Law Roundtable
- Recent Entries
September 2, 2010, 11:45 am, 759147
(Kenneth Anderson)
Daniel J. Mitchell at the Cato blog has a new post up, continuing an argument against the imposition of a VAT tax in the United States. His argument in that piece is fundamentally that a VAT tax does not really solve the fiscal problem, but instead merely ...
September 2, 2010, 11:45 am, 759146
(Kenneth Anderson)
Okay, I am giving in to the Popular Will, against my better judgment. What do VAT tax, PIN number, ATM machine, all have in common? Feel free to list more in the comments, including your views on whether this is acceptable language usage or not. (Put them here, ...
September 2, 2010, 11:45 am, 759145
State judges -- on their own time -- are cautiously experimenting with social media (e.g., Facebook), reports Tony Mauro in The National Law Journal. But, he notes, "judges doubt they ...
September 2, 2010, 11:44 am, 759144
The very fine Global Pensions site has an article today featuring a study by Mercer on the current deficits being run by Fortune 1500 company pensions: Pension plans of S&P1500 companies are shouldering deficits of a combined $506bn, the largest...
September 2, 2010, 11:43 am, 759143
We here at the BLPB are pleased to announce that the blog has been nominated as one of the Top 25 Business Law Blogs for 2010 by LexisNexis. Now, we need your help. If you enjoy this blog, please post...
September 2, 2010, 9:45 am, 759052
The IRS's Statistics of Income Division yesterday released the Summer 2010 SOI Bulletin (Vol. 30, No. 1) with these four articles: Sole Proprietorship Returns, 2008, by Adrian Dungan Foreign-Controlled Domestic Corporations, 2007, by James R. Hobbs Corporate Foreign Tax Credit, 2006, by Nuria E. McGrath SOI Studies of International Income...
September 2, 2010, 9:44 am, 759051
ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law Volume 25, Number 3 (Spring 2010) Articles: Christopher Hexter, Wesley Kennedy, Alexia Kulwiec, Peter Janus, Todd Sarver, and Steven Wheeless, Twenty-five Years of Developments in the Law under the National Labor Relations Act,...
September 2, 2010, 9:44 am, 759050
Jeff posted Tuesday on the Obama NLRB, noting how shocked -- shocked! -- Member Schaumber is that the Obama Board is reversing Bush II Board precedent (which of course reversed Clinton Board precedent, which reversed Bush I / Reagan Board...
September 2, 2010, 9:44 am, 759049
The Chinese (Taiwan) Society of International Law is pleased to hold the International Law Association (ILA) Asia-Pacific Regional Conference from May 29 to June 1, 2011 in Taipei, Taiwan. The theme of the conference will be Contemporary International Law Issues in the Asia Pacific: Opportunities and Challenges. Paper and panel ...
September 2, 2010, 9:44 am, 759048
In the Office of the General Counsel:
The Office of the General Counsel at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), Executive Office of the President, is seeking an attorney with experience in international trade law, trade litigation and negotiation.
Incumbent provides legal support for USTR personnel ...
September 2, 2010, 9:43 am, 759047
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Stephan Weymouth (School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IRPS) and the Department of Political Science, University of California, San Diego) discusses Democracy and Consumer Strength: Direct Evidence from Regulatory Reform in Developing Countries. ABSTRACT:...
September 2, 2010, 7:45 am, 758969
Rod Blagojevich: President Obama's senate seat “is a f—-ing valuable thing, you just don’t give it away for nothing,” Al Sharpton: On the anniversary of Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech: "This is our day and we ain't giving it away."
September 2, 2010, 7:45 am, 758968
Martin Ginsburg’s speech recounted how an obscure 10th Circuit tax case, which the Ginsburgs handled pro bono, led to a Supreme Court appearance for his wife and to a host of other gender-discrimination cases. The case involved a contested tax deduction involving a Mr. Morris that would have been allowable...
September 2, 2010, 7:43 am, 758967
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol With the new academic year upon us, this is a reminder for anyone teaching antitrust/competition law or economics to recommend this blog to their students as a daily read to see the latest in scholarship...
