June 13, 2007 nº 501 - Vol. 5
“The only way to succeed is to make people hate you.”
Josef von Sternberg
In today’s Grammatigalhas: the Thompson memorandum (McNulty) on criminal corporate liability and the consequences on attorney-client privilege and work-product protection.
*** We would like to say ‘thank you’ to every one of our numerous readers who expressed their gratitude on the occasion of the 500th edition of Migalhas International.
GOP blocks Gonzales no-confidence vote
Republicans blocked a Senate no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Monday, rejecting a symbolic Democratic effort to force him from office amid blistering criticism from lawmakers in both parties. The 53-38 vote to move the resolution to full debate fell seven short of the 60 required. In bringing the matter up, Democrats dared Republicans to vote their true feelings about an attorney general who has alienated even the White House's strongest defenders by bungling the firings of federal prosecutors and claiming not to recall the details.
Bush pushes immigration overhaul
Bush has made a personal appeal to his own party's senators in an attempt to win support for controversial immigration reforms. Speaking after a rare visit to Senate Republicans on Capitol Hill, Bush said he understood there were divisions within the party, but urged action. "Now is the time to get it done," he said. "The status quo is unacceptable."
Letter to the editor
Dear MI,
Article "Studies say death penalty deters crime" (MI 500) is sophistic. While it is simple to check how many murders occurred after a killer is set free from jail, it is impossible to measure how many lives such person might have saved, how many children such person gave birth to, and how many lives such children and the children of such children will save. I am not suggesting such measurements should be made. But this impossibility disqualifies the defended thesis. Rgds, Rodrigo da Gama Bahia. Contracts Analyst at Schlumberger.
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1 - Court rules against home care workers. (Read more)
2 - Push on to solve old civil rights cases. (Read more)
3 - Glaxo faces U.S. investor lawsuit over Avandia. (Read more)
4 - EU court backs Anheuser on Bud non-beer trademarkm. (Read more)
5 - Alstom wins $441M to build Brazil plant. (Read more)
6 - Major shipowner challenges fines for pollution in U.S. Courts. (Read more)
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Yahoo's China policy rejected
Yahoo shareholders have rejected plans for the company to adopt a policy that opposes censorship on the internet. Proposals to set up a human rights committee which would review its policies around the world, specifically China, were also heavily defeated. Yahoo has been criticized by human rights groups since 2005 for its role in turning over some political dissidents' e-mails.
China criticised over secret laws
China's state secret laws are "complex and opaque" and reinforce the rule of the Communist Party, a report published by Human Rights in China says. Extensive restrictions not only affect the rights of ordinary people, but also have an impact on businesses and global policy makers. A culture of secrecy means it is often difficult for people to know for sure when they are violating a law. China brushed aside the criticism, saying its citizens come first.
Legal Meaning Is Not Everyday Meaning
Fifth Amendment
An amendment to the Constitution of the United States, ratified in 1791, that deals with the rights of accused criminals by providing for due process of law, forbidding double jeopardy (being tried twice for the same offense), and stating that no person may be forced to testify as a witness against himself or herself.
Fifth Amendment capitalist
Neologism. An American executive who invokes the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to avoid giving testimony regarding possible wrongdoing at his or her company.
Everyday “Legal” Jargon
The Thompson Memorandum
The collapse of Enron provoked increased governmental efforts to suppress criminal activity in the business environment. Congress enacted several pieces of new criminal legislation addressing corporate wrongdoing and the Department of Justice redoubled its efforts to enforce the laws against white collar crime. Controversy has surrounded the adequacy and propriety of this response, and sustained criticism of some of its features recently led to changes in the Organizational Sentencing Guidelines and Department of Justice policy.
Corporate law abounds with legal fictions, commencing with the notion of a corporation, which is itself a creation of the State. One legal construct that is commonplace in corporate law is that governing criminal corporate liability. Under current federal law, a corporation, no matter how large or small, is criminally liable if a member of that societal construct commits a crime within the scope of employment and at least in part with the motive to benefit the company. The theory that has evolved is simple and seemingly logical: a corporation, being merely a person in law only, and not a real one, can act only through its employees for whom it should be held responsible. Thus, if criminal corporate liability is to exist at all, then the corporation must be responsible for the actions of its employees through which it acts.
