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(Reuters) – Google has ramped up its legal firepower as it prepares to do battle with EU antitrust regulators after a landmark 2.4-billion-euro ($2.7 billion) fine and the possibility of a second record sanction before the end of the year.

Alphabet unit Google, the world’s most popular internet search engine, is drawing on the expertise of at least five top law firms in Brussels to help it deal with its EU regulatory troubles, people familiar with the matter said.

The EU competition authority hit the company with a 2.4 billion euro ($2.7 billion) penalty last month for unfairly favoring its shopping service.

Antirust regulators are also weighing a record fine against Google over its Android mobile operating system and a third case involves its AdSense for Search platform.

The Luxembourg-based General Court, Europe’s second highest, will be the first battleground for Google if, as expected, it challenges the European Commission’s June decision and potentially disruptive changes to its business practices.

Cleary Gottlieb, Allen & Overy, Slaughter and May, Garrigues and White & Case have all been tapped by Google.

Google did not immediately respond to an email for comment.

The company’s decision to rely on a diverse range of lawyers makes sense because of the risks it faces, Ian Giles, a partner at London-based law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, said.

“Given the potential penalties and damages actions it faces, Google will want to invest in the best possible defense team, and direct legal costs will be a relatively minor consideration,” he said.

“There may be simple capacity reasons as to why they are sharing the workload between a number of law firms, but there is also value to seeking a second opinion, reconsidering strategy, and bringing new ideas to the table,” Giles said.

Expect fireworks, economist Georgios Petropoulos at think-tank Bruegel said.

“There has been no similar case in European law in the past. It is a very challenging case and difficult to prove one or the other,” he said, referring to issues such as market dominance, definition of the relevant market, among others.

Google may also well be preparing for expensive litigation ahead from rivals that do not need to establish its liability following the Commission’s ruling on Google shopping.

“The (Commission’s mention of a) 45-fold increase in traffic to Google shopping and the 85 percent drop in traffic to some competitor sites suggest there is significant potential for such actions, as does the size of the penalty,” Collyer Bristow lawyer Stephen Critchley wrote in a recent note.

The legal battles will also provide helpful markers for the fast-moving tech industry and regulators struggling to impose old rules on new markets and dominant social platforms, said Petropoulos.

“We need some decisions on what is good and what is bad. All these will provide more clarity on how this market works,” he said.

Cleary Gottlieb is advising on the Google shopping case, Allen & Overy together with Cleary on the Android smartphone case and Slaughter and May on the AdSense case, the sources said.

Garrigues and White & Case, which signed up former General Court judge Nicholas Forwood last year, are also providing competition advice.

Forwood took part in the Luxembourg court’s 2007 and 2012 rulings on Microsoft, which did battle with the EU in several investigations that ultimately cost it more than 2.2 billion euros in penalties.

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Google has ramped up its legal firepower as it prepares to do battle with EU antitrust regulators after a landmark 2.4-billion-euro ($2.7 billion) fine and the possibility of a second record sanction before the end of the year.

Google, the world’s most popular internet search engine, is drawing on the expertise of at least five top law firms in Brussels to help it deal with its EU regulatory troubles, people familiar with the matter said.

The EU competition authority hit the company with a 2.4 billion euro ($2.7 billion) penalty last month for unfairly favoring its shopping service.

Antitrust regulators are also weighing a record fine against Google over its Android mobile operating system and a third case involves its AdSense for Search platform.

The Luxembourg-based General Court, Europe’s second highest, will be the first battleground for Google if, as expected, it challenges the European Commission’s June decision and potentially disruptive changes to its business practices.

Cleary Gottlieb, Allen & Overy, Slaughter and May, Garrigues and White & Case have all been tapped by Google.

Google did not immediately respond to an email for comment.

The company’s decision to rely on a diverse range of lawyers makes sense because of the risks it faces, Ian Giles, a partner at London-based law firm Norton Rose Fulbright, said.

“Given the potential penalties and damages actions it faces, Google will want to invest in the best possible defense team, and direct legal costs will be a relatively minor consideration,” he said.

“There may be simple capacity reasons as to why they are sharing the workload between a number of law firms, but there is also value to seeking a second opinion, reconsidering strategy, and bringing new ideas to the table,” Giles said.