September 2, 2010, 5:45 am, 758919
Lily Kahng (Seattle) has published Investment Income Withholding in the United States and Germany, 10 Fla. Tax Rev. 315 (2010). Here is the abstract: In a reversal from its historical roots, the United States income tax system now taxes income from labor significantly more heavily than income from capital. It...
September 2, 2010, 5:45 am, 758918
The University of New Hampshire School of Law (formerly the Franklin Pierce Law Center) is hosting its first Intellectual Property Tax Challenge: The tax challenges associated with intellectual property have become increasingly complex as intellectual property has become more important to business worldwide. The University of New Hampshire School of...
September 2, 2010, 5:43 am, 758917
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol UCL is pleased to announce CPD course starting on 8 October on Competition Law and Intellectual Property Law: The Regulation of Innovation About this course: The course illustrates the connections among innovation policy, competition law...
September 2, 2010, 3:44 am, 758868
In her former law practice, consultant Debra Bruce had a habit of waking up in the middle of the night with thoughts of work, which she didn't mind, unless she couldn't get back to sleep for hours. For others with the same habit, she has some tips to help them ...
September 2, 2010, 3:44 am, 758865
A California appeals court has sided with Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy in a dispute over a novel contingency fee deal that called for more legal fees than the amount of money the client recovered. Upholding an arbitration award for the firm of $7.5 million, the court rejected arguments that the ...
September 2, 2010, 3:44 am, 758867
Law school may cost a pretty penny, but anyone interested in the legal side of health care reform can get a deal from the University of Iowa College of Law. The school is offering its new course on health care reform law to the public for free via the university's ...
September 2, 2010, 3:44 am, 758866
Citing multiple trial errors, a New Jersey appeals court has reversed an $18.9 million verdict against an obstetrician whose delay in ordering a Caesarean delivery a jury found to have caused cerebral palsy in the child. The panel found that the trial judge failed to limit the testimony of a ...
September 2, 2010, 3:44 am, 758864
A teleconference company is off the hook, at least for now, from paying the legal fees of a former chief executive who was sent to prison for securities fraud. The 10th Circuit has ruled that a trial judge erred in granting a preliminary injunction in favor of ClearOne's former CEO ...
September 2, 2010, 3:44 am, 758863
A Texas appeals court has sided with the state office of the attorney general, ruling that a same-sex couple cannot get divorced in Texas. The panel said the trial court erred in holding that Texas law violates the Equal Protection Clause, and found that state law "recognizes that only opposite-sex ...
September 2, 2010, 3:44 am, 758861
A new legal effort to force California's governor and attorney general to defend Proposition 8 in court may have some political potency, but is unlikely to win in court, legal observers say. The Pacific Justice Institute, a conservative group that has filed a petition for a writ of mandamus with ...
September 2, 2010, 3:44 am, 758862
A divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled that an anti-competitive agreement between two companies to restrict the availability of one of their patents in favor of two others is not misuse of the favored patents. Applying the patent misuse doctrine narrowly, the court determined that ...
September 2, 2010, 3:44 am, 758860
Attorney Robert J. Ambrogi heard that blogs are dead in the legal profession. Indeed, he declares legal blogging alive, well and thriving. Since the future is foretold by the new, Ambrogi highlights recently launched blogs, all of which show continuing vitality in the blawgosphere.
September 2, 2010, 3:44 am, 758858
Patent practitioners say the Federal Circuit's decision that whistleblowers have standing to sue companies that falsely label their products as covered by patents probably won't save cases filed based on the bare fact that products contain false markings. The unanimous panel ruling, which reversed a New York federal court decision, ...
September 2, 2010, 3:44 am, 758859
Lawyers representing most of the more than 10,000 plaintiffs suing New York City and its contractors for illnesses resulting from the response and cleanup after the 9/11 terror attacks have patched up their differences over sharing costs. Plaintiffs firms Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo and Worby Groner Edelman & ...
September 2, 2010, 3:44 am, 758857
Allergan has agreed to pay $600 million in criminal and civil penalties and plead guilty to one misdemeanor count of "misbranding" its drug Botox as part of a global settlement with the federal government over off-label uses of the drug. As part of the plea deal, Allergan agreed to drop ...
September 2, 2010, 3:43 am, 758856
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Christopher Yoo (Penn law) has posted on The Convergence of Broadcasting and Telephony: Legal and Regulatory Implications. ABSTRACT: This article, written for the inaugural issue of a new journal, analyzes the extent to which the...