In 2003, the DOJ issued revised guidelines, known as the Thompson Memorandum, for its prosecutors as to the factors to be considered in connection with whether or not to bring a criminal case against a corporation. In 2006 McNulty announced revisions to these guidelines. The new McNulty Memorandum revises portions of the 2003 Thompson Memorandum, which included business record turnover as a factor prosecutors could use in determining whether corporations were cooperating with investigations, by now requiring prosecutors to receive McNulty's approval before seeking investigative facts gathered by corporate counsel and protected by attorney-client privilege.
The Thompson Memorandum sets forth nine factors for determining whether to charge a corporation with criminal offenses:
(1) the nature and seriousness of the offense;
(2) the pervasiveness of the wrongdoing within the corporation, including complicity or condemnation by corporate management;
(3) history of similar conduct;
(4) timely and voluntary disclosure of the wrongdoing and willingness to cooperate;
(5) the existence and adequacy of a corporate compliance program;
(6) remedial action, including efforts to implement or improve a compliance program, to replace responsible management, to discipline or terminate wrongdoers, to pay restitution, and to cooperate with relevant government agencies;
(7) collateral consequences of criminal liability, including disproportionate harm to nonculpable persons;
(8) the adequacy of prosecution of culpable individuals to effect law enforcement policies; and
(9) the adequacy of civil or regulatory remedies.
The Thompson Memorandum contains general language to suggest that the factors are “illustrative” and not a scorecard, and that “some or all of these factors may or may not apply to specific cases, and in some cases one factor may override all others.” With this perspective, a fair argument can be, and clearly was made that a criminal prosecution of KPMG would have had a “disproportionate harm to nonculpable persons,” set forth as the seventh listed factor. Clearly the destruction of Andersen, a firm with tens of thousands of employees worldwide, had grave consequences for “nonculpable persons.” Moreover, the destruction of Andersen reduced from five to four the number of accounting firms perceived as capable of performing necessary audit work for public companies. The economic consequences of a criminal indictment of KPMG on “nonculpable persons” would have extended far beyond the company and its employees and was in turn arguably brought about by the very position the government took against Andersen.
The Thompson Memo explains that "the critical factors in evaluating any program are whether the program is adequately designed for maximum effectiveness in preventing and detecting wrongdoing by employees and whether corporate management is enforcing the program or is tacitly encouraging or pressuring employees to engage in misconduct to achieve business objectives." The ultimate goal is to "determine whether a corporation's compliance program is merely a 'paper program' or whether it was designed and implemented in an effective manner."
In the end, the Thompson Memorandum is thin on specific compliance guidance. Given its brief nature as well that it applies to a wide array of crimes and organizations, detailed compliance was beyond its scope. Instead, the Memorandum refers the reader to the sentencing guidelines "for a detailed review of . . . factors concerning corporate compliance programs." The explicit suggestion is that the Department of Justice does not expect anything different from the guidelines' seven steps.
Finally, the Thompson Memorandum gives some sobering qualifications to its recognition of compliance programs:
The existence of a compliance program is not sufficient, in and of itself, to justify not charging a corporation for criminal conduct undertaken by its officers, directors, employees, or agents. Indeed, the commission of such crimes in the face of a compliance program may suggest that the corporate management is not adequately enforcing its program. In addition, the nature of some crimes, e.g., antitrust violations, may be such that national law enforcement policies mandate prosecutions of corporations notwithstanding the existence of a compliance program.
Further, an off-the-shelf compliance program just won’t do:
Compliance programs should be designed to detect the particular types of misconduct most likely to occur in a particular corporation's line of business. Many corporations operate in complex regulatory environments outside the normal experience of criminal prosecutors. Accordingly, prosecutors should consult with relevant federal and state agencies with the expertise to evaluate the adequacy of a program's design and implementation. For instance, state and federal banking, insurance, and medical boards, the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Securities and Exchange Commission have considerable experience with compliance programs and can be very helpful to a prosecutor in evaluating such programs. In addition, the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division, the Commercial Litigation Branch of the Civil Division, and the Environmental Crimes Section of the Environment and Natural Resources Division can assist US. Attorneys' Offices in finding the appropriate agency office and in providing copies of compliance programs that were developed in previous cases.
