Today Judge Nathan largely granted a series of dismissal motions in an investor lawsuit against Harbinger Capital and certain affiliates.   She summarized the case as follows:  “At core, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants marketed the Funds as diversified, distressed-debt and credit-driven hedge funds, but in fact used the Funds to take a large ownership interest in LightSquared”—a wireless broadband company—“without adequately disclosing this shift in strategy or its attendant risks.” Judge Nathan dismissed with prejudice all…

Less than a month ago, Judge Cote found Apple liable for knowingly participating in an illegal price-fixing conspiracy with five book publishers to raise e-book prices and eliminate price competition in violation of the antitrust laws.  This morning, the Department of Justice, joined by thirty-three state attorneys general, filed a brief in support of their proposed remedial injunction which would require Apple “to take proactive steps to ameliorate the harm its conspiracy caused to competition and…

In the defamation action stemming from a 2010 New Yorker profile of  Peter Paul Biro (a specialist in art authentication through fingerprint analysis who was featured in the documentary  Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?), Judge Oetken yesterday granted a motion  for judgment on the pleadings filed by the New Yorker Defendants (Conde Nast, and David Grann, the profile’s author), and motions to dismiss filed by the Republisher Defendants (Yale University Press, artfagcity.com editor Paddy…

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Emma Thompson and her husband, Greg Wise, wrote a screenplay about the love triangle between John Ruskin – an influential art critic of the Victorian era – his teenage bride,  Euphemia (“Effie”)  Gray, and John Everett Millais, Ruskin’s protégé. That screenplay has since been turned into a movie – Effie – starring Thompson, Wise, Dakota Fanning, Tom Sturridge, and Robbie Coltrane, due to be released this year.  On Wednesday, Judge Griesa granted Effie Film’s motion…

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