Leading Thursday's corporations and securities law news, the SEC announced Putnam Investments has been ordered to pay an additional $43 million in fines as part of its punishment for an improper trading scandal. The announcement came after an independent consultant found the trading scandals cost investors in Putnam funds $4.4 million. Read the SEC press [...]

Ellen S. Podgor, Georgia State University College of Law: "With the upcoming release of Martha Stewart from prison, the press is writing of her experiences and future. The Wall Street Journal provides a view of her life in prison here, AP here, and there have been many a story on her upcoming TV show. (see [...]

Halliburton has disclosed in annual 10-K SEC filings that former employees may have engaged in bid rigging on foreign construction projects. Former company consultant and chairman of Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root , Jack Stanley and others allegedly engaged in improper bidding and bribery of Nigerian officials to win a contract for a liquefied [...]

The Canadian government said Thursday it could not appeal Wednesday's decision by a US federal judge in Montana to delay the re-opening of the American market to young Canadian cattle. Canadian cattle imports were stopped last year after a Canadian animal was found to have died of "mad cow disease" . Elizabeth Whiting, from the [...]

Rasim Delic , the former commander of Bosnia's Muslim army during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, pleaded not guilty Thursday in his first appearance before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia at The Hague on charges of violating the laws of war by murder and cruel treatment of ethnic Croat and Serb prisoners. Prosecutors [...]

Lawyers for former Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien filed a motion in Canada's Federal Court Thursday to remove Justice John Gomery from the chairmanship of a judicial commission of inquiry investigating Chretien’s involvement in improper payments made by a defunct national unity program. Last month Gomery refused to step down after Chretien's lawyers alleged that [...]

In Thursday's international brief, two US Senators have called for the UN Security Council to impose heavy sanctions on the Sudanese government for forcing the genocide of thousands in Darfur to end. Senators Sam Brownback and Jon Corzine introduced a bill Wednesday that calls for the US government to push for economic and diplomatic sanctions [...]

Bank of America Corp. said Thursday that it will pay $460.5 million to settle class-action lawsuits brought against it by former shareholders of WorldCom. In a statement released by the company today, Bank of America denies any wrongdoing and emphasized that the settlement will "eliminate the uncertainties, expense and distraction" of protracted litigation. Last year, [...]

Job Training Improvement Act of 2005, passed by the US House of Representatives March 2, 2005 . Read the full text of the bill . Reported in JURIST's Paper Chase here.

China's State Council Thursday responded to US State Department human rights reports issued Monday that had blasted China for human rights abuses by issuing a report of its own on US human rights practices highlighting abuses committed by the US in Iraq. The document, China's sixth annual response to the US publication, cited atrocities committed [...]