Knox County Board of Supervisors challenged the law after Elkhorn Ridge claimed credit for taxes paid after the county had set its budget. The firm reported a nameplate tax liability of nearly $285,000 in 2010, according to the ruling. But the company argued that it was allowed to apply the property taxes already paid to that tax debt. |
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Court sides with Yahoo in data collection case
Court Watch |
2013/07/16 20:24
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Yahoo has won a court fight that could help the public learn more about the government's efforts to obtain data from Internet users.
The U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which reviews government requests to spy on individuals, ruled Monday that information should be made public about a 2008 case that ordered Yahoo Inc. to turn over customer data.
The order requires the government to review which portions of the opinion, briefs and arguments can be declassified and report back to the court by July 29.
The government sought the information from Yahoo under the National Security Agency's PRISM data-gathering program. Details of the secret program were disclosed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who has fled the U.S.
The program came to light in early June after The Washington Post and Guardian newspapers published documents provided by Snowden. It allows the NSA to reach into the data streams of U.S. companies such as Yahoo, Facebook Inc., Microsoft Corp., Google Inc. and others, and grab emails, video chats, pictures and more. U.S. officials have said the program is narrowly focused on foreign targets, and technology companies say they turn over information only if required by court order.
Yahoo requested in court papers filed June 14 to have the information about the 2008 case unsealed. A Yahoo spokeswoman hailed Monday's decision and said the company believes it will help inform public discussion about the U.S. government's surveillance programs.
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Investment Fraud Litigation |
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Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a practice that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in losses, in violation of the securities laws. Securities Arbitration. Generally speaking, securities fraud consists of deceptive practices in the stock and commodity markets, and occurs when investors are enticed to part with their money based on untrue statements.
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The content contained on the web site has been prepared by Securities Law News as a service to the internet community and is not intended to constitute legal advice or a substitute for consultation with a licensed legal professional in a particular case. | Affordable Law Firm Website Design by Law Promo |
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