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Corporation & Enterprise Law

[02/08] Ninestar Technology Co., Ltd. v. International Trade Commission
On appeal from an order of the United States International Trade Commission assessing a civil penalty against companies for failure to comply with exclusion and cease and desist orders arising from violation of section 337 of the Tariff Act, the Commission's orders are affirmed, where: 1) the Commission's ruling that its orders were violated with knowledge and in bad faith was supported by substantial evidence and was in accordance with law; 2) the penalty was within the Commission's authority, and in accordance with the legislative purpose, so there was no abuse of discretion in its imposition or its amount; 3) the assessment of joint and several liability of the three defendant entities was commensurate with the evidence of control, commercial relationships, monetary flow, and knowing violation of the Commission's orders; and 4) there was no violation of constitutional structure in the Commission's authority to levy a civil penalty, and no violation of constitutional protections in the procedures followed and the penalty assessed.

[02/03] Lawson v. FMR, LLC
In two separate but related cases under the whistleblower protection provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, alleging unlawful retaliation by employers that are private companies that act under contract as advisers to and managers of mutual funds organized under the Investment Company Act of 1940, the district court's denial of motions to dismiss for failure to state a claim is reversed, as the whistleblower protection afforded by section 806(a) of the Act applies only to the employees of public companies as defined in the Act, and not to an employee of a contractor or subcontractor of a public company reporting suspected violations relating to fraud against shareholders of the public company.

[01/26] The DIRECTV Group, Inc. v. US
In a case involving the calculation and payment of segment closing adjustments associated with a corporation's sale of certain business units that included the transfer of defined benefit pension plans, the decision of the United States Court of Federal Claims granting summary judgment in favor of the corporation is affirmed, where: 1) the Claims Court did not err by calculating segment closing adjustments based on the assets and liabilities of the entire segment, rather than only the assets and liabilities that the corporation retained; and 2) the Claims Court correctly determined that the corporation's segment closing obligations could be satisfied by the cost savings realized by the government in the successor contracts.

[01/24] TIFD III-E, Inc. v. US
In a suit by a taxpayer partner challenging IRS notices of adjustment reallocating a large percentage of the partnership's income for the years 1993 to 1998 to the taxpayer away from two Dutch banks that had purchased an interest in the partnership, and imposing a penalty for underpayment, the district court's judgment in favor of the taxpayer is reversed, where: 1) the banks' interest was not a capital interest for purposes of qualifying them as partners within the meaning of IRC section 704(e)(1); and 2) the taxpayer failed to point to substantial authority supporting its position, so that the government was entitled to impose a penalty on the taxpayer for substantial understatement of income.

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