The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced the filing of a civil antitrust lawsuit against credit card companies Visa, MasterCard and American Express . The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York , challenges rules utilized by the companies that prevent merchants from providing discounts and [...]

Robyn Monaco, Rutgers Newark School of Law ’11 and Political Science Masters Candidate ’12, writes about her experience with Maritime Writs of Attachment in the New York banking industry and the veritable blizzard of filings brought on by a single court decision… Frequently with international overseas transactions, banks that are not in the same consortium [...]

The Paris Criminal Court on Tuesday sentenced “rogue trader” Jerome Kerviel to three years in prison and an additional two years suspended for fraudulent covert trading while working for French bank Societe Generale . The court convicted Kerviel of breach of trust, forgery and computer hacking and, in addition to his jail sentence, ordered him [...]

The US Supreme Court on Monday denied certiorari in Wilner v. NSA , in which lawyers for Guantanamo Bay detainees were seeking disclosure of whether conversations with their clients were wiretapped by the National Security Agency (NSA) . The detainees’ lawyers appealed a decision by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit holding [...]

The Amsterdam District Court adjourned the trial of right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders Monday after a lawyer for Wilders accused a judge of bias. After Wilders, on trial for making inflammatory statements against Islam, said he would not speak at his trial, a judge commented that Wilders seems frequently to avoid discussion of his positions. [...]

The US Supreme Court opened its October 2010 term Monday by hearing oral arguments in Ransom v. MBNA . In this case, the court is considering whether, in calculating a debtor’s “projected disposable income” during the plan period, a bankruptcy court may allow an ownership cost deduction for vehicles only if the debtor is actually [...]

Many African nations are seeing a decline in democratic rights and the rule of law despite making economic advances, according to a survey Monday by the Mo Ibrahim Foundation . The annual Ibrahim Index of African Governance , established in 2007 by Sudanese businessman Mo Ibrahim , assesses 88 indicators, including the overall governance, safety [...]

The Bangkok Criminal Court decided Monday not to drop additional charges against Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout , further delaying his extradition to the US. The court denied US and Thai requests to drop the charges of money laundering and fraud against Bout and will launch new legal proceedings , which will delay his extradition [...]

Two Israeli soldiers were convicted by a military tribunal on Sunday of using a 9-year-old Palestinian boy to search confiscated bags for explosives in during the 2008-2009 Gaza war . The boy described the incident in an affidavit to the advocacy group Defence for Children International and stated that he feared the soldiers would kill [...]

The Afghan government on Sunday began the process of assuming responsibility for the country’s security by disbanding eight Afghan and foreign private security firms and confiscating their weapons and ammunition. The banning of the firms is being conducted in accordance with a decree issued by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in August which called for the [...]