September 1, 2010, 11:43 pm, 758781
A recent Washington Post news story describing a speech by Christina Romer, the outgoing chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, provides a nice example of how to implicitly assume your conclusion. The author writes:
At week's end, Romer will leave the council chairmanship after what ...
September 1, 2010, 9:45 pm, 758774
(David Kopel)
Ann Coulter’s column today argues that Obama is not a Muslim; rather, he “is obviously an atheist.” The gist of the argument is “The only evidence for Obama’s Christianity is that he faithfully attended the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ for 20 years....Attending Wright’s church ...
September 1, 2010, 7:45 pm, 758758
(David Kopel)
A couple weeks ago, I blogged about an article in the Korea Times reporting that the Obama administration was blocking the import of American-made M1 Garands and M1 Carbines which the South Korean government wished to sell into the U.S. market. The Korea Times reported that an ...
September 1, 2010, 7:45 pm, 758757
(Orin Kerr)
Here’s the latest speculation about whether Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels might run for the Presidency in 2012. I hope he does: From what I know at this point, he’s my favorite potential GOP candidate.
...September 1, 2010, 7:43 pm, 758756
The European Federation for Retirement Provision (EFRP) weighed in today on the potential value of shareholder engagement in response to the European Commission's Green Paper on Corporate Governance in Financial Institutions and Remuneration Policies. The EFRP concluded that voluntary shareholder...
September 1, 2010, 5:46 pm, 758712
(Kenneth Anderson)
Could anyone point me to a link giving a basic, plain language discussion of the difference between forum and jurisdiction in American law? Something that I could use with a group of non-US lawyers — clear, not too long, basic distinctions? Thanks.
September 1, 2010, 5:46 pm, 758711
(Orin Kerr)
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry that the comment thread to my post from yesterday, The Ultimate Legal Blog Comment?, is now at 314 comments.
September 1, 2010, 5:45 pm, 758710
Newsweek: Clean Slate Time, by Keith Libbey (Fredrikson & Byron, Minneapolis) & Evan Thomas (Newsweek): How about this for a tax plan: cut most people’s taxes by half, eliminate the need to file returns, and provide the Treasury with a better way to reduce the deficit. Sound impossible? It’s not....
September 1, 2010, 5:44 pm, 758709
A judge's warning that a defendant could be subject to deportation if he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor did not alleviate the ineffectiveness of his counsel under a new standard expressed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the judge ruled in vacating his prior acceptance of the plea. Brooklyn Acting Supreme ...
September 1, 2010, 3:45 pm, 758630
(Eugene Volokh)
This is so despite Muni’s earlier refusal to allow a movie ad showing police officers wielding guns, apparently on the grounds that it “appear[ed] to promote the use of firearms.” The new ad, for the Gun Rights Policy Conference does promote the use of firearms. ...
September 1, 2010, 3:45 pm, 758629
(Eugene Volokh)
I’ve been using this word a lot in my first-semester Criminal Law and Torts classes, and finally one student had the nerve to ask me what it meant. I thought everyone knew, but just as a fish is said to not perceive the water in which it ...
September 1, 2010, 3:45 pm, 758628
Dow Jones, Lines Blur In Tax Advice, by Arden Dale: The line between smart and criminal can be a fine one when it comes to giving tax advice, and some advisers see it blurring lately. Many in the tax profession are becoming unsure about the difference between a legitimate tax...
September 1, 2010, 3:45 pm, 758627
(Warning: Foul language.) In The Know: Are Tests Biased Against Students Who Don't Give A Shit?
September 1, 2010, 3:45 pm, 758626
Wall Street Journal op-ed, Bring Back the Estate Tax Now, by Robert Rubin (Co-chair, Council on Foreign Relations; former Treasury Secretary) & Julian Robertson (Chair, Tiger Management): With a host of other issues behind it, Congress is finally turning its attention to the expiring 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. But...
September 1, 2010, 3:44 pm, 758625
September 1, 2010, 3:44 pm, 758624
Many people would consider Am Law 200 midlevel associates to be extremely fortunate. While thousands of their colleagues lost jobs, these young lawyers are gainfully employed with salaries in the six figures. In many ways, once their student loans are paid off, midlevel associates' prospects seem bright. But that's not ...
