If IBM had its way, former head of mergers and acquisitions, David Johnson, would not be allowed to work for Dell because he would allegedly be able to provide his new employer with trade secrets that would give Dell an unfair competitive advantage. However, a U.S. judge has sided with Dell and turned down IBM’s injunction against Johnson.
 
In his ruling, the judge decided that IBM never quite proved what secret information Johnson could actually supply to Dell that would give the company an edge over its rival.
 
Johnson, who now works as Dell’s senior vice president of corporate strategy, still faces another legal battle with IBM, which plans to sue Johnson over the alleged violation of a non-compete agreement. IBM has also confirmed through its spokesman that it will appeal the ruling of the injunction suit.
 
According to Johnson, the non-compete agreement, which was drafted in 2005, is invalid because it was not properly signed. He has also stated that he never had access to IBM’s confidential information, but IBM has argued otherwise, accusing Johnson of exploiting IBM resources to create his own venture capital firm.

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If you have been considering an age discrimination lawsuit against your employer, things just got a whole lot tougher thanks to a new Supreme Court ruling. The case, which was decided by a 5-4 ruling, states that employers will not have to prove that they did not commit age discrimination.
 
It all started when 53-year-old Jack Gross sued his employer, FBL Financial Services Inc. in Iowa, over what he perceived as age discrimination. He claimed that he had been demoted because of his age and that his job was taken by a younger female worker, which led him to bring a lawsuit against the company based on federal age discrimination laws.
 
The original court decided that the employer had to prove that it did not age discriminate, but then a federal appeals court overturned the decision. When the Supreme Court intervened, it sided with the employer and placed the burden of proof of age discrimination on the employee. The case represents a significant victory for employers who have been accused of age discrimination.

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After eight years of intense legal conflict, a judge has finally thrown out the lawsuit against Oracle CEO Larry Ellison of insider trading and deceiving investors. According to the judge, Susan Illston, lawyers failed to provide enough conclusive evidence that any of this ever went on, leaving the judge no choice but to dismiss the charges.

The lawsuit arose when Oracle missed an earnings report back in 2001 and blamed it on an economic slump. Investors quickly rose to blame the nonexistent earnings forecast on problems with software, bad accounting, and poor judgment, things that the Oracle leadership were aware of but never revealed to shareholders.

It came as no surprise when Oracle denied any wrongdoing in court. The fact that Ellison sold stocks in the midst of the economic slump was because he was holding stock options that had to be sold in a certain time period or they would lose their value.

Oracle's Larry Ellison (Image: Flickr)

Expect sour grapes from Star Scientific Inc. in the coming days, as the tobacco company just emerged as the loser in a huge lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. Although Star Scientific Claimed that R.J. Reynolds infringed on its patents, a Baltimore jury found that R.J. Reynolds had done no such thing.

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This means that R.J. Reynolds will not be have to pay the hundreds of millions of dollars that Star Scientific sought in damages for the perceived infringement of R.J. Reynolds upon a new tobacco curing method that removes more cancer-causing chemicals. It also means that Star Scientific will also have to head into recovery mode, as the verdict caused its stocks to tumble 80 percent.
 
According to RJR at trial, the tobacco giant invented its own method of accomplishing the same exact thing as Star and that it did not need to copy the plans. RJR also questioned Star’s attitude throughout the trial, deriding its tendency to play the victim and the benefactor.

Although they were once business partners, Amazon and Toys R Us have been in the middle of a heated legal battle that finally ended today when Amazon agreed to pay Toys R Us $51 million as a settlement. The transaction will occur in a couple of months and then any traces of the conflict will essentially disappear, according to Amazon.
 
Amazon and toysrus.com, a division of Toys R Us, drafted an agreement in 2000 that gave Toys R Us exclusive rights to move some of their products through Amazon. The partnership should have been extremely beneficial for both parties, but in 2004, both parties accused each other of wrongdoing after Toys R Us sued Amazon.
 
Toys R Us claimed that Amazon had entered into deals with other toy companies that violated the exclusivity contract, while Amazon countersued Toys R Us for allegedly failing to keep items in stock. After a topsy-turvy legal battle, Toys R Us won the rights for a settlement, although its initial claim of damages was deemed overblown.

