Legal News

Bullish AM Roundup: GM Exits, Floyd Abrams Hearts Sonia, More

By Amir Efrati

As you toil away this morning in your cubicle, envious of your globe-trotting friends or relatives, be thankful you stayed away from one giant tourist trap this year: the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain (pictured), which turned ugly. For those of you who working closer to this bull, here’s our morning legal cheat-sheet:

A New Day for GM - A slimmed-down General Motors Corp has emerged from bankruptcy, according to reports this morning. WSJ story here. AP says the automaker is “now cleansed of massive debt and burdensome contracts that would have sunk it without federal loans.” However, writes WSJ’s Mike Spector in this piece, the company’s “undesirable remnants” could languish in bankruptcy court for years.

Cahill’s Abrams Votes for Sotomayor - We’ll have a special guest post on Sotomayor later. But for now, Cahill Gordon’s Floyd Abrams, an advocate for journalists’ favorite right - the First Amendment - and a frequent arguer before the Supremes, weighs in on Sonia. In a WSJ opinion piece, he brushes off accusations by some lawyers that “her questioning has been too harsh, even abrasive.” In his experience, “her questions are tough and fair, demanding and acute. One could say worse things about a judge.” He references two cases he argued before her in 1999 and 2004, the latter in which she ruled in his favor.

Cuomo Blasts Tagged.com - New York AG Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday that he intends to sue social-networking site Tagged.com because it allegedly tricked consumers into providing personal email contacts that the company then used to recruit or spam potential new members. (WSJ story here.) Tagged, which was started in 2004 and targeted high-schoolers, previously apologized for the conduct, which it said was accidental. Perhaps Cuomo read this hilarious Time magazine profile of Tagged, which it dubbed “The World’s Most Annoying Web Site” because it tried to “guilt” the writer into signing up.

Albany Back from the Dead? - Meanwhile, New York’s dysfunctional state senate ended a five-week gridlock yesterday after a dissident Democrat returned to his party after previously switching loyalties and allying with Republicans. A state judge is expected to hear arguments Friday on whether Gov. Paterson’s recent appointment of a lieutenant governor - meant to break up the senate gridlock - was legal. Here’s the WSJ story.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on July 10, 2009 (boomark / email).