Besides repeating the nine factors, the DOJ's new guidelines address the circumstances under which prosecutors may seek waiver of the attorney-client and work-product protections and how prosecutors should view a corporation’s advancement of attorneys' fees to individuals.
Attorney-Client Privilege and Work-Product Protection
The McNulty Memorandum establishes a formal procedure for prosecutors seeking waiver of the attorney-client and work-product protections. Recognizing that "the attorney-client and work product protections serve an extremely important function in the U.S. legal system," the new guidelines require that before asking corporations for a waiver of privilege, prosecutors must first determine that there is a "legitimate need" for the information based on the following factors:
(1) the likelihood and degree to which the privileged information will benefit the government’s investigation;
(2) whether the information sought can be obtained in a timely and complete fashion by using alternative means that do not require waiver;
(3) the completeness of the voluntary disclosure already provided; and
(4) the collateral consequences to a corporation of a waiver.
If a "legitimate need" exists for disclosure of protected information, the McNulty Memorandum requires the prosecutor to seek the least intrusive waiver necessary to conduct a complete and thorough investigation. Also, before requesting a privilege waiver from the corporation, the prosecutor must first obtain formal written approval to make the request. (Formal approval is not needed if the corporation voluntarily offers privileged documents without a government request.)
The specific procedure for obtaining approval differs depending on the type of information sought, which the McNulty Memorandum segregates into two categories. "Category I" information is factual information relating to the underlying misconduct and includes, for example, "copies of key documents, witness statements, or purely factual interview memoranda . . . and factual summaries, or reports (or portions thereof)" documenting facts uncovered during an internal investigation by counsel. To request a corporation’s waiver of privilege for Category I information, prosecutors must obtain written authorization from their United States Attorney. The request to the United States Attorney must set forth the “legitimate need” for the information and the scope of the waiver sought. The United States Attorney in turn must consult with the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. After receiving approval, the United States Attorney must communicate the waiver request to the corporation in writing.
In "rare circumstances" and "only if the purely factual information provides an incomplete basis to conduct a thorough investigation," prosecutors may seek a further disclosure of "Category II" privileged information. Category II information consists of attorney-client communications or non-factual work-product, and includes legal advice given to the corporation "before, during, and after the underlying misconduct occurred." To request a waiver of privilege for Category II information, the United States Attorney must obtain written authorization from the Deputy Attorney General. The United States Attorney's request must set forth the "legitimate need" for the information and the scope of the waiver sought. As with Category I information, the United States Attorney must communicate the request for a waiver to the corporation in writing.
Excluded from Category II information are certain communications between counsel and the corporation where a privilege would not apply or may have been waived:
(1) legal advice contemporaneous to the underlying misconduct when the corporation or an employee relies upon an advice-of-counsel defense; and
(2) legal advice/communications furthering a crime or fraud.
In these two instances, a request for disclosure would be subject to the procedure for Category I information.
The McNulty Memorandum still allows prosecutors to consider a corporation's response to the government's request for waiver of privilege regarding Category I information in determining whether a corporation has cooperated in the government's investigation. Prosecutors "must not," however, count against a corporation its refusal to provide a waiver for privileged Category II information. Nevertheless, "prosecutors may always favorably consider a corporation's acquiescence to the government's waiver request in determining whether a corporation has cooperated in the government's investigation."
According to the ABA, the Justice Department’s new corporate charging guidelines for federal prosecutors fall far short of what is needed to prevent further erosion of fundamental attorney-client privilege, work product, and employee protections during government investigations. They are but a modest improvement over the Department’s previous policy as outlined in the Thompson Memorandum. Instead of eliminating the improper Department practice of requiring companies to waive their privileges in return for cooperation credit, the new policy announced by McNulty merely requires high level Department approval before waiver requests can be made. As such, the McNulty Memorandum threatens to further erode the ability of corporate leaders to seek and obtain the legal guidance they need to effectively comply with the law. In addition, the new policy does not fully protect employees’ legal rights in that it continues to allow prosecutors to force companies to take punitive actions against their employees in some cases in return for cooperation credit, long before any guilt is established.