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According to a statement released by Sprint Nextel Corp., the cellular giant plans to sell a significant portion of its cellular network in the Midwest as part of an Illinois court decision. As part of the deal, no customers will see any change in their service, and while Sprint’s financial situation will see a change, it looks to be minimal.

Nextel networks throughout Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, and Nebraska will eventually be sold by the company to any interested buyers. The sale came about as the result of a lawsuit from iPCS Inc., a Sprint affiliate, which claims that Sprint violated an exclusivity contract when it purchased Nextel in 2005.

Sprint’s partnership with Clearwire Corp. has also caused a lot of debate between Sprint and iPCS. The latter argues that Sprint’s decision to try and develop a high-speed wireless Internet service with Clearwire also violates the exclusivity agreement, but it had already worked out a deal with Clearwire when Sprint decided to merge with the company.

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Oh, how the mighty have fallen: the man credited with building Countrywide Financial, the biggest name in mortgage lending, from the ground up has now been charged with insider trading and securities fraud. Angelo Mozilo, a 70-year-old son of Italian immigrants of little means, faces significant punishment if he is found guilty.
 
Mozilo – or “Tangelo” if you prefer, a nickname given to him because of an outrageous tan – may be the next casualty of the economic crisis. Countrywide Financial, which went from originating hundreds of billions of dollars worth of loans to borrowing $11.5 billion just to stay afloat, was purchased by Bank of America last July.
 
At the height of its success, Countrywide Financial originated $41 billion in subprime mortgages, a fact that contributed to the housing market crisis we face today. Charges against Mozilo represent the determined attempts of the government to enforce stricter regulations in order to enhance the economy’s recovery.

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A judge decided today to dismiss two lawsuits against Dole by a group of Nicaraguan plantation workers. The lawsuits claimed that Dole exposed workers to pesticide that rendered them sterile during the 1970s. However, over the past three days, the judge heard evidence that showed that the lawyers for the workers were bribing workers and Nicaraguan judges to help their case.

A peasant affected in the 70' and 80' by the pesticide Nemagon, takes a rest beside a pig painted with the letters of US transnational Dole. Image: Newscom

Dole attorney Scott Edelman calls the lawsuit “blatant fraud” and the story is something “you expect to read in a novel.” Unfortunately, the fraud surrounding this lawsuit may mean that if people were actually hurt, we’ll never know.

Dole lost a similar lawsuit in 2007. The $1.58 million verdict is now being appealed. Dole says that there’s about 10,000 claims in Nicaragua alone, along with 6,000 claims in other countries, meaning that there are lawsuits worth billions of dollars against the company at any given time.

Bank of America Corp-owned Merrill Lynch & Co announced today that they have agreed to pay $75 million to settle a class-action lawsuit against the company. The plaintiffs were employees who had lost money by investing in Merrill Lynch stock through their retirement places.

In their lawsuit, which was filed in November 2007, the plaintiffs said that the company violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. They say that Merrill Lynch offered stock as part of their retirement plans even when it was “imprudent” to do so, given the company’s debt. The lawsuit helps employees who invested money from September 2006 to December 2008, during which time the stock lost over 80% of its value.

Records show that the parties entered a settlement at the end of February, with federal judge endorsement in March. The plaintiffs announced the settlement today, though Merrill Lynch declined to comment. Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch in January after the company posted a $15.84 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2008.

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Former U.S. Attorney G. Douglas Jones accused auto giant GM today of forcing many of their auto dealerships to close in order to avoid contractual obligations. Jones says that GM and GMAC “arbitrarily and capriciously altered dealership financing terms and requirements, and have wrongfully withheld rebates, warranty claims, and funds due to its dealerships under established franchise agreements in an effort to drive them out of business.”

Jones, along with attorney Jeffrey E. Friedman, filed a 12-page complaint, accusing GM and GMAC of withholding over $160,000 in rebates from family-owned Abercrombie Chevrolet.

“As GM holds out its hand for a second helping of federal aid, GM is hypocritically forcing good-standing auto dealerships out of business by engaging in egregious and fraudulent conduct,” said Jones, a partner with the Haskell, Slaughter, Young and Rediker in Birmingham, Alabama. Jones is most famous for re-opening the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing case of 1963 in 2001.