XL sues Level Global
Level Global Investors”™ insurer has sued the defunct Greenwich hedge fund, accusing it of lying on its 2010 application for a $10 million liability policy.
According to XL Group plc, which has its main U.S. offices in Stamford, Level Global made false representations when asked if it was aware of any situation that could lead to a claim. Level Global said no; seven months later, FBI agents raided its offices. Ten months later, it ceased to do business.
While the once $3 billion-plus firm denied any wrongdoing, a former analyst pleaded guilty last year to passing insider information. Co-founder Anthony Chiasson was charged with insider trading in January; he has pleaded not guilty. XL also names Level Global co-founder David Ganek as a defendant in its civil suit.
XL has already paid $7.5 million on the liability policy, which covered the period from April 2010 through April 2011, and is seeking to recover that amount.
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Survey says ”¦
The U.S. Supreme Court will rule 6-3 in favor of upholding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, according to a poll of more than a dozen U.S. Supreme Court and health-law experts polled by the American Bar Association.
The Supreme Court was scheduled to hear arguments March 26-28 on the constitutionality of the Obama administration”™s health reform law currently being implemented in the states.
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Yale Law tops
Yale Law School topped U.S. News and World Report”™s annual rankings, followed by Stanford Law School, Harvard Law School and Columbia Law School.
The University of Connecticut School of Law placed 62nd and Quinnipiac University School of Law 111th among 145 schools that were ranked.
Advice: pay the interns
Beware any policy of not paying summer interns, advise attorneys from Jackson & Lewis L.L.P., which has offices in Stamford and White Plains, N.Y.
Noting that many employers pay interns, others do not on the argument that they are primarily there to learn. What many employers do not realize, according to Jackson & Lewis, is that they generally must pay at least the minimum wage to their interns under federal and state rules, though legitimate exemptions apply.
Those exemptions include situations where employers derive no immediate advantage from the presence of an intern, or even is impeded by the presence of the intern; and in instances where the assignment is similar to the training an intern would receive at their school.
AG: Be honest or else
Some 200 Connecticut state and municipal government purchasers received training on how to thwart rigging bids and price fixing, with Attorney General George Jepsen stating his office investigates such claims daily.
“The message to businesses is that if you want to compete for state or municipal business projects, you must do so fairly or we will catch you,” Jepsen said in a press release. “Sharing my department”™s experience and knowledge with government purchasing authorities, as well as ideas for best practices, is important to protect taxpayer dollars.”
InfraGard eyes crises
InfraGard”™s Connecticut chapter held its annual meeting March 15 at Fairfield University”™s Dolan School of Business.
InfraGard is an FBI-led partnership of public and private organizations to identify vulnerabilities and threats to the nation”™s infrastructure. Pullman & Comley attorney Scott Cowperthwait leads the Connecticut chapter.
Scheduled speakers included members of Connecticut”™s “two-storm panel” that recommended changes in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene and the October nor”™easter and a Northeast Utilities manager on private-sector emergency planning and preparedness.
Waitress sentenced
A woman received a two-month jail sentence and was ordered to repay $280,000 after skimming credit card information from diners at P.F. Chang”™s China Bistro in Stamford where she was a waitress, and from a restaurant in New York.
Chibuzo Okafor, a 26-year-old resident of Rosedale, N.Y., was paid up to $25 for each credit card she swiped, according to the office of David Fein, Connecticut”™s lead federal prosecutor.
