Posts Tagged ‘ Goldman Sachs ’

Week Adjourned: 7.17.10

July 17th, 2010. By LucyC

Top Class Actions

Recall on a Rolling Basis. This week’s pharmaceutical lawsuit is against Johnson &Johnson (J&J) alleging fraud and racketeering and demanding compensation for recalled children’s allergy and cold medicines—you remember—the recall that kept going and going—first on April 30thconcerning over 40 different types of kiddies cold meds, and then again in June—’oops—we maybe should have recalled these also…’ and once more for good measure in July.

But it’s not the recall that’s the problem apparently, it’s the fact that J&J’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare and McNeil-PPC had offered consumers coupons for refunds of the recalled products, which consumers have rejected, according to the suit.

According to a report on Bloomberg’s Businessweek, the complaint states the coupons are worthless because McNeil has stopped making the medicines and “wrongly assumes that all consumers will want to purchase the company’s children’s products at some uncertain future date.”

So, the suits seek to proceed on behalf of plaintiffs’ groups for residents of Illinois, Texas and Florida, as well as consumers in the U.S. and Canada, who have bought the drugs since December 2008.

Sweating the Glass Ceiling? 24-hour Fitness also got hit with a class action this week brought by its employees over allegations of discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin and gender.

Apparently this very large chain of fitness facilities—as in 400 fitness centers, Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: 24 Hour Fitness, Goldman Sachs, J&J, Johnson & Johnson
Posted in Week Adjourned | 4424No Comments »Week+Adjourned%3A+7.17.102010-07-17+18%3A00%3A41LucyC

Week Adjourned: 6.26.10

June 26th, 2010. By LucyC

Top Class Actions

Anadarko Petroleum. Who? Just know, if you don’t own shares in Anadarko Petroleum breathe easy. If you do own shares, you better strap yourself in. A shareholder lawsuit seeking class action status was filed against the petroleum company this week, on behalf of anyone who purchased company common stock of between June 12, 2009 and June 9, 2010, inclusive—otherwise known as the “Class Period”.

Anadarko, it seems, owns 25 percent of the Macondo/Deepwater Horizon well—you know—the gusher currently leaking millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico with ramifications so far reaching it’s impossible to get your head around the scope of the disaster.

The suit alleges that Anadarko and certain of its officers, failed to disclose, “among other things:

1) that there was no effective Exploration and Oil Spill Response Plan for Macondo/Deepwater Horizon;

2) that BP implemented drilling procedures solely to cut costs at the expense of safety;

3) that the Company lacked adequate systems of internal, operational or financial controls to maintain adequate insurance reserves or to meet the known or foreseeable risks associated with its deepwater drilling liabilities; and

4) that defendants lacked any reasonable basis to claim that Anadarko was operating according to plan, or that Anadarko could achieve guidance sponsored and/or endorsed by defendants.”

And the allegations go on, mentioning false and misleading statements that were issued concerning the amount of the clean-up, and the company’s liability etc, all which culminated in massive drops in share prices. So it’s off to court they go.

Only one problem, if the company is stripped of millions of dollars in lawsuits, and this goes for BP as well, who’s going to pay for the clean-up, and all the other costs we haven’t even begun to see yet?

And it’s on from Big Oil to Big Banks…those leading lights of the international Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Anadarko, BP, chinese drywall, Goldman Sachs, paxil
Posted in Week Adjourned | 4186No Comments »Week+Adjourned%3A+6.26.102010-06-26+11%3A25%3A01LucyC

Week Adjourned: 5.22.09

May 22nd, 2009. By LucyC

Everyone must be busy getting ready for the Memorial Day weekend—I just hope everyone’s making sure those beef patties for the weekend barbeque aren’t part of the recent recall for E Coli…hmm. Well, while you’ve been doing party prep, here’s what’s been going on…

Top Class Action Suits

Bringing good things to life? General Electric and Samsung are now the focus of what could amount to a large class action lawsuit over defective microwave ovens. While the class is pending certification there doesn’t appear to be any uncertainty surrounding the defect. In a nutshell, the ovens can turn themselves on…good trick, just not very safe. I’m sure you could imagine some potential scenarios. The guy who filed the suit has smoke damage to his house—he was lucky.

Will that be on your Sears charge? And it seems Sears has been in the business of selling things it doesn’t own, specifically, its cardholders’ personal and private information. Who’s buying? Interested third parties—companies who want to sell you things that Sears isn’t selling you—like insurance. Shame on Sears! The retail giant is a founding member of American retail…

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: E Coli, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Google, Microwave Ovens, Sears, Week Adjourned
Posted in Defective Products, Emerging Issues, Personal Injury | 171No Comments »Week+Adjourned%3A+5.22.092009-05-22+23%3A27%3A49LucyC

Week Adjourned: 5.15.09

May 15th, 2009. By LucyC

Top Class Actions: The Week of the Biggies

Hotel Costco: You can clock in, but you can never leave? It appears to have been another busy week in law firms and courthouses across North America. Let’s start with Costco—last week Costco was in the news for having settled an unfair business practices class action and this week they’re in the news for “falsely imprisoning” employees in its California warehouses. Whaaat?

When I first read this my mind reeled, “what new business venture is this?”

Turns out it’s yet another unpaid overtime and wages class action centered in California. What is it about California? (I’m referring to the endless labor law violations).

The class action centers on employees who were and are forced to remain in the warehouses after closing while store managers make goods secure and lock up. This has been going on for years, apparently. But now there is a lawsuit, of course, and the lawyers are seeking US $50 million in damages.

O Canada!—who was standing on guard at Guidant? Across the border in Canada, not a land well-known for class action lawsuits—something large is taking place. Earlier this month a national class action was certified against Guidant Corp, alleging that the company knowingly sold defective pacemakers. The class so far represents more than 28,000 people, and the lawyers are seeking CD$525 million in damages.

Highway Robbery? And a class action that’s been getting a lot of media this week is the Massachusetts Turnpike lawsuit, whose plaintiffs are being represented by a lawyer made famous in the 1998 film “A Civil Action“, Jan R. Schlichtmann.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: asbestos lawsuit, California labor law, defective pacemaker, Goldman Sachs, guidant, Heparin, Nationwide Insurance, T-mobile, Week Adjourned, WR Grace
Posted in Defective Products, Drugs/Medical, Personal Injury | 154No Comments »Week+Adjourned%3A+5.15.092009-05-16+00%3A18%3A41LucyC