The Texas Supreme Court has sent back for further adjudication a controversy in which two newspapers had failed to win a summary judgment motion in a libel case filed against them. It took judicial notice that the trial judge in the case had taken a plea bargain on racketeering charges that included having accepted a $8,000 bribe to rule against the newspapers on the motion [ABA Journal]
Posts Tagged ‘newspapers’
Siccing FCPA on Murdoch?
The financial press has been speculating that the police-payoff scandal that has engulfed some of Rupert Murdoch’s British properties will provide fodder for a U.S. prosecution under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Alison Frankel, Reuters: “In an age of limited resources, I’m not convinced that our government should be bending and twisting the FCPA to make a case against News Corp, however sexy and high-profile that case would be. Remember, just about every FCPA case we’ve seen in the recent flurry of prosecutions has involved alleged bribes of officials in countries with inadequate anti-corruption enforcement systems.” More: Bainbridge.
America as “prosecutocracy”
Deposed press lord Conrad Black is taking a public stand against the law enforcement and corporate-governance authorities that put him behind bars. [Andrew McCarthy/The New Criterion, earlier]
Argentina moves to take control of newsprint business
Economic liberty intertwined with civil liberty, part 7,914,886: “The paper used to produce newspapers came under government control in Argentina on Thursday, in a long-sought victory for President Cristina Fernandez in her dispute with the country’s opposition media,” reported AP last month. More from the BBC, and earlier from my Cato colleague Juan Carlos Hidalgo.
Independent papers in the South American republic are quite right to fear for their future, if earlier ventures into government newsprint control are any indication. Dictator Juan Peron used similar methods to muzzle the press, while in Mexico for decades governments of the ruling PRI closely controlled newsprint allocation, a power they were not hesitant to use to bring excessively independent publishers to heel. It came as an important move toward Mexican political liberalization in 1990 when the Salinas government did away with the controls, by allowing free importation of newsprint to any buyers subject to a modest tariff.
Significantly, the measure just signed by Argentine president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner inserts the government directly as a prospective owner of the business and contains provisions on newsprint imports as well. Per Impunity Watch:
Clarins newspaper notes that there are a number of disturbing aspects to the bill. First is the passage that allows for the state to unilaterally take a majority share of the company as the newsprint distribution is now classified a national interest. Also of concerns is the portion that would permit the Economy Minister to determine how much newsprint to import, establishing government quotas that have never before existed….
Concurrent with the media bill passage is a new anti-terrorism bill that classifies certain “economic crimes,” including certain actions taken by the media, as terrorist acts. The bill states that “economic terrorist acts” are those done with an intent to terrorize the general population.
Whether relatedly or not, the Argentine government last year launched prosecutions of independent economists who have asserted that the country’s actual inflation rate is higher than that reported by the government (& Coyote).
Class action: I thought USA Today at my hotel was free
“A guest at a Hilton hotel in Santa Rosa who was upset that he was billed 75 cents for a newspaper he assumed was free has filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the hotel chain, saying he was deceived by a scheme that also hurts the environment.” [San Francisco Chronicle] More: Jeff Bercovici, Forbes.
Objecting to a New York Post cartoon
A judge declines to toss an employment-law suit against the New York Post by an ex-staffer who — among other grievances — says she was retaliated against after denouncing a cartoon as racially insensitive [Romenesko]
“Lower Your Newspaper Advertising Prices, Pay a $21 Million Fine”
Matt Welch scrutinizes a San Francisco “predatory pricing” antitrust verdict that you’d really think would be raising more alarm in publishing, and other, circles. [Reason]
Slowing down the copyright trolls
How to respond to the emergence of assembly-line copyright-suit filers without undermining the right of content owners to stop unauthorized reprints that go beyond fair use? Max Kennerly raises the possibility of steering rights owners into agency complaints or arbitration as an alternative, or at least precondition, to court action. That might slow down the business model of groups like RightHaven, which has demanded in terrorem sums from mom-and-pop bloggers and other infringers and even asked courts to order seizure of the domains of otherwise legitimate target websites.
July 26 roundup
- Emerging newspaper business model: copyright lawsuits against bloggers? [Kravets, Wired, Ron Coleman, TechDirt, PoL]
- Five NYC hospitals to use “health courts” to seek agreements before medical malpractice cases go to trial [WSJ]
- Serpentine asbestos politics behind “California state rock” fracas [Cal Civil Justice, more, PoL, Bailey, earlier here and here]
- From Andrew Grossman: “Feinberg: ‘priests, mayors or even sheriffs could vouch for [BP trust fund] claims of local businesses.’ Has he ever been to Miss, La.?!”
- Va. lawyer, real estate agent sanctioned for “frivolous claims supported by wild speculation” [ABA Journal]
- An injury lawyer reads and reacts to my first book, The Litigation Explosion [Alan Crede]
- Le Corbusier’s writing made him sound like certain pro se litigants [Johnson, PrawfsBlawg]
- “Tip: Photoshopping Self Into Charity Photos Not Likely to Reduce Sentence” [Lowering the Bar, more]
June 24 roundup
- “IP Lawyer Who Spotted Expired Patent on Solo Cup Lid Loses Quest for Trillions in Damages” [ABA Journal, earlier on “false markings” suits here, here, etc.]
- Like we’re surprised: Linda Greenhouse favors sentimental (“Poor Joshua!”) side in 1989 DeShaney case and hopes Elena Kagan does too [NYT Opinionator, my take a few years back]
- Why is Le Monde in financial trouble? For one thing, firing a printing plant employee costs €466,000 [Frédéric Filloux, Monday Note via MargRev]
- “Will these salt peddlers stop at nothing?” Michael Kinsley on NYT sodium-as-next-tobacco coverage [Atlantic Wire]
- “‘Victim’ Gets $4.17 Coupon, Lawyers Get $10 Million Cash”: Expedia class action settlement [John Frith, California Civil Justice Blog]
- Scruggs investigation finally over as feds drop probe of political operative P.L. Blake; several figures in Mississippi scandal are up for release soon from prison [Jackson Clarion Ledger]
- $20 billion Gulf spill fund: “Oil Gushes and Power Rushes” [Sullum, Althouse]
- “NYC Naked Cowboy to Naked Cowgirl: Stop copying me” [AP]