"Between this kind of decision in New Jersey and the Supreme Court's decision on supervisory liability, clients will have to pay a lot of attention to developing their own internal compliance mechanisms," said Carmine A. Iannaccone, a partner at the law firm of Hannoch Weisman in Roseland, N.J., which represents companies that are suing their insurers.
One goal, Mr. Cobb said, is to assist H&R Block's tax professionals and improve their chances of fairly increasing refunds and reducing tax liabilities for clients.
Those firms and banks, which are named in suits that are pending, could seek to blame Jenkens & Gilchrist and thus reduce their own liability to clients.
That's sort of our trick to reduce any sort of liability," so clients' accounts don't get shut down, they said.
Instead, the laws became tougher: the Policing and Crime Act 2009 made it illegal to pay for sex with a prostitute who has been "subjected to force" and this is a strict liability offense (clients can be prosecuted even if they didn't know the prostitute was forced).
While regulations limit Nasdaq's liability regarding client losses from certain trading issues to $3 million a month, firms will be looking to prove that the actions of the exchange during the IPO opening fall outside limits, said a source with knowledge of Knight's situation.
Overall, the unit holds some $78 billion in client liabilities and these assets, taken with client deposits, generated some $1 billion in net interest income in the third quarter alone.
This is when they decided to sell their liabilities to their clients.
Lawyers for the defendants deny their clients' liability.
Industry leaders have characterized products liability lawyers and clients as a "plague of locusts," who "have brought a blood bath for U.S. business and are distorting our traditional values". Reacting, one hopes, to somewhat less extreme descriptions of products reality, several federal proposals for products reform have been introduced and many states have enacted limiting legislation.
