Imagine that you are a worker on one of your state’s biggest egg farms. During the course of your employment, you have witnessed and documented, in photographs and video, hundreds of instances of callous abuse resulting in serious injury and even death to the animals. Many of the workers there deliberately injure the hens and the farm’s management is apathetic, as long as production stays up. Who is the criminal here? You are. At least, that is the case in […] (More →)

As part of the rippling effect of the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, the Republic of Cyprus suffered from a severe decline in tourism and shipping—its two largest sources of revenue—leading to a 1.67% decrease in economic growth in 2009.  This led to high rates of unemployment, increased state debt to cover unemployment benefits, and ultimately a recession.  In the past four years, the economy in Cyprus has not only failed to regain its pre-2009 form, but has […] (More →)

The $24.4 billion dollar proposed buyout of Dell has raised a number of eyebrows since its announcement on February 5th. The proposal to take Dell private, led by its CEO and founder, Michael Dell, and the private-equity firm Silver Lake is notable as both the largest tech-related buyout ever as well as the largest proposed buyout since the financial crisis. In the months since the deal’s announcement, however, the proposal has attracted increasing opposition from some of Dell’s most prominent […] (More →)

On Monday, March 25, 2013, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Federal Trade Commission v. Watson Pharmaceuticals, where it will pass judgment on the validity of “reverse-payment settlements” (also known as “pay-for-delay” settlements) in the pharmaceutical industry. An opinion is expected by the close of the Court’s term this summer. The facts behind this case are typical of reverse-payment settlement cases. Solvay Pharmaceuticals acquired the marketing rights to the testosterone gel AndroGel, and was granted a patent for the […] (More →)

Judges fancy the term “reasonable.” Some even believe reasonable can have an objective component to it. Given its widespread acceptance, a person unfamiliar with the intricacies of the American legal system would sensibly conclude that the term reasonable has a quantifiable component. This belief is sadly mistaken. The facade of reasonableness is particularly abused in lost profits doctrine. All jurisdictions state that reasonable certainty is a basic requirement to prove lost profits, even if some courts further apply various extensions […] (More →)

On February 5, 2013, Dell, Inc. announced a plan to take itself private, with Michael Dell, the company’s founder and CEO, leading the way.  The computer giant’s statement confirmed rumors first murmured in early January that the struggling PC manufacturer would seek to stem the tide of its lagging sales outside the strictures imposed on publically traded firms.  Nevertheless, while Michael Dell’s motivation may have been to take the company off shaky ground, the chronology of events since the announcement […] (More →)

In the past half-century, rapid globalization has resulted in an increasingly interconnected business world facing increasingly complex problems. One such problem for the United States government has been the regulation of Chinese State-Owned Enterprises raising capital by listing on U.S. stock exchanges. What is a State-Owned Enterprise? The State-Owned Enterprise (“SOE”) is a company controlled by the government and administered according to State plan. Practically speaking, this means they are companies where the primary or controlling shareholder is the State, […] (More →)