Month: August 2012

  • Case of the Day: Yates v. Cheung

    The case of the day is Yates v. Cheung (N.D. Cal. 2012). Craig Yates, who uses a wheelchair, alleged that several businesses apparently located in a single building were not accessible to him. He asserted claims under the Americans With Disability Act and California law against the businesses and their landlords, Yee Mei Cheung, Tat……

  • Hacked! (Or something)

    Something very bad happened to the Letters Blogatory server tonight (Aug. 14). You can see the website doesn’t work right. It doesn’t look the way it should, and none of my internal links are working. I am burning the midnight oil trying to set things right. Fortunately I had a backup, so almost no text……

  • Case of the Day: Schneider v. Kingdom of Thailand

    The case of the day is Schneider v. Kingdom of Thailand (2d Cir. 2012). Schneider was the German equivalent of the bankruptcy trustee of Walter Bau AG, a German firm whose predecessor in interest had made an investment in a Thai toll road between 1989 and 1997. Walter Bau initiated an arbitration under the German-Thai……

  • Deadline Comes and Goes in the Lago Agrio Case

    On July 30, the Ecuadoran court entered an order in the Lago Agrio case. There is no translation available yet, but according to a website affiliated with the plaintiffs, ChevronToxico, the order imposed an August 6 deadline on Chevron to deposit funds necessary to remediate the oil contamination for which the Ecuadoran court found Chevron……

  • Update on the Renewal of Ecuador’s Trade Preferences

    I previously noted that Chevron had put some pressure on Ecuador by lobbying the US Trade Representative to report to Congress that Ecuador no longer met the eligibility criteria under the Andean Trade Preference Act, under which many Ecuadoran exports to the United States enjoy favorable duties. Chevron pointed to Ecuador’s refusal to obey the……