Andrew Fastow pled guilty. Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted. Scores of other directors and officers who gathered around U.S. corporate conference tables in recent years have since become the subject of civil lawsuits or criminal indictments or both.The recent guilty verdict against Enron’s top two executives is but one more domino to fall in a series of corporate scandals that have ricocheted through America’s boardrooms and courtrooms during the past decade.

As previously reported, see "In Re" Products Liability at 13 (July 2006), a federal trial judge in Georgia ruled in March of last year that beryllium sensitivity is not a compensable injury under Georgia law.

Mortgage Covered Bonds ("MCBs") are expected to become a major funding tool for Turkish banks over the next decade.

Big Law is no stranger to providing advice on pay equity or defending pay equity lawsuits.

A new policy statement issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in July will let each interstate gas pipeline and its customers work out quality standards for gas the pipeline will transport.The standards must be within certain general parameters.

A structure that a manager of private equity and hedge funds plans to use to take the company public may open the door to "roll ups" of wind farms, ethanol plants, solar facilities and other projects that have had trouble using master limited partnership structures .

The end of March saw the Ukrainian parliament pass a new law "On Securities and the Capital Market" (the "Securities Law"), intended to replace the very outdated 1991 Securities Act and meet the growing demands of the burgeoning Ukrainian securities market.

In a ruling of great potential usefulness in the defense of pharmaceutical litigation, a federal district court in Pennsylvania (Baylson, J.) on May 25, 2006 dismissed a lawsuit claiming that alleged inadequate warnings accompanying the anti-depressant prescription medication Paxil and/or its generic equivalent had led to the suicide of plaintiff’s wife.

A number of US states that do not currently authorize significant private sector involvement in road projects are considering public-private partnerships for the development or operation of toll roads

The Civil Justice Council has published a "protocol" for expert witnesses which expressly aims to consolidate the guidance previously given to expert witnesses when interpreting the Civil Procedure Rules and their associated Practice Directions.The protocol came into force in England and Wales on September 5, 2005.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed in mid- January to remove the obligation of US utilities to purchase electricity from "qualifying facilities" in four key regions of the country.

Today, in a 7-2 decision with Justice Breyer writing for the majority, the Supreme Court issued a narrow interpretation of when the federal Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act preempts state-law securities class actions.

On June 28, 2007, adding another chapter to this term’s pro-business antitrust rulings, the U.S. Supreme Court in Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS, Inc. 2007 WL 1835892 (Jun. 28, 2007) overruled the almost 100-year old precedent established in Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co., 220 U.S. 373 (1911) (Dr. Miles), which held that it was per se illegal under Section 1 of the Sherman Act for a manufacturer and a retailer to agree on resale prices that the retailer would charge.

On December 23, 2005, the SEC proposed rules to be embodied in a new Securities Exchange Act of 1934 rule, Rule 12h-6. Rule 12h-6 will make major changes to the current deregistration rules that make termination of the Exchange Act registration and reporting obligations difficult for foreign private issuers (even if an issuer has little investor interest in the U.S.) and that permit only suspension of reporting obligations, as opposed to termination of those obligations, for some foreign private

During the last six months, the appetite of private equity funds for investing in ethanol deals has gone from euphoric to cautious.

Reform in the electric power sector in Russia has been a major work in progress for years. Under the most recent plan, RAO UES of Russia should itself be phased out at the end of 2006. But, according to the internal materials of RAO UES of Russia, this is now unlikely to happen earlier than 2008.

On June 21, the United States Supreme Court issued its much-anticipated decision in Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., No. 06-484, 2007 U.S. LEXIS 8270 (June 21, 2007), resolving divisions among the various federal circuit courts of appeals over the threshold for pleading the intent required to state a securities fraud claim under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (the "PSLRA").

The test for determining what wetlands in the United States are protected by the Clean Water Act remains unclear. Six months after the US Supreme Court profoundly muddied the water, the US Army Corps of Engineers has still failed to issue guidance

Owners of underground natural gas storage facilities should find it easier to charge unregulated, market-based rates for their services under new rules announced by the Federal Energy Regulatory. FERC hopes the new rules will lead to construction of more gas storage facilities. Additional storage sites are needed to meet increasing demand for natural gas and to help mitigate price volatility in the natural gas market Commission in June.

The new year got off to a quick start for the US private toll road market.</P> The winning bidder was selected for the Indiana toll road, which will be the largest privatization of an existing asset in the United States to date, and the Texas Department of Transportation unveiled two new projects for which it will solicit proposals this spring.