Remember the Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal, and those scary stories last year about how it would give foreign multinationals the right to sue the countries who sign up to it, if said corporates happen to feel disadvantaged by any laws or regulations ...Anadarko (HERE IN NZ RIGHT, NOW NO SAFETY PLAN IN SIGHT COS THEY DONT NEED ONE) (Almost) Wins A Round Talking of major US corporates embroiled in legal actions over attempts to protect their share value....AND NOT PAY TO CLEAN UP THE DAMAGE THEY HAVE CAUSED, the US courts have almost entirely dismissed a class action suit brought by shareholders of the oil company Anadarko, over allegedly misleading statements made by the company in order to minimize its liabilities in the immediate wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and thereby shoring up its share price. As Bloomberg News summarises the situation: U.S. District Judge Keith P. Ellison in Houston dismissed most of the investors’ allegations yesterday while finding they had sufficient reason to sue over a statement by an Anadarko senior vice president, Robert Daniels, after the spill that the company had no involvement in design or procedures at BP’s Macondo well. “The court finds that one statement in the complaint, made by defendant Daniels, is adequately pled” under the federal law governing securities-fraud claims, Ellison said in his ruling. “Full dismissal is therefore not warranted.” Those of the ‘glass half full’ persuasion will feel that Judge Ellison has merely focused the grounds for the legal action. However, by narrowing the case down to just one contentious corporate statement – and by rejecting the orchestrated litany of deception alleged by the shareholders in their original brief – Judge Ellison has not only limited the culpability of the company, but (almost certainly) slashed the likely size of any eventual penalty faced by Anadarko. scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1307/S00122/gordon-campbell-on-the-tpps-risk-to-national-sovereignty.htm
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 07:24:18 +0000
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