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After 27 months of legal wrangling, Tribune Co. and its creditors are finally headed into what could be the deciding chapter of the company’s tangled bankruptcy saga.
The case will enter what bankruptcy law practitioners call confirmation hearings Monday, and for the next two weeks U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey in Delaware will hear evidence from an army of lawyers arguing for and against two competing visions of how to restructure the Chicago-based media conglomerate.
Tribune Co. employees at the time of company’s 2007 leveraged buy-out are eligible to join a class action lawsuit against the ESOP trustee that represented their interests in the takeover by billionaire Sam Zell, a federal judge ruled Friday. Get the full story »
Ford Motor Co. has settled a lawsuit in which it accused Italian automaker Ferrari of infringing its trademark for the popular F-150 truck.
Ford dropped the case Thursday, according to a filing with the U.S. district court in Detroit. Terms were unclear from the filing. Get the full story »
Allstate Corp. on Monday sued Credit Suisse Group AG, accusing the Swiss bank of causing losses by hiding the risks on $232 million of mortgage securities it bought. Get the full story »
From Bloomberg News | GlaxoSmithKline Plc lawyers, in a trial seeking at least $1.5 billion in damages, told jurors that Abbott Laboratories had an illegal monopoly over HIV drugs. Get the full story>>
Packages of Starbucks coffee lined up in a supermarket in January 2011. (Reuters/Lucy Nicholson)
It’s official: Kraft Foods will lose its Starbucks business March 1.
The final legal obstacle was removed to Starbucks ending its coffee distribution agreement with Northfield-based Kraft Foods by a U.S. appeals court ruling Friday.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York affirmed a lower court ruling of Jan. 28, denying Kraft’s request to stop Starbucks from moving ahead with its plan to use a new partner to distribute packaged coffee to supermarkets in North America and Europe.
Kraft and Starbucks Coffee Co. are in the arbitration to decide what the Seattle-based coffee giant must pay to terminate the relationship. Kraft has been fighting in court to maintain control of the Starbucks business until the arbitration has been concluded. Get the full story »
From Bloomberg News | Toyota has won approval for a $10 million settlement in a suit over a sudden acceleration crash that killed a California Highway Patrol officer and three others.
Kraft Foods Inc. told a federal appeals court Friday that it will suffer “irreparable harm” if its distribution deal with Starbucks Corp. ends next week.
The two consumer products giants are in the midst of ending their 12-year partnership in which Kraft distributed Starbucks bagged coffee to supermarkets and other retailers. Starbucks plans to take on the business starting March 1. Get the full story »
From CBS’ BNet | San Francisco-based Xoom Corp. filed suit against Motorola’s trademark entity seeking a “temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injunction” as well as a permanent injunction against use of the Xoom name. If granted, Motorola would have to immediately stop the launch of its high-buzz Xoom tablet computer until it could either legally resolve the matter or find another name. Get the full story>>
Illinois’ largest health insurance company will pay $25 million to settle allegations that it denied coverage to sick children in need of nursing care by “fraudulently” shifting their claims to Illinois’ Medicaid program, state and federal prosecutors said this morning.
The settlement, reached by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, follows several years of complaints from patients and their families. The patients reached out to Madigan’s office after their claims were denied by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois.
The cost of the medical care, which included so-called private-duty nurses for sick children and other ill patients, should have been covered by Illinois Blue Cross, but instead was shifted to Medicaid at a cost of nearly $12 million, prosecutors said. The claims were denied based on “internal, undisclosed guidelines that were more restrictive than the language provided to patients in plan policy materials,” Madigan’s office said. Get the full story »
Abbott's Humira drug. (Handout)
Turning back a threat to sales of Abbott Laboratories’ most lucrative drug, a federal appeals court Wednesday overturned a lower court ruling that claimed the North Chicago drug giant used Johnson & Johnson’s technology to make a blockbuster rheumatoid arthritis drug.
Humira is Abbott’s largest-selling product and one of the world’s top-selling drugs, generating more than $5 billion in annual sales as a treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and psoriasis among other autoimmune disorders.
The ruling in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eastern District of Texas overturned a $1.67 billion verdict against Abbott from Marshall County. At the time of the lower court ruling last year, observers said it was known for being friendly to plaintiffs. Get the full story »
A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction that prohibits Motorola Solutions Inc. from transferring confidential information by Chinese company Huawei Technologies to Nokia Siemens Networks, which is planning to buy Motorola’s networks business in a $1.2 billion transaction.
Huawei sued Motorola last month, arguing that the deal with NSN would represent a misappropriation of Huawei trade secrets. Motorola and Huawei have commercial agreements dating back a decade, during which Motorola bought Huawei network technologies and resold the equipment under its own brand. Get the full story »
Allstate Corp. sued Citigroup Inc. and Deutsche Bank AG Friday, accusing the banks of misrepresenting risks on more than $385 million of mortgage securities it bought.
Allstate, the largest publicly traded U.S. home and auto insurer, has filed similar lawsuits against Bank of America Corp. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Get the full story »
Lehman Brothers and Barclays deceived JPMorgan Chase & Co. with bad assets that the failed investment bank’s own employees dubbed “goat poo,” according to new court papers that escalate a legal battle between the financial firms.
JPMorgan filed new court claims in the case, contending that Lehman left it with $25 billion in unpaid loans secured by undesirable such as those left out of the sale to Barclays. Get the full story »
By Jon Hilkevitch | United and American airlines’ lawsuit against Chicago over the expansion of O’Hare International Airport will move toward trial after negotiations have so far failed to break an impasse, officials said Thursday.
Both sides on Thursday asked Judge Richard Billik of Cook County Circuit Court to lift a one-week delay on hearing the lawsuit, which seeks to prevent the city from borrowing more money to keep the O’Hare project going.
The delay was intended to give negotiations a chance to resolve major differences over the financing and timing of new runways. Get the full story »
