Category: Lawsuits

Russia is suing Shell for 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) over allegedly unpaid gas supplies to the state energy giant Gazprom in 2022, the British-Dutch company said in its annual report published Tuesday. Shell announced in early 2022 that it would sever ties with Gazprom, halt Russian crude oil purchases and withdraw from Russian energy markets in response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. According to the company’s annual report, Russian prosecutors filed a claim in a Moscow court on…

Feb 21 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday filed a rare judicial misconduct complaint, accusing the judge hearing a challenge of President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender people in the military of “hostile and egregious misconduct.” The complaint, said U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C., violated the judicial code of conduct by disrespecting a Justice Department lawyer and failing to uphold the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary. During two hearings in the case this…

Three senior U.S. Justice Department officials, including Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, resigned on Thursday rather than comply with an order to dismiss corruption charges against New York City’s mayor, according to an internal Justice Department memo seen by Reuters and people familiar with the matter. The departures mark a sign of resistance from career Justice Department officials to U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to overhaul the agency to end what he calls its weaponization against political opponents. Critics say Trump’s changes threaten to subject…

Amazon.com was sued on Wednesday by consumers who accused the retailing giant of secretly tracking their movements through their cellphones, and selling data it collects. According to a proposed class action in San Francisco federal court, Amazon obtained “backdoor access” to consumers’ phones by providing tens of thousands of app developers with code known as Amazon Ads SDK to be embedded in their apps. This allegedly enabled Amazon to collect an enormous amount of timestamped geolocation data about where consumers…

A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order ending the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship regardless of the parents’ immigration status. US District Judge John C. Coughenour ruled in the case brought by the states of Washington, Arizona, Illinois and Oregon, which argue the 14th Amendment and Supreme Court case law have cemented birthright citizenship. The case is one of five lawsuits being brought by 22 states and a number of immigrants rights groups across the…

CHICAGO (AP) — Hours of secretly recorded videos and phone calls have offered a rare glimpse into how the longest-serving legislative leader in American history operated behind closed doors. As the corruption trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan stretches into its third month, testimony has covered his multiple alleged schemes, from kickbacks involving the state’s largest utility company to Chinatown developments benefiting his private tax firm. Jurors have heard from a congresswoman, former state legislators and the government’s…

MANSFIELD — The full state Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments in November on whether to dismiss two of the three charges against Karen Read, including second-degree murder, for the January 2022 death of her police officer boyfriend. Lawyers for Read, 44, of Mansfield, filed a petition to the state’s highest court on Sept. 11 asking it to overturn a superior court ruling denying their motion to dismiss the murder charge and one of leaving the scene of an accident…

BOSTON (AP) — A Massachusetts district attorney on Wednesday appointed a special prosecutor, who has represented James “Whitey” Bulger and other prominent clients in the past, to take on the Karen Read murder case. Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey said in a statement that Hank Brennan will lead the state’s retrial in January. A former prosecutor and defense attorney, Morrissey said Brennan has worked for 25 years in state and federal courts and and has experience “with complex law enforcement…

Former U.S. Rep. George Santos is due in court Monday afternoon, where a person familiar with the matter has said the New York Republican is expected to plead guilty to multiple counts in his federal fraud case. The person could not publicly discuss details of the plea and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Santos and his attorneys did not return requests for comment. The case has been set to go to trial early next month. The…

PARIS (Reuters) -The Paris prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday it had launched a preliminary probe into allegations of illegal financing of far right National Rally (RN) leader Marine Le Pen’s campaign for the 2022 presidential race, which she lost to Emmanuel Macron. The investigation, which was opened on July 2, follows a 2023 report by the National Commission on Campaign Accounts and Political Financing (CNCCFP), which scrutinizes candidates’ election expenses and funding, the prosecutor’s office said. It will look into…

(Reuters) – Similac baby formula maker Abbott is expected to face a trial on Monday over claims that its formula for preterm infants used in neonatal intensive care units causes a potentially deadly bowel disease, the second trial out of hundreds of similar lawsuits in the United States. Lawyers for the company and for Illinois resident Margo Gill will make their opening statements to jurors in St. Louis, Missouri, and the trial is expected to last most of the rest…

A judge declared a mistrial in the murder trial of Karen Read, the Massachusetts woman accused of drunkenly driving into her police officer boyfriend and leaving him to die in January 2022, in a case featuring accusations of a vast police cover-up and investigative misconduct. And the state trooper who helped lead the investigation – a man who admitted on the stand that he’d sent sexist and offensive text messages about the defendant to friends – was relieved of duty…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge to a 2021 Connecticut law that eliminated the state’s longstanding religious exemption from childhood immunization requirements for schools, colleges and day care facilities. The justices did not comment in leaving in place a federal appeals court ruling that upheld the contentious law. A lower court judge had earlier dismissed the lawsuit challenging the law, which drew protests at the state Capitol. Connecticut law requires students to receive certain immunizations…

Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay $700m to settle lawsuits in the United States that accused the pharmaceutical giant of deceiving customers about the safety of its talcum-based powder products. J&J’s payout resolves an investigation by more than 40 US states into the marketing of baby powder and other talc-based products that contained traces of cancer-causing asbestos. “Targeting communities with cosmetic products that contain dangerous substances is not just illegal, it is very cruel,” New York Attorney General Letitia…

WASHINGTON – Federal regulators have reached a deal that allows them to proceed with antitrust investigations into the dominant roles that Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia play in the artificial intelligence industry, in the strongest sign of how regulatory scrutiny into the powerful technology has escalated. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission struck the deal over the past week, and it is expected to be completed in the coming days, according to two people with knowledge of the matter,…

BOSTON – Magellan Diagnostics, Inc., a medical device company headquartered in Billerica, Mass., has agreed to resolve criminal charges relating to its concealment of a device malfunction that produced inaccurately low lead test results for potentially tens of thousands of children and other patients.  As part of the criminal resolution, Magellan will plead guilty to violations of the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act and pay a $21.8 million fine, $10.9 million in forfeiture and a minimum of $9.3 million to compensate patient victims….