United States v. Booker, Supreme Court of the United States, January 12, 2005 . Excerpt : The question presented in each of these cases is whether an application of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines violated the Sixth Amendment. In each case, the courts below held that binding rules set forth in the Guidelines limited the severity [...]

Leading Wednesday's corporations and securities law news, the SEC will bring an enforcement action against the NYSE for failing to supervise its floor-trading specialists. The action, which is expected to be brought by mid-February, will most likely result in a negotiated settlement of the long-running probe. The SEC is also expected to reach similar agreements [...]

Mark Thatcher , son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, will plead guilty to charges over his involvement in an Equatorial Guinea coup plot, according to BBC reports. Thatcher was arrested by South African officials in August for helping to finance the failed coup attempt in violation of South Africa's Foreign Military Assistance Act [...]

The European Parliament Wednesday overwhelmingly endorsed the first proposed EU constitution . Parliamentarians passed a resolution backing the constitution 500-137 in an initial stage of a ratification process that is expected to last up to two years. Read the European Parliament press release on the vote. The constitution will only come into effect if all [...]

A South Korean appeals court Wednesday acquitted the operators of a Korean-language website that allows users to freely swap song files. Yang Jung-hwan and his brother, Il-hwan, created Soribada South Korea's most popular music-swapping site, in 2000. Prosecutors indicted them in 2001 on criminal charges of aiding copyright infringement, a crime punishable by up to [...]

A 63-year old Sri Lankan man has been released on bail after his initial arrest on charges of attempted to sell his two young granddaughters to foreigners after their home was destroyed, and their mother killed, by the tsunami in December. The UN and international relief agencies have expressed concern about child trafficking in the [...]

The Chilean Court of Appeals on Wednesday approved bail of $3500 for former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet . Pinochet is being tried on nine counts of kidnapping, and one count of homicide which are alleged to have occured during in Chile during his 1973-1990 dictatorship. The court also rejected a request by an Argentine judge [...]

The Russian Duma , the lower house of parliament, approved a bill Wednesday which allows the government to ban foreign visitors who show "disrespect" to the country. Anyone found by a court to have offended Russia's "generally accepted spiritual, cultural and social values" may be barred from entering the country, although the bill does not [...]

The White House announced Wednesday that the US has officially ended its search for biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons in Iraq. White House press secretary Scott McClellan stated that while there is no longer an active search for weapons, "There may be a couple, a few people, that are focused on that," but that "a [...]

Iraqi Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawai acknowledged for the first time Tuesday in a televised address that in "some pockets" of Iraq people would not be able to participate in the national assembly vote scheduled for January 30. The acknowledgement came in the wake of a growing number of attacks against election workers, facilities and [...]