Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling that state regulators can take national banks to court in order to enforce state consumer protection laws is yet another blow to the principle of “preemption.” For those non-constitutional law scholars out there, preemption is the means by which federal law supersedes state law when contradictions between the two arise. In this case, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and his predecessor Eliot Spitzer sought to enforce state consumer protection laws against ... Read More

President Obama last week announced his intention to end Bush Administration rules that were written to protect companies from product liability litigation in state courts. While consumer advocates and trial lawyers cheered this move against federal preemption, business leaders widely see it as a full-employment act for the plaintiffs’ bar that will likely result in a significant uptick in lawsuits and the reputational liabilities that go along with them. What many businesses find most troubling about ... Read More

A big part of the Waxman-Markey energy bill that passed the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday is about limiting carbon dioxide emissions and their contribution to global warming. There are still those who argue passionately that global warming is an unproven theory and that spending trillions in an effort to keep the planet cool is a foolish waste of money. The weight of scientific opinion, however, seems to come down on the other side of ... Read More

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reached more settlements in the first quarter of 2009 than it reached in the first or fourth quarters of 2008, respectively. According to a NERA Economic Consulting report, settlements jumped 16 percent between January and March 2009 alone. Under intense pressure amid the current financial crisis and high-profile scandals such as Bernie Maddoff’s alleged ponzi scheme, the SEC is making it known that there is a new sheriff in ... Read More

Continental Airlines announced on April 7, 2009 that federal regulators have tentatively awarded the company exemption from antitrust laws, permitting it to join the Star Alliance. The alliance, comprised of United Airlines, US Airways, Air Canada, a Lufthansa, among others, allows airlines to cooperate on scheduling and revenue sharing. The Transportation Department says the alliance would “be in the public interest because it would give customers more travel options and reduce fares.” But U.S. Rep. James ... Read More

In 1907, the collapse of the Knickerbocker Trust Company triggered a financial panic similar to what we are experiencing today. Confidence in the markets plummeted, credit dried up, and even healthy businesses couldn’t secure the capital needed to prosper and grow. Enter J.P. Morgan – the man, not the company. He didn’t wait for direction from Washington or a federal rescue – he came to the rescue himself. Though semiretired at the time, he assembled leaders of ... Read More