JURIST Contributing Editor Nancy Rapoport of the University of Houston Law Center says that the recent spate of guilty verdicts and stiff sentences handed out for corporate fraud committed by the erstwhile leaders of Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Adelphia and other companies suggests that executives need to take personal responsibility for the propriety of their deals, [...]

China's Taiwan Affairs Office Wednesday reiterated the Chinese government's open hostility to Taiwan's intent to change its constitution to rename the island the Republic of Taiwan. China has already threatened military action against Taiwan in the event Taiwan declares independence, and a Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman said that renaming now being considered by Taiwan's ruling [...]

There are too many substantive differences between the Senate and House versions of a bill aimed at approving the NSA domestic surveillance program for legislation to be approved before the November elections, anonymous GOP staffers told reporters Tuesday. The Senate version, the National Security Surveillance Act of 2006 , the product of a compromise between [...]

The US House of Representatives on Tuesday failed to pass the Private Property Rights Implementation Act of 2005 , a bill that its supporters said would provide easier access to federal courts to landowners seeking to challenge governmental actions under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The bill summary specifies that it would: Amend[] [...]

National Audubon Society et al. v. Dirk Kempthorne, Secretray of the Interior et al., United States District Court District of Alaska, Judge James K. Singleton Jr., September 25, 2006 . Read the full text of the ruling . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

Former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow was sentenced to six years in prison Tuesday after US District Court Judge Kenneth Hoyt reduced the 10 year prison term he accepted as part of his plea agreement based on Fastow's cooperation in the prosecution of former Enron CEOs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling . Hoyt also [...]

Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers began his 25-year prison sentence Tuesday in the Oakdale Correctional Complex federal prison in Louisiana. In July a federal appeals court affirmed his securities fraud conviction and rejected contentions that a 25-year sentence for the 65-year old Canadian-born ex-executive who started out as the owner of a Mississippi motel chain [...]

Two leaders of Colombia's notorious Cali Cartel drug ring pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to charges of drug trafficking and money laundering. Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela were extradited to the US from Colombia in 2004 and 2005 respectively as two of the 300 drug traffickers extradited to the US under a 1997 accord. [...]

The head of an EU panel on Monday criticized a White House program that keeps track of international financial transactions, telling the New York Times that it may have no "legal basis under European law." Peter Schaar, head of the European Commission's Article 29 Data Protection Working Party , will give a final report to [...]

White House and Republican congressional negotiators decided over the weekend to move forward with a definitional change in proposed legislation on military commissions that would broaden the meaning of "unlawful enemy combatant" and allow the detention and trial by commission of a larger spectrum of suspects, the Washington Post reported Tuesday. While the the language [...]