An industry colleague ran into a situation today where a financial advisor is recommending that the plaintiffs take cash and purchase a SPIA in lieu of receiving a structured settlement and called to ask me for my thoughts. A Single Premium Annuity Contract or "SPIA" is a contract between a person ...

The Ninth Circuit has a little ruling today that rejects a Second Amendment challenge to the federal felon-in-possession prohibition in light of Heller. The ruling in , No. 09-10072 (9th Cir. Feb. 9, 2010) ( ), gets started this way: And here is the heart of the panel's analysis of the Second ...

Speaking of honours, nice to see that former Australian High Court judge Michael Kirby AC is to receive the 2010 International Privacy Champion award from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).The award recognises his work, at the time President of the Australian Law Reform Commission, t ...

Below is a Reuter’s article about the first Bear Stearns High Grade Fund arbitration case won by an investor. John Rich and Ross Intelisano of Rich & Intelisano, LLP were lead trial counsel and Jake Zamansky and Ted Glenn of Zamansky & Associates were co-counsel. "Investor in Defunct Bear Fund Win ...

I guess the pressure from the Federal Communications Commission regarding early termination fees for smartphone contracts has finally paid off. TG Daily reports Google has "slashed" the fees on its NexusOne phone from $350 to $150 , and a $250 fee

Michael Jackson’s doctor, Conrad Murray, has been formally charged with involuntary manslaughter in Los Angeles and has assembled a team of lawyers for his defense.  Leading the defense team is Ed Chernoff, who will be joined by his partners Matthew Alford and William Stradley, of the Houston ...

In a development that should be of interest to structured settlement and retirement planning stakeholders, the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) have published a request for comments regarding lifetime income options for participa ...

On February 1, 2010, it became compulsory for randomly selected passengers at Heathrow and Manchester airports in the UK to pass through full body scanners before boarding their flights.  This enhanced security screening has been implemented following the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attac ...

In October, we mentioned that the giant department store, Macy's, was having some trouble disposing of its sensitive documents. Reports surfaced that internal documents, some of which included the Social Security numbers of Macy's customers, were being disposed of on the streets of St. Louis, in lid ...

What happens when: (a) a state attorney general charges that the officers of a financial institution are garden variety fraudsters, while (b) a federal agency whose avowed purpose is to protect the investing public decides that insufficient evidence exists to prove that said officers v ...