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Court rules that UBS trader should stay in custody
Trending Legal Issues |
2011/09/23 03:52
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An alleged rogue trader accused of losing Swiss banking giant UBS about $2.3 billion is sorry beyond words, his lawyer said Thursday, as a judge ordered him to be held in jail until a hearing next month.
Kweku Adoboli, 31, is charged with four offenses of fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008 and accused of racking up losses in authorized trades. His arrest a week ago has heaped pressure on UBS Chief Executive Oswald Gruebel and stoked speculation that the bank could get rid of its investment banking operations.
At a court hearing in London, prosecuting lawyer David Levy added a new fraud offense to the three previous charges laid against Adoboli, and confirmed that authorities had revised upward the amount allegedly gambled away by the trader to around $2.3 billion. A previous hearing was told the trader was accused of losing $2 billion.
Patrick Gibbs, defending Adoboli, said his client ? who wore a gray suit, white shirt and dark blue tie ? was truly sorry for his actions.
He is sorry beyond words for what has happened here, he went to UBS and told them what he had done, and stands now appalled at the scale of the consequences of his disastrous miscalculations, Gibbs said.
Adoboli, who appeared confident and nodded in acknowledgment to a handful of supporters attending the hearing, spoke only to confirm his name, birth date and address. He did not enter any pleas to the charges. |
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Appeals court in Va. tosses 2 Abu Ghraib lawsuits
Court and Trial |
2011/09/21 08:52
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A federal appeals court in Virginia has dismissed two lawsuits by former Iraqi detainees who claimed they were tortured at the Abu Ghraib prison.
A divided three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed Wednesday with two contractors who claimed immunity because they were doing the government's work in providing interrogators and translators to the U.S.-run prison near Baghdad.
In one of the cases, four Iraqis claimed they were abused by interrogators employed by CACI International Inc. The other lawsuit was filed by 72 Iraqis against L-3 Services, which provided translators at Abu Ghraib and other prisons.
The appeals court's ruling reversed decisions by federal judges in Alexandria, Va., and Greenbelt, Md., who had rejected the contractors' immunity claims. |
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Kona coffee dispute prompts class-action lawsuit
Trending Legal Issues |
2011/09/20 08:53
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A spat involving Safeway and Hawaii coffee growers is still brewing, even after the supermarket giant agreed to change labeling on its Kona blend coffee.
A $5 million class-action lawsuit was filed in federal court in Northern California claiming Safeway profited off the reputation of Kona coffee while selling an inferior product with very little Hawaii-grown coffee.
The lawsuit was filed Aug. 30, a day before Safeway's letter informing the Kona Coffee Farmers Association the company would change its packaging to reflect the percentage of Kona it contains. The farmers had called for a boycott of Safeway's 1,700 stores nationwide after a farmer saw the Kona blend for sale in a California store.
In an effort to protect a world-famous Hawaii product, the state's Board of Agriculture Chairman Russell Kokubun sent a letter to Safeway officials asking them to comply with a law here requiring labels to specify the percentage of Hawaii-grown coffee included in the blend. The law requires those blends have at least 10 percent Hawaii-grown coffee. But because Safeway's Kona blend isn't sold in any of the 19 Hawaii locations, Kokubun could only ask for voluntary compliance. |
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Court halts Texas execution of ex-Army recruiter
Court and Trial |
2011/09/20 08:53
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A former Army recruiter who for the third time this year was hours away from his scheduled execution for the rape-slaying of a woman in Fort Worth nearly 10 years ago was granted yet another reprieve by the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday.
Cleve Foster, 47, was set to die Tuesday evening in Huntsville.
The high court twice earlier this year stopped Foster's scheduled lethal injection. The latest court ruling came about 2½ hours before Foster could have been taken to the Texas death chamber.
Foster was meeting with one of his lawyers in a small holding cell a few feet from the death chamber when a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman delivered the news.
He thanked God and pointed to his attorney, saying this woman helped save his life, prison spokesman Jason Clark said.
He also said Foster repeated his insistence that he was innocent. |
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SC attorney's bankruptcy case headed to court
Top Attorney News |
2011/09/20 08:53
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A bankruptcy trustees for an attorney well known for his television commercials and highway billboards will ask a court to convert the case to a straight liquidation, saying the lawyer is unlikely to be able to repay his creditors.
The Sun News of Myrtle Beach reported that trustee Robert Anderson says he'll ask a judge to convert the case of Harry Pavilack from a Chapter 11 reorganization to a Chapter 7 liquidation. A hearing is scheduled for Monday in Charleston.
Anderson says Pavilack will never be able to pay off the almost $73 million that he owes creditors. His case is one of the largest personal bankruptcies ever in Horry County. His debt is mostly related to real estate deals. |
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