Expect fireworks, economist Georgios Petropoulos at think-tank Bruegel said.

“There has been no similar case in European law in the past. It is a very challenging case and difficult to prove one or the other,” he said, referring to issues such as market dominance, definition of the relevant market, among others.

Google may also well be preparing for expensive litigation ahead from rivals that do not need to establish its liability following the Commission’s ruling on Google shopping.

“The (Commission’s mention of a) 45-fold increase in traffic to Google shopping and the 85 percent drop in traffic to some competitor sites suggest there is significant potential for such actions, as does the size of the penalty,” Collyer Bristow lawyer Stephen Critchley wrote in a recent note.

The legal battles will also provide helpful markers for the fast-moving tech industry and regulators struggling to impose old rules on new markets and dominant social platforms, said Petropoulos.

“We need some decisions on what is good and what is bad. All these will provide more clarity on how this market works,” he said.

Cleary Gottlieb is advising on the Google shopping case, Allen & Overy together with Cleary on the Android smartphone case, and Slaughter and May on the AdSense case, the sources said.

Garrigues and White & Case, which signed up former General Court judge Nicholas Forwood last year, are also providing competition advice.

Forwood took part in the Luxembourg court’s 2007 and 2012 rulings on Microsoft, which did battle with the EU in several investigations that ultimately cost it more than 2.2 billion euros in penalties.

Get the latest Google stock price here.

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2017. Follow Reuters on Twitter.

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RIVERSIDE, Calif., July 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — The Law Office of Zulu Ali in Riverside, California has been named one of the 10 Best Law Firms in California for Client Satisfaction in the areas of Criminal Defense, Immigrations, and Personal Injury by the American Institute of Legal Counsel (AIOLC). The annual list honors exceptional performance by California law firms in selected areas.

The AIOLC is a third-party attorney rating organization that publishes a yearly list of the Top 10 Law Firms in each state. Attorneys and firms selected to the “10 Best List” must pass AIOLC’s rigorous selection process, which is based on client and/or peer nominations and AIOLC’s independent evaluation of attorney’s relationships with and reputations among their clients.

The law firm was founded by its owner and principal attorney, Zulu Ali, a Tennessee native, former police officer, and U.S. marine veteran, who was inspired by the work and legacy of civil rights attorneys Thurgood Marshall, Avon Williams, Jr., Charles Hamilton Houston; and other advocates and leaders of the civil rights movement.  The mission and philosophy of the firm is to advocate for changes in the law when the law is unjust.

Although the mission and diverse makeup of the law firm subjects it to immense scrutiny, the firm continues to be inspired by its mission to preserve and fulfill the legacy of those leaders and advocates of the past who sacrificed in order to make a more just society.

“I believe the mission of a lawyer should be to strive for change and challenge the courts when there is injustice.  In our firm, we put it on the line despite the immense scrutiny and consequences we may face.  But for brave attorneys and advocates who are willing to step out the box, we would still be in segregation or servitude if the laws and courts were not challenged.  Many attorneys and advocates are chilled and neutralized because they are usually targeted, ridiculed, and subjected to reprimand or worst when they test the status quo, but it is necessary despite the risks,” Principal Attorney Zulu Ali adds.

The firm’s founder and principal attorney, Zulu Ali, been named Top 100 Lawyers by the National Black Lawyers – Top 100; Top 100 Trial Lawyers by the National Trial Lawyers – Top 100 Trial Lawyers; Premier 100 Trial Attorneys by the American Academy of Trial Attorneys, also known as the National Academy of Jurisprudence; Top 10 Best Lawyers by the American Institute of Legal Counsel in the areas of Criminal Defense, Immigrations, and Personal Injury; and Top 10 Criminal Law Attorneys by the American Jurist Institute.

Contact:   
Zulu Ali   
951-782-8722   
167242@email4pr.com
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SOURCE  Law Office of Zulu Ali

Copyright (C) 2017 PR Newswire. All rights reserved



                                        From MarketWatch


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MUMBAI (Reuters) – In January, Innoventive Industries, a speciality steelmaker based in western India, was forced into the bankruptcy court by its lenders, testing for the first time new insolvency rules that aim to resolve India’s $150 billion bad debt overhang.

