Taking Discovery Against the UK's FSA Regulatory Agency ?

Here is an interesting paper from the Lehman bankruptcy. It is a motion for discovery against the UK's Financial Services Authority and PwC. (Hat tip to Am Law Daily for publishing this article on the topic, with a link to the motion. ) The opening paragraph is pasted below:

__________________________________________________________________

"The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors (the “Committee”)
appointed in the above-captioned chapter 11 cases of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
(“LBHI”) and its affiliated debtors and debtors in possession (collectively, the “Lehman
Debtors”), by and through its undersigned counsel, hereby files this Motion (the
“Motion”), pursuant to section 105(a) of title 11 of the United States Code, 11 U.S.C. §§
101-1532 (as amended, the "Bankruptcy Code"), and the Hague Convention of 18 March
1970 on the taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters, 28 U.S.C. §
1781 (the "Hague Convention"), for the issuance of two Letters of Request for
International Judicial Assistance in the form annexed hereto as Exhibit A (the “Letters of
Request”) to the High Court of Justice of England and Wales (the "U.K. Court") to
compel the production of documents by the following entities located in the United
Kingdom: the Financial Services Authority (“FSA”), Barclays' regulator, and
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited
(collectively “PwC”), Barclays' auditors."

The US Chamber of Commerce Does NOT Like Litigation Funding, and Pause to Reflect

This prior post referred to a then-upcoming seminar and mentioned the question: what does the US Chamber of Commerce think about litigation funding. Thanks to an article today at Pointoflaw, we now know the unsurprising answer is: the Chamber does NOT like litigation funding. Go here for the Chamber's paper.

What's in the paper? Parts of it are fairly helpful reviews of litigation funding in Europe, Australia and elsewhere. Other parts are pretty shallow arguments that do not explore a wide range of interesting possibilities, some of which could even benefit defendants. But that's an argument for another day - no need to give anyone in the US heartburn just before Thanksgiving.

Best wishes to all for a joyous holiday, with time to pause and reflect There are, after all, real people behind the statistics and data points, and some are real tort victims suffering from brutal cancers or other terrible diseases.
For some, Thursday will be a bittersweet day as they will have no choice but to acknowledge that they almost certainly will never again gather with their loved ones to celebrate Thanksgiving here on earth.

Consumer Arbitration and Financial Houses - Going, Going Gone ?

This post by Ashby Jones at the WSJ law blog updates on another big financial house moving away from imposing arbitration clauses. Some would say this is good news and others would say it is bad news. Plainly it does mean that there will be more changes in the litigation industry as new models evolve for dispute resolution.

Great Revenge for Poor Service

Here is a link to Pat Lamb's post about an airline customer exacting great revenge for the absence of good service. Great service is the focus for Pat 's blog, and also is the focus for Pat and the other great lawyers at Valorem Group.



Disclosure: Pat and I grew up together as lawyers and were partners for many, many years. Ultimately, the timing of life events caused him to make a move I could not join.

Lawyer Humor - Cartoons - Good Holiday Gifts for the Lawyer Who Has Everything

Here is a website with insightful and funny cartoon humor regarding lawyers. The author/creator, David Mills, is now selling signed copies for $ 35 - go here for specifics.

Hat tip to Legal Antics for providing frequent laughs about lawyers, and for identifying David's cartoons.

Ratings Agencies Sued By Ohio Attorney General

It was just a matter of time. Seeking a civil remedy for the oft-criticized credit ratings issued by the various ratings agencies, The Ohio Attorney General retained private counsel and has filed suit "on behalf of the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System, the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio, the Ohio Police & Fire Pension Fund, the School Employees Retirement System of Ohio and the Ohio Public Employees Deferred Compensation Program."

"Attorney General Cordray is drawing on the expertise of the law firms Entwistle & Cappucci LLP; Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP; and Schottenstein Zox & Dunn Co., LPA to assist with the litigation."

The Lieff Cabraser firm is well-known for its class action work for plaintiffs. The Entwistle firm has significant experience in securities claims for pension funds and others. The Schottenstein firm is an Ohio commercial law firm. No doubt others will explore all the political connections.

The complaint is here. The claims are for negligent misrepresentation and violation of Ohio statutes. The suit is in federal court, so one assumes the first issues will be Iqbal/Twombly motions. I went through the complaint this morning and it seems to this observer more than adequate in laying out a compelling and logical claim backed by evidence garnered during Congressional investigations.

Big picture conclusions/thoughts/questions ? This suit is the latest example of how investigations by federal and state officials and agencies are increasingly used to generate evidence and facts to survive Iqbal/Twombly motions. Second, my personal belief is that there ultimately will be a flood of these lawsuits. with many filed by overseas entities. One question is whether and how these claims will be expanded to include "aiding and abetting" claims against law firms and other professionals. "Choice of law" questions also seem inevitable.

Cancer, Cellular Level Shapes, and Law

More great new science at the observable cellular level. As described below, scientists used tools to observe cellular level shapes, and then figured out a way to "staple" some proteins to better take on the needed shape to fit cellular receptors. How cool and important is this discovery? Very - the science is so good it was published in Nature this month. Go here to Science Daily for the broader whole story; excerpts are below.

Why does this relate to law? As these techniques are used to actually implement ways to "turn off" cancer, they will become the remedies sought by persons facing cancer allegedly or actually caused by particular substances.

_________________________________________________________________

"ScienceDaily (Nov. 12, 2009) — Scientists have devised an innovative way to disarm a key protein considered to be "undruggable," meaning that all previous efforts to develop a drug against it have failed. Their discovery, published in the November 12 issue of Nature, lays the foundation for a new kind of therapy aimed directly at a critical human protein -- one of a few thousand so-called transcription factors -- that could someday be used to treat a variety of diseases, especially multiple types of cancer.

****

Based on his work as an oncologist, Bradner became deeply interested in a human protein called NOTCH. The gene encoding this protein is often damaged, or mutated, in patients with a form of blood cancer, known as T-ALL or T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

Abnormal NOTCH genes found in cancer patients remain in a state of constant activity, switched on all the time, which helps to drive the uncontrolled cell growth that fuels tumors. Similar abnormalities in NOTCH also underlie a variety of other cancers, including lung, ovarian, pancreatic and gastrointestinal cancers.

Even with this deep scientific knowledge, drugs against NOTCH -- or any other transcription factor -- have traditionally been extremely difficult, if not impossible, to develop. Most current drugs take the form of small chemicals (known as "small molecules") or larger-sized proteins, both of which have proven impractical to date for disabling transcription factors.

A few years ago, Bradner and his colleagues hatched a different idea about how to tame the runaway NOTCH protein. Looking closely at its structure as well as the structures of its partner proteins, they noticed a key protein-to-protein junction that featured a helical shape.

"We figured if we could generate a set of tiny little helices we might be able to find one that would hit the sweet spot and shut down NOTCH function," said Bradner.

Creating and testing these helices involved a team of interdisciplinary researchers, including Greg Verdine, Erving Professor of Chemistry at Harvard University and director of the Chemical Biology Initiative at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, as well as scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Broad Institute's Chemical Biology Program, which is directed by Stuart Schreiber.

Verdine invented a drug discovery technology that uses chemical braces or "staples" to hold the shapes of different protein snippets. Without these braces, the snippets (called "peptides") would flop around, losing their three-dimensional structure and thus their biological activity. Importantly, cells can readily absorb stapled peptides, which are significantly smaller than proteins. That means the peptides can get to the right locations inside cells to alter gene regulation."