Litigation

Features

Celebrity Images/Trade-Dress Claims<br>Copyright Infringement/Joint-Authorship Claim

Features

The Court of Appeal of California, Second District, Division 1, found an arbitration clause in a management agreement unenforceable under the California Talent Agencies Act. <i>Ferrer v. Preston</i>.

Features

Estate planning is central to the post-mortem distribution and protection of an individual's assets. Celebrities have special estate-planning concerns that include intellectual-property valuations, how the valuations affect estate taxes and post-mortem administration of intellectual-property. In the following interview, conducted in Nashville by Entertainment Law &amp; Finance Editor-in-Chief Stan Soocher, entertainment attorney Robert L. Sullivan discusses these and related estate-planning issues that affect artists. Sullivan is a partner in the Nashville office of Loeb &amp; Loeb where his clients include songwriters, music-publishing companies, record companies and recording artists. He has 30-years of experience as an entertainment lawyer and serves as a trustee for the estate of Johnny Cash.

Features

Recent court rulings in e-discovery.

Features

Litigants and their law firms continue to be frustrated with the escalating costs of discovery during litigation, investigations and regulatory response. Fueling these costs is risk ' and the fears associated with discovery risk ranging from common concerns such as budget and schedule issues, to more severe outcomes, including sanctions, adverse inference or even stress-induced hair loss.<br>A simple way for litigants to lessen risk and gain control of these costs is through effective project planning and communication. In fact, without good communication, you're not just taking a ride down the wrong route ' you're paving the road to risk.

Features

The continuing drama relating to the demise of the Yukos Oil Company, Russia's leading oil company, has generated two U.S. bankruptcy proceedings that have raised some of the most interesting cross-border insolvency issues in the last year. Both proceedings emanate from the pitched battle between Yukos' management and equity investors, on the one hand ' who assert that the Russian government is expropriating the company for its own benefit in violation of Russian and international law ' and the Russian government and an interim insolvency receiver appointed by a Russian court (the 'Receiver'), on the other hand ' who assert that Yukos' management caused the company to commit a tax fraud of approximately USD $27.5 billion that can only be resolved in a Russian court.

Features

Investor confidence and market behavior can be impacted greatly by events that do not necessarily correlate. In the case of the Bayou Hedge Funds fraud, these unique and non-recurring events fueled a fire in the hedge fund industry that has spread, but not necessarily due to the particulars of the Bayou Hedge Funds failure. But, when dealing with significant investments made by pension funds, corporate entities, along with foundations and trusts, a healthy dose of skepticism is natural and appropriate. Not unlike the transition from the Enron scandal to the formation of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, hedge fund investors may extrapolate the troubles at the Bayou Hedge Funds to all hedge funds. As a result, questions of the need for regulatory oversight for a stronger accountability within the industry arise.

Features

National rulings of interest.