The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in Lorenzo v. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which will decide whether false statements alone can violate SEC regulations. Francis Lorenzo brought this case against the SEC after the SEC charged him with violating 17 CFR § 240.10b-5 and subsequently fined him $15,000 and banned him from [...]
The US Supreme Court heard oral arguments Monday in Dawson v. Steager, which questions how the West Virginia tax code will affect federal employees. James Dawson retired from the US Marshal Service in 2008 and filed under West Virginia code 11-21-12(c)(6) to have his retirement income exempted from taxes as a former law enforcement officer [...]
Judge Edgardo Ramos, of the US District Court in Manhattan, issued a permanent injunction on Friday, blocking the Department of Justice (DOJ) from enforcing three immigration-related conditions on grants distributed in eight jurisdictions. This order stops short of a nationwide ban from the grants conditions, and only impacts New York City, the state of New York, New Jersey, [...]
The US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from three conservation groups challenging President Trump’s plan to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border over potential environmental concerns. The Center for Biological Diversity, the Animal Legal Defense Fund, and Defenders of Wildlife alleged in their lawsuits that Section 102(c) of the 1996 Illegal Immigration [...]
Mahinda Rajapaksa, appointed Prime Minister of Sri Lanka last month, has been barred from taking office by a Colombo court’s order on Monday. The Appeals Court asked that he reappear by December 12 with justification for his taking office since Parliament voted against him twice and announced that no cabinet could function under him if [...]
A human rights law group on Monday released a report that called for a criminal tribunal to be established, or granted jurisdiction, to investigate international crimes committed against Rohingya Muslims. The Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), contracted by the US State Department to investigate crimes against Rohingya Muslims, undertook a comprehensive human rights [...]
A Dutch district court on Monday denied Emile Ratelband’s request to change his date of birth to reflect the age that he says he feels, 49, rather than his actual age, 69. The court stated that its main reason in denying the request was that “unlike the situation with respect to a change in registered [...]
The US Supreme Court on Monday remanded a dispute over mandatory state bar association fees to the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Fleck v. Wetch challenges mandatory fees attorneys pay to the State Bar Association of North Dakota. Arnold Fleck disputes the use a portion of his fees to support a political ballot measure [...]
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday that Vice Media (Vice) must hand over information its journalist Ben Makuch gathered from suspected terrorist and Canadian citizen Farah Mohamed Shirdon, who left Canada allegedly to join the Islamic State (IS) group. The case concerned three articles written by Makuch in 2014 based on conversations he had with Shirdon detailing [...]
George Higginbotham, a former Senior Congressional Affairs Specialist in the US Department of Justice (DOJ), pleaded guilty Friday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia to conspiracy to make false statements to a bank. The former DOJ employee admitted to facilitating the transfer of millions of dollars meant as payments to lobbyists who [...]