September 1, 2010, 3:44 pm, 758623
This is round #2 of what will probably be several posts on notable NLRB decisions that are being officially issued as Member Schaumber's term expired. Here's today's installment: Int'l Assoc. of Machinists -- addressing whether union can require employees to...
September 1, 2010, 3:44 pm, 758622
Although it may no longer be true, donning and doffing cases at one time were clearly the big ticket FLSA collective action. And for those still fighting those fights who have been concerned about the thumb that the DOL put on the scale with their June 16 Administrator's Interpretation ...
September 1, 2010, 3:43 pm, 758621
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Peter Cramton (University of Maryland), Evan Kwerel (FCC), Gregory Rosston (Stanford), and Andrzej Skrzypacz (Stanford) advocate Using Spectrum Auctions to Enhance Competition in Wireless Services. ABSTRACT: Spectrum auctions are used by governments to assign and...
September 1, 2010, 1:45 pm, 758545
(Eugene Volokh)
A pretty obvious conclusion, since the nightclubs aren’t the government, and the Equal Protection Clause applies only to the government. But now there’s a Second Circuit decision so holding. Thanks to How Appealing for the pointer.
September 1, 2010, 1:45 pm, 758544
(Kenneth Anderson)
The text of President Obama’s Iraq speech from last night is here. The parts that most interested me were, first, the idea of ‘time to turn the page’. Merely my view, of course, but it seems to me (along with practically all the other critics of the ...
September 1, 2010, 1:45 pm, 758543
The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration today released Improvements Are Needed to Reduce Erroneous Foreign Earned Income Exclusion Claims (2010-40-091): TIGTA reviewed 231,277 tax returns from Tax Year 2008 and found that 10% (23,334) of taxpayers claiming the exclusion either failed to qualify for the exclusion or inaccurately computed...
September 1, 2010, 1:44 pm, 758542
As we've noted, the FLRA has had major morale issues for quite some time, although things started looking up recently. Apparently the new efforts are working, as the FLRA was the most improved agency in the new best places to...
September 1, 2010, 9:45 am, 758357
(David Bernstein)
From “Blue,” commenting on Jane Mayer’s New Yorker hit piece on the Koch brothers:
From Mayer: “The Kochs continued to disperse their money, creating slippery organizations with generic-sounding names, and this made it difficult to ascertain the extent of their influence in Washington.“
So let’s check out some of the ...
September 1, 2010, 9:45 am, 758356
(Kenneth Anderson)
With an eye to Ben Bernanke’s upcoming testimony to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission during the two days of hearings on “too big to fail” — in other words, systemic risk — the WSJ has an editorial in today’s paper raising various questions about the basis on ...
September 1, 2010, 9:45 am, 758355
New York has been a hotbed for e-discovery advances, what with Judge Shira Scheindlin's landmark cases (Zubulake, Montreal Pension, et al), and Magistrate Judge Andrew Peck's opinions on ...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758353
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Marcella Scrimitore (University of Salento) has written on Managerial Incentives and Stackelberg Equilibria in Oligopoly. ABSTRACT: The paper investigates both quantity and price oligopoly games in markets with a variable number of managerial and entrepreneurial...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758354
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Massimo A. De Francesco (Universita di Siena) and Neri Salvadori (Universita di Pisa) Bertrand-Edgeworth competition in an almost symmetric oligopoly. ABSTRACT: We analyze a Bertrand-Edgeworth game in homogeneous product industry, under effcient rationing, constant marginal...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758352
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Adam Copeland and Adam Hale Shapiro describe The impact of competition on technology adoption: an apples-to-PCs analysis. ABSTRACT: We study the effect of market structure on a personal computer manufacturer’s decision to adopt new technology....
