Mike Corder

November 19, 2009 | Law.com

In a softening of U.S. hostility to the International Criminal Court, the American war crimes ambassador Stephen Rapp said in a speech Thursday in the Hague that the U.S. is committed to ending impunity for crimes against humanity. The comments marked the first time a U.S. diplomat has addressed the 110-nation Assembly of State Parties, which oversees the court's work and budget.

By Mike Corder

3 minute read

August 26, 2011 | New York Law Journal

By Mike Corder

5 minute read

August 28, 2007 | Law.com

Courts in the Netherlands and France refused Monday to grant injunctions blocking Mittal Steel's proposed $41 billion acquisition of rival steel maker Arcelor. Legal actions launched in Rotterdam by three hedge funds and in Paris by an activist shareholder were both rejected by judges, clearing hurdles to the creation of the world's largest steel maker as measured by sales. The plaintiffs in both suits are upset by a revised, lower exchange rate offered to shareholders for ArcelorMittal shares.

By Mike Corder

4 minute read

May 30, 2011 | Law.com

The chief prosecutor of the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal said Friday he would have liked to try Gen. Ratko Mladic together with his former political leader, Radovan Karadzic, and is still weighing his options to do so. A joint trial would reunite before the world the two men considered most responsible for the carnage of the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

By Mike Corder

4 minute read

December 01, 2004 | Law.com

Launching their defense in a landmark piracy case, the owners of file-swapping giant Kazaa claimed Tuesday their software, which lets users exchange music and movies online, is no different from video recorders. Lawyer Tony Meagher cited a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said Sony wasn't liable when people used its Betamax VCR to copy movies illegally. The Australian recording industry is suing Kazaa's owners for widespread copyright infringements.

By Mike Corder

3 minute read

July 16, 2007 | Law.com

ABN Amro's sale of its U.S. arm LaSalle Bank to Bank of America was lawful, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled Friday, overturning a lower court's blocking of the proposed $21 billion sale. It was not immediately clear how the ruling would affect the broader fight over all of ABN Amro Holding. Royal Bank of Scotland, which leads a consortium bidding on ABN Amro, had argued that the LaSalle sale should have been put to a shareholder vote, but the court said that shareholders' interests don't always come first.

By Mike Corder

5 minute read

October 04, 2011 | Law.com

The International Criminal Court on Monday authorized an investigation into violence that left some 3,000 people dead after Ivory Coast's disputed presidential election last year. It is the first time the court has opened an investigation in a non-member nation following a recognition of jurisdiction by a non-member state

By Mike Corder

4 minute read

November 08, 2007 | Law.com

A top Serb opposition leader went on trial Wednesday at the U.N. war crimes tribunal on charges that he inflamed ethnic tensions and incited Serb paramilitaries to carry out atrocities during Yugoslavia's bloody breakup. The trial of Vojilsav Seselj, one of the most senior political figures in custody at the tribunal, marks one of the court's few remaining chances to hold Serbian leaders responsible for the atrocities unleashed during the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.

By Mike Corder

3 minute read

November 11, 2009 | Law.com

Former Liberian President Charles Taylor clashed with a war crimes trial attorney Tuesday just minutes after she began cross-examining him about his repeated denials of responsibility for atrocities by rebels during Sierra Leone's brutal civil war. Prosecutors at the Special Court for Sierra Leone finally got their chance Tuesday to question Taylor, who spent 13 weeks as a witness in his own defense, rejecting allegations that he armed, trained and commanded rebels during the 1992-2002 conflict.

By Mike Corder

4 minute read

September 07, 2005 | Corporate Counsel

A federal judge in Australia on Monday ordered distributors of the popular file-swapping program Kazaa to alter the software, which millions have downloaded, so it can no longer be used for music piracy. Hailed as a victory by the recording industry that brought the suit, the decision has implications well beyond Australia, where Kazaa executives are based, because Kazaa's users span the globe. In some ways, it mirrors the U.S. Supreme Court's Grokster ruling in June.

By Mike Corder

4 minute read