The US Senate voted 64-35 Tuesday to revive the comprehensive immigration reform bill . A little over a week ago Senate leaders said they would like to continue work on the bill , which was shelved early this month after a 50-45 vote to reject cloture . The Senate could begin voting on amendments as [...]
Former French President Jacques Chirac will likely be questioned in an alleged corruption scheme during Chirac's tenure as the mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995, Chirac's lawyer Jean Veil said Tuesday. Chirac, who headed the Rally for the Republic (RPR), now renamed as the Union for a Popular Movement , allegedly financed the RPR's [...]
A Nigerian court Tuesday dismissed a request by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer to throw out a $7 billion lawsuit filed by the Nigerian government over a drug experiment conducted in the 1990s that allegedly killed or disabled children. Pfizer lawyers argued that the case had been improperly filed by government prosecutors. The judge agreed that one [...]
The Taiwan High Court convicted Chao Chien-min, son-in-law of President Chen Shui-bian , of insider trading Tuesday. The decision affirmed a lower court's verdict , which also imposed a $900,000 fine, but increased Chao's prison sentence from six years to seven years because the insider trading exceeded $3.5 million. The court also affirmed the guilty [...]
Outgoing UK Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith said Tuesday that the UK should initiate an inquiry into how interrogation techniques outlawed by the Geneva Conventions and the European Convention on Human Rights were authorized and used by UK soldiers deployed in Iraq. Goldsmith, speaking before the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights , said he [...]
Britain's largest defense contractor BAE Systems said Tuesday that the US Department of Justice has initiated a formal investigation into BAE's compliance with anti-corruption laws amid allegations that BAE established a $120 million slush fund for members of the Saudi Royal family in exchange for defense contracts. Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesperson said that the [...]
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) Tuesday upheld a Belgian law codifying the European Union's Third Money Laundering Directive , which obligates lawyers to report facts or suspicion of their client's money laundering. The law was challenged by Belgian bar associations, but the court held that the requirement does not infringe on the right to [...]
The Election Commission of Thailand is proceeding with criminal charges against two former government ministers under former Prime Minister Thaksin Sinawatra for their alleged role in committing election fraud during the voided April 2006 parliamentary elections . Election Commission Secretary General Suthiphol Thavichaikam said Tuesday that the commission will charge Thammarack Issarangura na Ayutthaya, former [...]
A federal judge from the US District Court for the District of Columbia sentenced Lt. Col. Bruce D. Hopfengardner, a US Army Reserve officer, to 21 months in prison Monday and imposed a fine of $144,500 for Hopfengardner's involvement in a construction bidding and kickback scheme to defraud the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq. [...]
JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law, president of the National Lawyers Guild, says that FBI surveillance of National Lawyers Guild members and activities between 1940 and 1975 – highlighted in a recent New York Times report drawing on newly-released documents – was motivated by a desire to blunt the Guild's [...]
