A major scandal has arisen in the biggest environmental lawsuit in history - the $27 billion lawsuit against Chevron oil company brought by a lawyer representing citizens of Ecuador.

As reported in Tuesday’s New York Times, Chevron has released video implicating Ecuador government officials close to the president in a massive bribery scheme.  Chevron claims its covertly recorded videos “reveal a $3 million bribery scheme implicating the judge presiding over the environmental lawsuit currently pending against Chevron and individuals who identify…

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Today, Wall Street Journal reports that a Miami court has set meeting Friday between the IRS and UBS to look at where they are in settlement negotiations over the case of the IRS demanding that the Swiss bank turn over the names of more then 50,000 U.S. citizens alleged to be tax evaders.

As I have said in past posts on this issue (in which I have been admittedly hard on UBS-but with a purpose), and as UBS seems to now be reiterating, turning…

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CEI Information Policy Analyst Ryan Radia responds to Jonathan Zittrain’s “Lost in the Cloud” in today’s New York Times.  Read it here or see below.

To the Editor:

In discussing the privacy risks that have accompanied the growth of the Internet, Prof. Jonathan Zittrain rightly bemoans the willingness of governments to violate individuals’ privacy rights. Unfortunately, he proposes new legal restrictions that would stifle online innovation while doing little to enhance consumer privacy.

Mr. Zittrain proposes a “fair practices law” that would require companies to…

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Below see CEI President Fred Smith’s comments on Jonathan Hillel’s piece in the San Jose Mercury News:

Hillel’s piece raises the very interesting question of whether the use of copyrighted materials must forever remain out of reach of most people.  The vast majority of creative works disappear from public view within a very short time of their release.   Few books or records are best sellers, many magazines (especially specialized magazines and journals) go out of existence in a decade or so.  Yet,…

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In today’s Forbes, CEI Warren Brookes Fellow Silvia Santacruz talks about the lawsuit against Chevron-Texaco in Ecuador. Read it here.

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CEI Director of the Center for Investors and Entrepreneurs, John Berlau, released a statement on former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s testimony before Congress (prepared version) on his alledged strong-arming of Bank of America during last year’s bank bailouts. You can read the original release here or see below.

Paulson Must Be Held Accountable for Alleged Bank of America Threats

Statement by CEI John Berlau

Washington, D.C., July 15, 2009—Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is set to testify July 16 before the House Oversight and Government…

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Arturo Valenzuela, Obama’s nominee to be Assistant Secretary of State, falsely claims it was an illegal “coup” for Honduras to remove its corrupt would-be dictator, President Mel Zelaya, without providing more “judicial process,” even though courts said it was perfectly legal. Obama has joined Cuban dictator Castro and Venezuelan dictator Chavez in demanding that Zelaya be reinstated. He nominated Valenzuela despite his reputation as a loud defender of dictator Chavez. Obama, too, claims Zelaya’s removal was “illegal,” even though it was carried out…

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Honduras removed its would-be dictator, President Mel Zelaya, for violating his country’s constitution by seeking to extend his term in office, and replaced him with a leading Congressman. Zelaya’s removal was authorized by Articles 239 and 272 of the Honduran Constitution, and ordered by his country’s Supreme Court, after he used coercion and aid from Venezuela’s dictator to push an illegal referendum. But Obama has joined Cuban dictator Castro and Venezuelan dictator Chavez in demanding that Zelaya be reinstated.

Originally, Obama’s justification…

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When it comes to things such as environmental policy, the Progressives have been rather successful at promoting their world view.  They realized that it would be futile to argue that property rights and human ingenuity could not solve anything - so they did not try (immediately) to socialize oil or other sub-surface minerals but they did succeed in derailing the evolutionary process by which institutions emerged to resolve emerging problems.  The economist Ronald Coase  noted this in an essay pointing out…

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I was initially going to post this as a comment to Greg Conko’s recent post arguing against the Court’s recent decision in Wyeth v. Levine, but the comment system didn’t work correctly for me.

I appreciate the force of Greg’s argument (and I certainly agree that this particular case should have been decided much earlier on different grounds), but I think there is room for reasonable disagreement within the libertarian community about whether FDA preempting state tort law is good or bad.…

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I revoke my previous apology to the Swiss, and reiterate my previous disapproval.  As evidenced by the latest outcome in the U.S. tax case involving UBS, we have moved beyond troubling and into something much worse.

...the world’s largest wealth manager in terms of assets, agreed to pay a $780 million fine and disclose information about some of its clients to settle a landmark U.S. tax case.

As I said in my older post: “In direct contradiction to their own legal view of tax evasion. …

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But, alas, not as a litigator - the role that made him rich and famous - but as a defendant. According to Legal Newsline, Richard “Dickie” Scruggs is headed back to federal court to plead guilty to another count of trying to bribe a judge. He’s already serving a five-year sentence for a previous bribery attempt.

OpenMarket readers will remember Scruggs as one of the fattest of fat cat trial lawyers to emerge from the multi-state tobacco settlement reached between tobacco companies…

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Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers’ lawsuit against God has been thrown out of court because God couldn’t be served papers informing him of Chambers’ suit.   The court threw out the suit by Nebraska’s most famous liberal lawmaker because of his failure to serve God with a summons. 

But law professor Ilya Somin believes a better reason for dismissing the suit would be that any lawsuit against God, who is Almighty, would be “unredressable” by earthly officials, who could not force God to do…

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