Advancement of Attorneys' Fees
The McNulty Memorandum also addresses the subject of advancement of attorneys' fees to corporate employees. Prosecutors generally are not permitted to consider a corporation’s advancement of attorneys' fees when deciding whether to charge the corporation. The McNulty Memorandum acknowledges that state laws and contractual obligations may require corporations to advance legal fees and states that compliance with those laws and contracts "cannot be considered a failure to cooperate." In rare instances, however, the McNulty Memorandum states that the totality of the circumstances may show that advancement of fees was intended to impede a criminal investigation. In those circumstances, advancement of fees may be considered by prosecutors as a factor in their charging decisions, but only if approval to do so is first obtained from the Deputy Attorney General.
Thompson Memorandum -- This Is How You Do It
Here is an example on how one United States Attorney (USA) applied the Thompson Memorandum factors in deciding not to prosecute an organization.
The following are all excerpts from a press release issued by the United:
States Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York. The press release begins by describing the USA’s decision as well as the company’s alleged wrongdoing:
David N. Kelley, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has decided not to prosecute Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and The “Shell” Transport and Trading Company, PLC (collectively “Shell”) for conduct related to its material overstatement of proved hydrocarbon reserves reported in public filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in 2002 and prior years.
In a series of public announcements between January and May 2004, Shell disclosed that it had overstated its proved hydrocarbon reserves reported as of year-end 2002 by approximately 23%. In 2004, these overstated reserves were recategorized by Shell to comply with the definition of “proved” reserves set forth by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission in its applicable regulations. In light of those announcements, the United States Attorney’s Office began an investigation into how these reserves came to be booked by Shell and reported to the public in the Company’s annual filings with the SEC in 2002 and prior years.
The press release next describes the basis of the decision not to prosecute Shell:
The decision by the United States Attorney not to prosecute was based on the factors set forth in former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson’s memorandum, Principles of Federal Prosecution of Business Organizations (the “Thompson Memorandum”). The decision was based on, among others, the following factors: Shell’s full cooperation with the Government’s investigation; Shell’s settlement of an enforcement action by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), a settlement which included Shell’s consent to a cease-and-desist order finding violations of the antifraud, internal controls, record-keeping, and reporting provisions of the federal securities laws, arising out of the same conduct, and its payment of a $120 million civil monetary penalty; Shell’s commitment as part of the SEC settlement to take substantial remedial actions to enhance the accuracy of its reserves reporting and compliance, including its commitment to spend $5 million to develop and implement a comprehensive corporate compliance program; and the negative effect that charges against Shell would have on the companies’ innocent employees and legitimate activities.
Shell self-reported the material misstatements of its proved oil and gas reserves to the public and to the Securities and Exchange Commission in January 2004 and then undertook a comprehensive internal investigation of the matter, handled by counsel to Shell’s Group Audit Committee. That investigation resulted in the Company requesting and receiving the resignations of the Chairman of Shell’s Committee of Managing Directors, and the CEO of the Company’s Exploration and Production Unit.
In addition, Shell fully cooperated with the Government’s investigation. Its cooperation took the form of, among other things, providing the Government with requested documents gathered from around the globe, making employees based outside the United States available for interviews with Government investigators in the United States, waiving applicable privileges in order to make available to the Government the results of the Group Audit Committee’s internal investigation of the reserves issues, and limiting the distribution of the report of that internal investigation so as not to compromise the Government’s ongoing investigation. The Company identified for the Government early in the investigation the documents that it believed to be most relevant for a complete understanding of its own conduct, and produced those and other documents to the Government in electronically searchable format to permit efficient investigation by the Government.
On August 24, 2004, Shell consented to the entry of an SEC cease-and-desist order, which set forth the substantial remedial efforts Shell had undertaken to enhance its reserves reporting and compliance, including replacing its internal reserves auditor and improving controls on reserves reporting. As set forth in the SEC cease-and-desist order, Shell’s internal reserves auditor, charged with responsibility for ensuring Shell’s compliance with reserves reporting requirements, was a part-time contractor who received little or no training in the regulations against which he was to measure Shell’s reserves disclosures. Importantly, the remedial measures agreed to by
Shell in its settlement with the SEC included a comprehensive set of actions designed to improve the quality, independence, and thoroughness of the reserves audit function within Shell.
