Legal News

Morning Roundup: A Sentence, A New Probe and a Very Strange Disbarment

By Ashby Jones

In all the hubbub about Souter’s retirement, the Chrysler bankruptcy, the Mark Levy tragedy, we’re running the risk of letting some good news stories pass us by. Let’s get you caught up quickly:

Graham Gets Sentenced: The former assistant general counsel of General Re Corp., Robert Graham, was sentenced on Thursday to one year and one day of federal prison in a financial fraud case. Graham, 61, was found guilty last year of conspiracy, securities fraud, mail fraud and making false statements to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Prosecutors had alleged that the five defendants schemed to inflate AIG’s loss reserves, which indicate the financial health of an insurance firm, by creating two sham reinsurance transactions between the companies. All five were convicted last year. Click here for the NLJ story.

SEC Investigating Schering-Plough Trades: The SEC is investigating trading of Schering-Plough shares ahead of the announcement of its merger with Merck & Co., people familiar with the matter said. The investigation is focusing on whether people trading the pharmaceutical company’s stock in late February or early March were using inside information about the merger talks, which concluded in a deal announced Monday, March 9. Click here for the WSJ story.

UBS Rebuffs US: UBS AG, in a court filing aimed at fending off Internal Revenue Service attempts to gain access to information about American clients, said Thursday it can’t provide information to U.S. tax collectors because the move would violate Swiss privacy laws. Click here for the WSJ story.

Sex-For-Pay Lawyer Gets Disbarred: A lawyer who let a female client work off her fee through sex has been disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court. The justices wrote that the man admitted having sex with his 18-year-old client and another woman in exchange for credits toward her $2,300 fee for handling an assault case. He agreed to take off $200 every time he had sex with her and $400 when she arranged sex with another woman. Click here for the AP story.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 01, 2009 (boomark / email).