Legal News

The AM Roundup: A Coyote Conundrum, Beazer Settles, More

By Ashby Jones

Amid all the talk of stress tests, GM’s lackluster earnings report, and Obama’s budget cuts, let’s get you up to speed on the legal news you may otherwise have missed this morning.

The Lonely Coyotes? Sports fans, look alive! The National Hockey League is heading for what could be a fascinating showdown in U.S. bankruptcy court that may ultimately determine how much control professional sports leagues have over who owns their franchises.

On Thursday, lawyers for the NHL and one of its 30 teams, the Phoenix Coyotes, will face off in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Phoenix two days after the franchise’s parent company filed for Chapter 11. The team’s owner recently reached a deal to sell the Coyotes for $212.5 million to Research In Motion founder James Balsillie, who wants to move the team to southern Ontario. The NHL opposes the move, and wants the team to stay in Phoenix, where the team moved into a new arena in 2003. Click here for the WSJ story, from Matthew Futterman.

A Subprime Settlement: Homebuilder Beazer Homes announced it had settled a subprime-related securities class action for $30.5 million. The plaintiffs' had alleged that the audit committee of the company's board concluded that the company's mortgage practice violated certain origination requirements and that the company's disclosures during the class period had misled investors about these practices and financial condition. Click here for the company’s press release; here for Kevin LaCroix’s take at the D&O diary (Hat tip: AmLaw Litigation Daily). The plaintiffs were repped by Milberg and Bernstein Liebhard; Beazer was repped by Cravath and Troutman Sanders.

Wal-k, Don’t Run: Wal-Mart has agreed to upgrade post-Thanksgiving Day crowd-control measures in its 92 New York stores to avoid prosecution by the Nassau County District Attorney in the November trampling death of a temporary worker. A 34-year-old temporary maintenance worker at a Valley Stream, N.Y., Wal-Mart, died of asphyxiation after he was knocked down and trampled by several hundred shoppers on “Black Friday,” the busy shopping day after Thanksgiving. “We have never had a tragedy like this in our stores, and we don’t want it to happen again,” said Hank Mullany, president of Wal-Mart’s northeast division. Click here for the WSJ story.

Money for Nothing? Is paying associates not to work — as has been announced at Skadden and Shearman & Sterling and other firms — smart? One writer isn’t so sure.

Photo: Getty Images

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 07, 2009 (boomark / email).