Because Shell has cooperated fully with the Government’s investigation, has implemented substantial remedial efforts to enhance its reserves reporting and compliance, and has paid a $120 million civil penalty to the SEC, the public interest has been sufficiently vindicated. Moreover, criminal prosecution would likely have a severe and unintended disproportionate economic impact upon thousands of innocent Shell employees. Accordingly, Mr. KELLEY stated that, after carefully balancing all of the factors set forth in the Thompson Memorandum, criminal prosecution of Shell would not serve the public interest.
In sum, the big items on the list are:
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Voluntary detection and reporting
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Prompt remedial action
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Prompt measures to prevent future recurrence
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Full cooperation with the government, including making available documents and witnesses, and waiving applicable privileges
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"A $120 million civil penalty to the SEC"
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Shell's “commitment to spend $5 million to develop and implement a comprehensive corporate compliance program”
This list tracks what government lawyers are saying at most compliance conferences. Also, note that the SEC had already exacted a $120 million pound of flesh from Shell, perhaps lessening the USA’s need to take action.
The last item on the list is the most interesting one. The wrongdoing involved financial reserves, yet the press release notes that Shell is implementing a “comprehensive corporate compliance program.” This suggests that wrongdoing regarding a single legal risk may trigger a government expectation (or demand?) that the organization re-evaluate its entire compliance program. This greatly ups the ante for a single compliance failure.
As If Your Life Depended On It... or How to get to Carnegie Hall? - Practice, practice
All-singing, all-dancing
Of a machine, system etc., very advanced with a great many modern features, sometimes not all necessary. The phrase was inspired by the first Hollywood musical, Broadway Melody in 1929, the era in which sound first came to the movies, which was advertised with posters proclaiming: 'The New Wonder of the Screen! ALL TALKING, ALL SINGING, ALL DANCING, Dramatic Sensation!' The phrase caught on immediately, being quickly adopted by rival film studios. In the 1970s, the computer world adopted the phrase to hype up new software and subsequently the expression has been linked with anything that is considered to be laden with the latest features.
Precedence / Precedents
Although these words sound the same, they work differently. The pop star is given precedence over the factory worker at the entrance to the dance club. “Precedents” is just the plural of “precedent": “If we let the kids adopt that rattlesnake as a pet and agree to let them take it for a walk in Death Valley, we’ll be setting some bad precedents.”
“Lite” Spelling
Attempts to “reform” English spelling to render it more phonetic have mostly been doomed to failure—luckily for us. These proposed changes, if widely adopted, would make old books difficult to read and obscure etymological roots, which are often a useful guide to meaning. A few, like “lite” for “light,” “nite” for “night,” and “thru” for “through” have attained a degree of popular acceptance, but none of these should be used in formal writing. “Catalog” has become an accepted substitute for “catalogue,” but I don’t like it and refuse to use it. “Analog” has triumphed in technical contexts, but humanists are still more likely to write “analogue.”
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Skanska
Aparece un testigo de identidad reservada en el caso Skanska y revela, supuestamente, detalles desconocidos de las maniobras del escándalo de evasión impositiva que involucra a la multinacional sueca en Argentina. El juez de la causa López Biscayart espera el pronunciamiento de la Fiscalía para incluir nuevo personaje en el Programa Nacional de Protección de Testigos e Imputados, Ley 25.764 de junio de 2003. Por segunda vez se postergó la declaración indagatoria del ex gerente de Skanska, Alegrandro Gerlero.
Aluar
El Ministerio de Trabajo de Argentina instruyó la conciliación obligatoria en el conflicto salarial entre la Unión Obrera de la Construcción (UOM) y la fabricante de Aluminio Aluar, una de las más grandes del mercado argentino que inició un ambisioso plan de expansión con una inversión de 850 millones de dólares en Puerto Madryn con el objeto de duplicar su producción de 275 mil toneladas a 540 mil.
Extradición
La fiscal de la Corte Suprema de Chile, Mónica Maldonado, recomendó extradictar al ex presidente peruano Alberto Fujimori por el delito de usurpación de funciones en uno de los casos por los cuales es requerido por la justicia peruana. Fujimori se encuentra en detención domiciliaria desde el viernes pasado. El pleno de la Corte aun no se pronuncio.