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758351
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol RECENT HITS (for all papers announced in the last 60 days) TOP 10 Papers for Journal of Antitrust: Antitrust Law & Policy eJournal June 30, 2010 to August 29, 2010 Rank Downloads Paper Title 1...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758350
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Scott Schuh, Oz Shy, Joanna Stavins (all Federal Reserve Bank of Boston) explain Who gains and who loses from credit card payments?: theory and calibrations. ABSTRACT: Merchant fees and reward programs generate an implicit monetary...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758348
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Nic Economides (NYU - Stern) argues that Broadband Openness Rules Are Fully Justified by Economic Research. ABSTRACT: This paper responds to arguments made in filings in the FCC’s broadband openness proceeding (GN Dkt. 09-191) and...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758349
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol This weekend I read an excellent work in progress by Wentong Zheng (University of Buffalo Law) on the Chinese AML and SOEs. It should go out to the law reviews soon. SOEs has been a...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758347
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Steohen Maurer (Berkeley - Goldman School of Public Policy) has a new paper on The Penguin and the Cartel: Rethinking Antitrust and Innovation Policy for the Age of Commercial Open Source. ABSTRACT: Modern open source...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758346
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Hannobal Travis (FIU - Law) offer his thoughts on Estimating the Economic Impact of Mass Digitization Projects on Copyright Holders: Evidence from the Google Book Search Litigation. ABSTRACT: Google Book Search (GBS) has captured the...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758345
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol There is a discussion of LLM competition law programs at the LLM Guide website. Aaron Edlin (Berkeley) and Ioannos Lianos (UCL) offer their analysis as to why the field is hot and what students should...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758344
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Leslie M. Marx, Duke University - Fuqua School of Business, Economics Group and Greg Shaffer, University of Rochester - Simon Graduate School of Business have an interesting paper on Slotting Allowances and Scarce Shelf Space....
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758343
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Thomas K. Cheng, University of Hong Kong - Law has posted Competition Law Enforcement in the Television Broadcasting Sector in Hong Kong: Past Cases and Recent Controversies. ABSTRACT: This article reviews the competition law regime...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758342
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Dennis Carlton of the University of Chicago Booth Graduate School of Business has a forthcoming paper worth reading on Revising the Horizontal Merger Guidelines. ABSTRACT: The U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758339
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Christopher Yoo (Penn Law) asks about Network Neutrality or Internet Innovation? ABSTRACT: Over the past two decades, the Internet has undergone an extensive re-ordering of its topology that has resulted in increased variation in the...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758341
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Dennis Weisman (Kansas State) provides A “Principled” Approach to the Design of Telecommunications Policy. ABSTRACT: The Obama administration came into power championing a philosophical shift in regulatory and antitrust policy. The telecommunications industry was singled...
September 1, 2010, 9:43 am, 758340
Posted by D. Daniel Sokol Lewis Evans (Victoria University of Wellington - Econ) and Robert Hahn (University of Manchester - Econ) discuss Regulating Dynamic Markets: Progress in Theory and Practice. ABSTRACT: A key question facing regulators is how to create...
September 1, 2010, 7:45 am, 758256
We offer two ways for you to have TaxProf Blog content automatically delivered to your computer, cell phone, or mobile device, as explained in the left column of the blog under the banner, "Subscribe to TaxProf Blog Via RSS Feed or Email": RSS Feeds: You can subscribe to one of...
September 1, 2010, 7:45 am, 758257
USA Today op-ed, Mickey Mouse, the Estate Tax and Me, by Abigail Disney: [T]he estate tax will automatically be reinstated after a year's hiatus — in its 2001 form. ... In a far stricter tax environment, my grandfather still managed to accumulate and pass on ample funds to make three...
September 1, 2010, 7:45 am, 758255
Walter Hellerstein (Georgia) & Harley Duncan (KPMG, Washington, D.C.)have published VAT Exemptions: Principles and Practice, 128 Tax Notes 989 (Aug. 30, 2010): This article reviews the nature and operation of exemptions in a VAT system and explores some of the issues of principle and practice related to VAT exemptions, including...
September 1, 2010, 5:45 am, 758206
Chronicle of Higher Education, 30 Ways to Rate a College, by Alex Richards & Ron Coddington: The lines below connect raters to each of the measures they take into account. Notice how few measures are shared by two or more raters. That indicates a lack of agreement among them on...
September 1, 2010, 5:45 am, 758205
Corporate Counsel, Law School Deans' Summer of Love: Are law school deans just more attractive than the rest of us? Probably not. But they sure seem to be hot candidates for university president. ... [E]ight of the 63 universities that are members of the Association of American Universities (13%) currently...