This week, yet another Navy officer admitted to taking bribes in the “Fat Leonard” case, the biggest corruption scandal in the Navy's history.

According to the San Diego Union Tribune, former Cmdr. Troy Amundson pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court on Tuesday to federal bribery conspiracy charges.

Covington & Burling represents Leonard Glenn Francis, a.k.a. Fat Leonard, a Singapore defense contractor who pleaded guilty in 2015 to bribery and conspiracy to defraud the United States, and is now cooperating with the government.

Fat Leonard allegedly enticed Navy officers with money plus fancy dinners, hotel rooms and—to quote the indictment— “a rotating carousel of prostitutes.”

Alas, it turns out the carousel is strictly metaphorical. Because I for one initially pictured an X-rated version of Chuck E. Cheese, filled with drunken sailors and hookers on brightly-painted horses.

Also, it's redundant to say a carousel is rotating.

On the other hand, the phrase is definitely memorable.

So here's my question: is this good legal writing or bad? I honestly can't decide. I'd love to hear your thoughts, or see other examples of—let's call it vivid—legal writing you've come across. (send to [email protected]) We'll publish periodic examples as we come across them.

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Wait—The Lawyer Who Wrote the Nunes Memo Is That Guy?

The lawyer who reportedly co-wrote the controversial Nunes memo alleging FBI abuses, Kashyap Patel, was also the target of an over-the-top rant by U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes in Houston in early 2016.

I wrote about the epic bench slap here, and the whole ugly account is worth re-reading. Basically, Hughes was livid because Patel, then a lawyer with the Justice Department's National Security Division, was not wearing a suit and tie for an in-chambers conference about a terrorism case.

Patel tried to explain he had just gotten off an overseas flight from Central Asia, which prompted Hughes to demand to see his passport to inspect his entry stamps. Seriously, he made him leave court and go get it out of his luggage.

Calling Patel “a spy” for Main Justice (to Hughes, “a bunch of other people who are not contributing to the progress of this case”) the judge asked, “What is the utility to me and to the people of America to have you fly down here at their expense, eat at their expense, and stay at their expense?”

“You're just one more non-essential employee from Washington. And the first thing you'll start doing is telling them how to do it and telling me how to do it, because you're from D.C.,” he continued. “This case is difficult enough without Washington just sending unnecessary people down here to watch what they do in the provinces.”

He added, “You don't add a bit a value, do you?”

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MoFo's Loss is Robbins Geller's Win

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday sided with Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd over Morrison & Foerster in a case that addresses a key issue in securities class actions: the correct test for loss causation.

The Robbins Geller team led by Luke Brooks, who argued the appeal, has what sounds like a pretty compelling case against MoFo client First Solar Inc., which is also represented by Osborn Maledon.

Investors allege that the solar panel maker discovered two product defects, one causing certain panels to experience power loss, the other causing faster power loss in hot climates, but hid the problem, then misrepresented its scope and cost. During the class period—April 30, 2008 to February 28, 2012—First Solar's stock price fell from nearly $300 per share to about $50.

Robbins Geller filed suit in Arizona federal court in 2015. U.S. District Judge David Campbell granted summary judgment for the defense in part, but kept the larger portion of the case alive. But he stayed the action and certified an interlocutory appeal because he saw two competing lines of cases on loss causation.

The key question: Do plaintiffs have to show that the market learned about the fraud and then reacted, and that's what caused the economic loss?

In a per curiam opinion, the Ninth Circuit panel—Chief Judge Sidney R. Thomas and circuit Judges J. Clifford Wallace and Consuelo M. Callahan—said no, not necessarily.

“Revelation of fraud in the marketplace is simply one of the 'infinite variety' of causation theories a plaintiff might allege to satisfy proximate cause,” they wrote. “[O]ur approval of one theory should not imply our rejection of others. A plaintiff may also prove loss causation by showing that the stock price fell upon the revelation of an earnings miss, even if the market was unaware at the time that fraud had concealed the miss.”

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Lateral Watch

Stephen Cutler is leaving JPMorgan Chase to join Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in April as a litigation partner.

The former general counsel and current vice chairman of the financial services giant, Cutler joined JPMorgan in 2007 after a relatively brief stint at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. From 2001 to 2005, he was the director of enforcement at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, where he presided over cases including WorldCom and Enron.

“I am delighted to return to private practice at Simpson Thacher,” Cutler said in a news release. “It is an outstanding firm with which I have worked closely for many years. I look forward to partnering with wonderful colleagues and advising clients on some of their most important matters.”

“[I]t also must be said that Waymo has whined—often without good reason—at every turn in this case, making it hard to separate the wheat from the chaff,” Alsup wrote.

The families of two defense contractors killed in a 2015 terrorist attack in Jordan cannot sue Twitter for allegedly enabling terror group ISIS.

US Foods Inc. and Sysco Corp. say more than two dozen poultry companies conspired to fix chicken prices.

In the filing by Reed Smith, the former and current governors argued that the solution to gerrymandering can't be left to state legislators.

This could be awkward: the CFPB would need the Justice Department's permission to argue before the Supreme Court.

DiCarmine's attorney, Locke Lord of counsel Michael King, said in the letter that the settlement still required SEC review and approval.

But hey–“It's not as though she said, can you help me with my son's education and I'll lose your file.”