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Judges Say U.S. Can't Hold Man as ‘Combatant’
A federal appeals court ruled that the president may not declare civilians in this country “enemy combatants” and have the military hold them indefinitely. The court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, said a fundamental principle is at stake: military detention of someone who had lawfully entered the United States and established connections here, it said, violates the Constitution. “To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians,” Judge Motz wrote, “even if the president calls them ‘enemy combatants,’ would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution — and the country.” “We refuse to recognize a claim to power,” Judge Motz added, “that would so alter the constitutional foundations of our republic.”
EU agrees DNA data-sharing system
European interior ministers have agreed on a new system to help police across the EU share DNA, fingerprint and car registration data of criminal suspects.
Police in one country will be able to check online for matches on other countries' databases, once the system is up and running. They will still have to ask national authorities to supply full details. The agreement incorporates most of the Treaty of Pruem - signed by seven EU states in 2005 - into EU law.
IPO Expected to Draw Billions for Blackstone Execs
One of the most powerful private equity firms is selling shares to the public. About 10 percent of Blackstone Group will be made available to investors in an initial public offering later this month, and key executives are expected to get a windfall.
American buys slices of South America
Douglas Tompkins, an American multimillionaire who founded the North Face and Esprit clothing line,s says he is trying to save the planet by buying bits of it. First he purchased a huge swath of southern Chile, and now he's hoping to save the northeast wetlands of neighboring Argentina. He has snapped up more than half a million acres of the Esteros del Ibera, a vast Argentine marshland teeming with wildlife. Tompkins is a hero to some for his environmental stewardship. Others resent his land purchases as a foreign challenge to their national patrimony. Tompkins said industrialized agriculture is chewing up big chunks of Argentina's fragile marshland and savanna, and that essential topsoil is disappearing as a result. Tompkins insists he'll eventually return the land to both governments to be preserved as nature reserves or parks, but will hold onto it for now "as a very good example of what private conservation can do."
New Lawyer Search Web Site Stirs Controversy
Check out Avvo.com, a new site that rates and profiles lawyers. It “marks the first time attorney ratings have been available for every attorney and the first time that detailed profiles and disciplinary information for those attorneys have been available in a single place,” the company says. To gather information, Avvo, which is free, says it scours state courts, bar associations and lawyers’ websites. “In addition, consumers can submit client ratings and lawyers can endorse each other and upload content to their profiles so that users can see a complete picture of any attorney,” says the company. Avvo currently has the goods on attorneys in Arizona, California, D.C., Georgia, Illinois, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington; more states will follow. In a Seattle P-I story from Saturday, lawyer John Henry Browne, called the Avvo service a “joke” and said that the poor rating has damaged his reputation and business. Avvo had cited an admonition Browne received from the state bar in 2005 over compensation issues. Browne told the paper the admonition is a minor transgression that shouldn’t tarnish his practice, noting that has received high rankings from Martindale-Hubbell and Best Lawyers in America. The Web site that rates lawyers is 'riddled with bizarre errors'. Click here to read the article.
US warns firms trading with Iran
The US is threatening to get much tougher with international energy companies that do business with Iran. Oil firms may face fines and other penalties if they sign deals to develop Iranian reserves of oil and gas. The statement marks an escalation of US financial pressure aimed at persuading Tehran to abandon alleged plans to develop nuclear weapons.
EU Court Upholds Anheuser Trademarks
A European Union court upheld several trademarks granted to St. Louis brewer Anheuser-Busch Cos., rejecting appeals from its Czech rival, Budejovicky Budvar NP. The two brewers have fought over ownership of the "Budweiser" name since 1911. Budvar, which is owned by the Czech government, says the name has been associated with beer made in the vicinity of Ceské Budejovice since about 1265. Anheuser argues it started using the Budweiser name in 1876, before Budejovicky Budvar was founded in 1895. Anheuser in 1996 applied for several EU-wide trademarks and was granted most of them over Budvar's objections.
Nuremberg trials prosecutor slams Guantanamo military commissions
A US Nuremberg trials prosecutor denounced the US military commissions at Guantanamo Bay in an interview with Reuters published Monday. Henry King Jr. , now in his 80s but still a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said the commissions violated the principles of fairness established during the trials of Nazi leaders and were contrary to the spirit of the Geneva Conventions , while the Nuremberg trials themselves were notable for giving defendants a presumption of innocence, adequate defense counsel, and the opportunity to see evidence against them. King also told Reuters that his superior at the trials, chief US prosecutor and later Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, would have found allowing hearsay as evidence, allowing some prosecution access to some evidence off limits to the defense, and allowing evidence obtained through coercion to be unjust.
