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A three-judge appeals court panel on Thursday questioned the U.S. Justice Department’s challenge to a lower court approval’s of AT&T Inc’s $85.4 billion acquisition of Time Warner.

“Where is the clear error?” U.S. Judge Judith Rogers asked Justice Department attorney Mike Murray, who called the lower court’s approval of the deal “myopic.”

“You have to show that there’s a harm to competition,” Judge David Sentelle said at another point. “Remember where the burdens are,” he added later.

Continue reading “U.S. appeals court hears arguments on stopping AT&T purchase of Time-Warner”

A justice foundation created by George and Amal Clooney is set to announce on Wednesday a global initiative called TrialWatch to monitor court trials where there is a risk of abuse and to rank countries’ judicial systems.

Working with the Columbia University Law School and the American Bar Association, the TrialWatch initiative will train an international network of court monitors, including non-lawyers, whose reports will be used by legal experts to grade trials according to international standards, several lawyers and academics involved with TrialWatch said.

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Email accounts for a campaign group supporting Republicans candidates running for the U.S. House of Representatives were hacked before this year’s congressional elections, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

Hackers used National Republican Congressional Committee credentials to access a “small number” of email accounts at the organization, which is also known as the NRCC, said the person, who was not authorized to discuss details of the attack.

NRCC spokesman Ian Prior confirmed the group was the victim of a cyberattack by an unknown party, but disputed that stolen passwords were used.

Continue reading “U.S. Republican campaign emails hacked months before election”

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Monday appeared reluctant to further limit the scope of who can be held liable for violating laws that protect investors from securities fraud as they weighed an appeal by a New York investment banker who had been banned from the industry.

Only eight of the nine justices were present to hear arguments over a ruling by a Washington-based federal appeals court that found Francis Lorenzo liable for participating in a scheme to defraud investors when he sent misleading emails about a financially-troubled clean energy company.

Most of the justices seemed to agree with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which had enforced the securities laws against Lorenzo, while Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, seemed sympathetic to him.

Continue reading “U.S. top court signals it will buttress anti-fraud securities laws”

The United States is pushing for a new global aviation standard by late 2019 that would expand the collection of passenger records from airlines, a high-ranking state department official said on Friday, in a move that would help combat terrorism while raising privacy concerns.

Nathan Sales, the U.S. counter-terrorism coordinator, urged the United Nations’ aviation agency in Montreal “to act with all deliberate speed” to come up with a new standard that would vastly expand the number of countries that collect passenger information like frequent flyer numbers, email addresses and credit card booking information.

The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) cannot impose rules on governments, but wields clout through its safety and security standards which are made mandatory through domestic legislation passed by its 192 member states.

Continue reading “U.S. wants new aviation standard to expand passenger data collection”