The company, which makes steel tubes and auto parts for customers including Ford (F.N), Volkswagen (VOWG.DE) and Tata Motors (TAMO.NS), posted its third straight annual loss in 2016, prompting ICICI (ICBK.NS), one of its lead lenders, to trigger bankruptcy proceedings early this year.

Nearly six months on the proceedings against Innoventive, seen as a test case for the first national bankruptcy law, are raising questions about the efficiency of the new regime that regulators are now compelling lenders to use to recover debts.

The new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code aims to move cases of company failure into a single forum, replacing an archaic system of overlapping regulations under which banks, company promoters and other creditors could all initiate competing proceedings in different courts, tribunals and regions.

That system left India’s Debt Recovery Tribunals vastly overstretched, with court buildings strewn with ever-rising pillars of dusty files, gumming up the flow of credit in the economy and discouraging new investment.

The World Bank estimated it took 4.3 years on average in India to resolve insolvency under the old laws, more than twice as long as in China. And average recoveries were just 25.7 cents on the dollar, one of the worst among similar sized economies.

The new regime aims to significantly boost recoveries and put a firm timeline around case resolution in the hope that this will help clean-up bank balance sheets and spur lending.

India’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India has already told banks to push 12 of the largest defaulters into insolvency, but experts worry the framework is largely untested and hampered by a shortage of experienced bankruptcy professionals.

“I completely understand why they want resolution for large defaulters quickly because the balance sheets have to be cleaned up,” said Ashish Chhawchharia, a partner at accounting and consulting firm Grant Thornton. “You cannot really push too hard, however, because if things go wrong people will start losing faith in the new code.”

Flood of Cases

Defaulters identified by the RBI are already being taken to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), the forum now empowered to rule on these cases. Only a few dozen cases have been taken on by the NCLT so far, but a deluge could be in the offing.

“We estimate at least 20,000 to 25,000 bankruptcy cases will come to the NCLT, if not more,” said Nikhil Shah, a managing director at restructuring experts Alvarez & Marsal. “And at that point it would get crushed under the workload.”

The new law mandates a 180-day deadline to resolve cases, but the Innoventive case, in which creditors are seeking to recover about $200 million, has already faced multiple delays.

Innoventive initially sought to block the matter under a six-decade old state law, and launched appeals in the High Court and an appellate tribunal, while creditors were divided on the terms of an interim financing deal, according to two sources close to the case.

The company could appeal all the way to the Supreme Court, forcing lenders to seek an extension and jeopardising the resolution deadline, the sources said.

Chandu Chavan, the main backer of Innoventive, could not be reached for comments despite repeated attempts.

With loan syndicates in India typically comprising a dozen or more state-run and private banks, forging agreement between creditors is not easy.

For Innoventive, it was harder to get the 21 lenders in the room to agree on an interim financing package for the firm to operate during the insolvency process than to find a party willing to actually provide the funds, one of the sources said.

Bankers often lack authority to take decisions on writedowns and have to revert to their boards for approval, causing further delays, the source added.

Value Erosion

Under the new system lenders are mandated to initiate liquidation proceedings if a case cannot be resolved within the 180-day deadline, with a 90-day extension granted only in exceptional circumstances.

Such an outcome could result not only in job losses at companies that were still going concerns, but also steep losses for banks that have to sell assets piecemeal.

“We’ve already been in touch with all possible suitors,” said one senior banker, describing the situation lenders often found themselves in when they tried to offload assets from liquidated firms. “It’s not like you have a lot people waiting for these assets.”

Despite these concerns, M.S. Sahoo, chairman of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India, the government body set up to supervise the new code, said he was confident buyers would emerge under the new system.

“Nothing develops in a vacuum.” said Sahoo. “Only when something is available will the market develop.”

The NCLT would not be hit with a tsunami of cases, he added, as only large defaults will be handed to it.

Those involved in cases are also concerned by the lack of experienced insolvency resolution professionals – a domain in its infancy in India and dominated by mom-and-pop firms.

Dinkar Venkatasubramanian, a partner at EY, says a lack of professional indemnity insurance for insolvency professionals was a major deterrent for big accounting firms to take up the task.

“The risk is significant,” he said. “There exists litigation and reputational risk and the indemnity for IPs in the code is very generic.”