Google ranked 'worst' on privacy
Google has the worst privacy policy of popular net firms, says a report. Rights group Privacy International rated the search giant as "hostile" to privacy in a report ranking web firms by how they handle personal data. The group said Google was leading a "race to the bottom" among net firms many of whom had policies that did little to substantially protect users. In response Google said the report was mistaken and that it worked hard to keep user data confidential. Google Inc. said it will cut the time it keeps personally identifiable search data collected from Web users, in a move to appease a European Union panel that has questioned the company's privacy policies.
Africa
A peek into contents of Kimunya's briefcase
East African Standard, Liberal daily of Nairobi, Kenya
The US limo affair US Justice Dep't tightens noose on MP
Ghanaian Chronicle, Independent, published in Accra, Ghana
Labour seeks show of force in strike
Mail and Guardian, Liberal daily of Johannesburg, South Africa
Magistrate's court summons DEC chief
Times of Zambia, Government-owned daily of Lusaka, Zambia
Americas
Macri refuses debate
Buenos Aires Herald, Liberal daily of Buenos Aires, Argentina
You, too, can be an expert at rigging elections
The Globe And Mail, Centrist daily of Toronto, Canada
The bob woolmer case - 'We were too hasty' - Police rushed to judgement
Jamaica Gleaner, Centrist daily of Kingston, Jamaica
Children die in army roadblock shooting
The Guadalajara Colony Reporter, Independent weekly of Guadalajara, Mexico
Asia Pacific
24 defectors from DPRK still stateless / Prejudice rife in catch-22 situation
Daily Yomiuri, Conservative daily of Tokyo, Japan
76 killed in S. China rainstorms, relief stressed
People's Daily Online, Pro-government daily of Beijing, China
More rain forecast for NSW
The Sydney Morning Herald, Centrist daily of Sydney, Australia
Former US Prez Jimmy Carter Arrives in Kathmandu
The Himalayan Times, Independent daily of Kathmandu, Nepal
No ransom to be paid for Fr. Bossi
The Manila Times, Pro-government daily of Manila, Philippines
SC blocks 6 websites
The Sun, Independent daily of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Europe
EU Countries Reject Call for Hosting Illegal Immigrants
Deutsche Welle, International broadcaster of Cologne, Germany
Plans for staggered car taxation on environmental basis
Helsingin Sanomat, Centrist daily of Helsinki, Finland
Kazakhstan wants Russia to stop Proton launches from Baikonur
Interfax, Government-owned news agency, Moscow, Russia
Coalition deal sealed at 11th hour
Irish Examiner, Centrist daily of Cork, Ireland
Foreign CEOs Say Russia Is On Track
The Moscow Times, Independent, English-language daily of Moscow, Russia
Rules of war shot to pieces
The Scotsman, Centrist daily of Edinburgh, Scotland
Gov't's final word on incursion: NO
Turkish Daily News, Independent daily of Istanbul, Turkey
Middle East
Camp followers
Al-Ahram Weekly, Semi-official, English-language weekly of Cairo, Egypt
Army pushes Fatah al-Islam back, prepares to use heavier artillery
The Daily Star, Independent, English-language daily of Beirut, Lebanon
Minarets of Iraq's Samarra mosque blown up
Gulf News, Independent daily of Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Eight Fatah men killed as Hamas assault continues
Ha'aretz, Liberal daily of Tel Aviv, Israel
President calls for changes in energy production, transmission and consumption
Islamic Republic News Agency, Government-owned news agency of Tehran, Iran
Nine Palestinians killed in Hamas-Fatah Gaza gunfights
The Jerusalem Post, Conservative daily of Jerusalem, Israel
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The messages that appear in this newsletter are for informational purposes only. They are not intended to be and should not be considered legal advice nor substitute for obtaining legal advice from competent, independent, legal counsel in the relevant jurisdiction.
Transmission of this information is not intended to create, and receipt does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. The information contained on this list may or may not reflect the most current legal development.