This week seven American law firms said they had begun class-action proceedings against the company for the multibillion-dollar losses that hit their clients' investments; Petrobras shares have lost a third of their value in less than a month.
While the ruling Friday by Third Circuit District Court Judge James T. Giles puts a stop to the Pennsylvania class-action proceedings, it does not prevent Milli Vanilli fans from filing individual suits against the record company.
On Jan . 3 the Project on Predatory Student Lending of the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School filed a 7.3 billion dollar class action lawsuit in the bankruptcy proceedings of ITT Tech, one of the country's largest for-profit college chains, on behalf of a proposed class of hundreds of thousands of former ITT Tech students in all 37 states in which the now defunct college had operated.
And while the French state could find itself on the receiving end of any number of class action lawsuits from disgruntled freelancers, legal proceedings could also be launched by France's European neighbors or by the European Union on the grounds of "excessive tax exemption," since employers who hire casual staff do not pay taxes or, in this case, value-added tax (VAT).
The company is fighting a major class action in Australia and could face legal proceedings in the UK.
The decision by Judge Phineas Mojapelo sets the stage for protracted proceedings in South Africa's largest class action suit, which analysts have said could cost the gold industry hundreds of millions of dollars.
Rob Gain, an attorney with Koskie Minsky LLP, the firm which is handling the class action suit, says the failings of Motherisk has "poisoned" child protection proceedings.
On Wednesday, the justices hear arguments in Nielsen v. Preap, a class action suit that asks how quickly the Department of Homeland Security needs to act when starting deportation proceedings against immigrants with criminal records.
It also introduced new rules to fuel more collective proceedings on behalf of claimant groups, putting it closer to the US model of class action lawsuits.
AAA statistics "suggest that class arbitration proceedings take more time than the average commercial arbitration, but may take less time than the average class action in court". AAA Amicus Brief 24 (emphasis added).
But the proceedings that drew to a close in State Superior Court here this week did not involve a high-stakes hostile takeover or a class action by shareholders.