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The nation’s consumer watchdog is adopting a rule on Monday that would pry open the courtroom doors for millions of Americans, restoring their right to bring class-action lawsuits against financial firms.

Under the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule, banks and credit card companies could no longer force customers into arbitration and block them from banding together to file a class-action suit.

The change would deal a serious blow to Wall Street and could wind up costing financial firms billions of dollars.

More immediately, its adoption is almost certain to set off a political firestorm in Washington, where both the Trump administration and House Republicans have pushed to rein in the consumer finance agency as part of a broader effort to lighten regulation on the financial industry.

…

Under the Congressional Review Act — a 1996 law that had been rarely used before the current Congress employed it to reverse 14 rules from the Obama administration — lawmakers have 60 legislative days to overturn the rule blocking mandatory arbitrations. The rule could take effect next year.”

This is a huge deal — binding arb. clauses have been a major vehicle for big banks and other financial companies to basically disenfranchise consumers of legal process, and thus, steamroll and rip them off more generally. They are, essentially, adhesion contracts (i.e., you have no power to influence, let alone re-negotiate the contract, because they’re all doing the same thing). Of course, Trump and many Republicans will try to kill this — even though we’re really talking about bread-and-butter rights and market machinery, and putting a force back into play that could significantly lessen the burden of rules-based regulation…

For more color on this, see the following excerpt:

To get beyond the anecdotal, The New York Times assembled its own database of arbitrations in a series of articles in 2015 that showed few people ever go to arbitration.

In financial disputes, the numbers are particularly startling. In its investigation, The Times found that between 2010 and 2014, only 505 consumers — a fraction of the tens of millions of Americans whose financial contracts have arbitration clauses — went to arbitration over disputes of $2,500 or less….

By banning class actions, companies essentially squashed challenges to practices that ranged from predatory lending and wage theft to sexual discrimination and medical malpractice.

Among the class actions derailed over the years by arbitration was a case brought by Citigroup customers who had accused the bank of tricking them into insurance that they were never eligible to use. In another, a group of merchants challenged American Express over high processing fees…

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FBI
Director nominee Christopher Wray meets with Sen. Chuck Grassley,
R-Iowa, in his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday,
June 29, 2017.
AP/Andrew
Harnik

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s nominee to head
the FBI earned $9.2 million last year as a partner in an
international law firm, where he worked for clients ranging from
Credit Suisse Group and Wells Fargo to New Jersey Governor Chris
Christie.

Disclosure forms produced for the Office of Government Ethics
show Christopher Wray is also expected to receive millions more
in payments when he leaves the King & Spalding law firm on
his confirmation as director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.

The forms and a letter from Assistant Attorney General Lee
Lofthus, a designated ethics official for the Justice Department,
were made public ahead of Wray’s confirmation hearing before the
Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. Wray would succeed James
Comey, whom Trump fired in May.

Lofthus said in his letter that Wray would not receive a bonus,
severance or contingency fees on leaving his firm but would
receive a refund of his money in the firm’s capital account and a
final partnership share distribution, unless he decided to
forfeit it.

To satisfy ethics concerns, Wray will not participate for one
year in FBI matters that involve companies or people represented
by his former law firm, Lofthus said in his letter. He also will
not participate in matters involving his former clients for a
year, unless he obtains a prior authorization.

Wray’s financial disclosure forms show he provided legal services
to a number of large international corporations, including
Johnson & Johnson, Huntington Ingalls Industries,
Georgia-Pacific and SunTrust Banks

He also provided legal services to Christie during the
“Bridgegate” scandal in which two of the Republican governor’s
former associates were convicted of plotting to close down access
lanes at the George Washington Bridge for nearly a week in 2013
in an act of political retribution.

If he is confirmed, Wray will have 90 days to dispose of millions
of dollars worth of stock he owns in firms ranging from Apple Inc
and American Airlines to Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobil, Lofthus said.

Wray served at the U.S. Justice Department from 2003 to 2005
under Republican President George W. Bush as an assistant
attorney general in charge of its criminal division and oversaw
the department’s Enron task force.

(Reporting by David Alexander; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Read the original article on Reuters. Copyright 2017. Follow Reuters on Twitter.