The United Kingdom has reluctantly joined 19 other EU countries “adopting the droit de suite, or artist’s resale right, which requires sellers to pay artists (or their heirs) as much as 4% of the price every time a piece is resold, for up to 70 years after an artist’s death. (The droit does not apply to sales between two collectors.)” The rule, which applies retroactively to art created in the past and already in collectors’ hands, is likely to harm British galleries and dealers — and perhaps artists as well — by driving the international art market to countries that do not enforce such rules. “The cream of the crop of important modern and contemporary art has already fled Europe and is beginning to leave London in anticipation of 2006,” says Dallas economist David Kusin, who conducted a study on the subject for the European Fine Art Foundation. (Susan Adams, Forbes, Jun. 20).
Campaign finance regulation and the rule of law
A news story from Israel gets Tom Palmer thinking (Aug. 28).
Sneak previews as securities law violations
The Securities and Exchange Commission is apparently looking into the question of whether for a movie company to hold prescreenings of upcoming movies for stock analysts “constitutes disclosure of material information to a group of select people”, thus potentially running afoul of public disclosure regulations. Bruce Carton (Aug. 26), Larry Ribstein (Aug. 26) and Tom Kirkendall (Aug. 29) comment.
Passport-grabbing counsel
Consumers who need protection from their lawyers dept.: “A Staten Island, N.Y., judge has ordered an attorney to return the passport of her Sri Lankan client, comparing the lawyer’s refusal to give back the passport until she is paid her fees to holding the client hostage.” It would seem that passport-withholding is by no means an unknown tactic for lawyers wishing to make sure their fees get paid; in a 1987 decision from the Southern District of New York, U.S. v. Bakhtiar, a federal court even opined that it saw that it saw “nothing unethical or shocking” about the practice. However, Civil Court Judge Philip S. Straniere in his unreported small claims opinion disagreed with the reasoning of Bakhtiar. The client in the case, who had retained the lawyer in a child custody proceeding, was named was Chandrani Goonewardene; Judge Straniere declined to release the lawyer’s name in his opinion, “instead referring to her by the pseudonym ‘Amanda Bonner.’ (Amanda Bonner is also the name of the attorney played by Katharine Hepburn in the film ‘Adam’s Rib.’)” (Mark Fass, “Judge Orders Attorney to Return Passport Held in Fee Dispute”, New York Law Journal, Aug. 23).
Milberg’s donations
AG Lockyer joins California french-fry suit
Bill Lockyer has thrown the power of the state of California and its taxpayers behind the litigation lobby’s attempt to extract money from just about every food manufacturer over the alleged dangers of acrylamide. We’ve been covering these suits for years: see Apr. 6, 2004 and links therein. Of course, if every single food product and commercial building structure contains a Proposition 65 warning, the net effect is to make the real important warnings, like those on cigarette packages, less meaningful, rather than to warn people of the uncertain link between french fries and minimally elevated risks of cancer, a risk dwarfed in health effects by the difference between french fries with and without trans-fats. The press coverage universally makes no attempt to parse the studies on the subject. The fact that the press-hungry and politically ambitious Lockyer filed his suit relatively quietly on a Friday—and sued only national fast-food chains, without including two popular local chains that also serve french fries—for Saturday news coverage suggests that he’s doing this as a favor for some trial-lawyer buddies and is hoping to avoid public embarrassment. This is a good opportunity for the blogosphere to prove its stuff. And will all the Democrats who claim to be part of the “reality-based community” and correctly speak out against Republican junk science like “intelligent design” raise their voices when it’s a Democrat using junk science for corporation-bashing, or is science only to be used when it can embarrass Bush? We shall see. (Tim Reiterman, “Carcinogen Warning Sought for Fries, Chips”, LA Times, Aug. 27). Other Lockyer coverage.
Crowe phone throw dough, cont’d
Actor Russell Crowe “has officially reached a settlement with the Manhattan hotel clerk he hit with a phone, a spokeswoman for the star confirmed…” According to sources who talked to the New York Daily News, “the offer was in the low six figures — a far cry from the $11 million a British tabloid claimed the ‘Cinderella Man’ star was ready to pay.” (Barbara Ross and Bill Hutchinson, “Crowe & clerk call it a deal”, New York Daily News, Aug. 26). My offer still stands, though.
Doc probed for rude advice to obese woman, cont’d
“Doctors must be able to speak freely to their patients, even if it means hurting their feelings,” opines the Manchester Union-Leader. KevinMD has a link to that editorial, plus a roundup of blog reactions to the news item Ted covered in this space Aug. 25. More: Workers’ Comp Insider (Aug. 31) says the affair is more complicated, and the doctor’s conduct less sympathetic, than portrayed in early press reports. Even should that prove to be the case, the referral to the state AG’s office is at a minimum puzzling.
Canadian bar’s image problems
“Lawyer sanctioned in Holocaust suit”
Yes, it’s Ed Fagan again. This time the much-publicized reparations impresario “has been hit with sanctions that will run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for his handling of a lawsuit seeking recovery from an Austrian bank of the value of artwork looted by the Nazis. Employing unusually harsh language, Southern District of New York Judge Shirley Wohl Kram assessed attorney fees against [Fagan], and also fined him $5,000, finding he had committed champerty and misled her.” (Daniel Wise, New York Law Journal, Aug. 23). For Fagan’s earlier misadventures, see Jun. 4 and many links from there.