The US Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday announced a $1.2 billion settlement agreement with Toyota for misleading customers and US regulators. The criminal complaint against Toyota alleges that the company intentionally concealed information from the public regarding a design defect whereby drivers attempting to break actually accelerated their vehicles. The settlement will allow Toyota [...]
Judge Lucy Koh of the US District Court for the Northern District of California decided on Tuesday not to combine several lawsuits against Google for violating the privacy rights of its Gmail users into a single class action suit. The plaintiffs allege that Google violated state and federal privacy and wiretapping laws by reviewing messages [...]
Italy’s Court of Cassation on Tuesday confirmed a two-year ban from public office for the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi for his conviction for tax fraud. Prior to the high court’s confirmation, Berlusconi had hoped to run for European Parliament in May. Berlusconi had fought to overturn the ban handed down by a Milan appeals [...]
France’s highest appeals court on Wednesday sentenced former trader Jerome Kerviel to three years in prison for fraudulent covert trading while working for French bank Society Generale (SocGen) . The Court of Cassation upheld two lower court verdicts that determined that Kerviel acted without the bank’s knowledge in building up positions of around €50 billion [...]
JURIST Guest Columnist Balkees Jarrah of Human Rights Watch makes the case for why the US should publicly support a referral of the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court…
UN human rights experts on Tuesday called for a full investigation into the death of Chinese human rights activist Cao Shunli. Cao was an influential human rights lawyer and activist in China who “tirelessly campaigned since 2008 for transparency and greater participation of civil society” in the second universal periodic review of China’s human rights [...]
The UK Court of Appeal on Wednesday rejected a bid for an inquiry into the shooting of 24 Malaysian rubber plantation workers at Batang Kali on December 12, 1948. The petition brought by the families of the deceased allege that British troops “massacred” the workers during the campaign against communist rebels known as the Malayan [...]
Bahrain’s Fourth High Criminal Court on Wednesday convicted 11 defendants of possessing weapons, ammunition and explosives and of manufacturing bombs for terror purposes, meting out 15-year prison sentences and significant fines. The Interior Ministry arrested the men after searching their farmhouse pursuant to a warrant issued by the Public Prosecution office. Authorities uncovered five illegally [...]
Defense counsel for former Rwandan intelligence chief Pascal Simbikangwa on Wednesday filed a notice of appeal after a Paris court convicted him of genocide and crimes against humanity for his participation in the 1994 Rwandan genocide . After a six-week trial, in which Simbikangwa maintained his innocence, the court delivered a sentence of 25 years [...]
Former Bangladesh prime minister Khaleda Zia and other members of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) were indicted Wednesday on two corruption charges. Zia and three the other BNP officials have been accused of embezzling funds from a charitable trust named after Zia’s deceased husband, former president Ziaur Rahman . In a second corruption allegation, [...]
