Month: January 2020

  • Case of the Day: Kazakhstan v. Lawler

    The case of the day is Republic of Kazakhstan v. Lawler (D. Ariz. 2020). Big Sky Energy Corp. commenced an arbitration against Kazakhstan before ICSID, asserting a claim under the US/Kazakhstan bilateral investment treaty. The treaty does not provide protection to “any company that is controlled by non-U.S. nationals if that company does not conduct……

  • Royal Scandal of the Day: Can Prince Andrew Be Required To Testify?

    Back in 2015 I wrote about some unserious attempts by lawyers for an alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein to get testimony or a statement from Prince Andrew. I commented on the haplessness of the strategy of sending requests to Buckingham Palace and the awesomeness of the letterhead of the alleged victims’ lawyers. Later, I commented……

  • Case of the Day: Bodyguard Productions v. Musante

    The case of the day is Bodyguard Productions, Inc. v. Musante (D. Hawaii 2020). Bodyguard owned the copyright for a movie called The Hitman’s Bodyguard. It alleged that Alex Musante had infringed the copyright. The claim was that Musante had streamed the movie using a BitTorrent client. In an amended complaint, filed apparently after having……

  • A Tale of Two Judges

    On January 20, Mohammed Hossein brought an action and a petition for a writ habeas corpus in the District Court in Boston seeking relief from imminent removal. He was a young Iranian national studying for a bachelor’s degree at Northeastern University. When he arrived at Logan Airport, the CBP officer revoked his student visa and……

  • Hat-Thrown-In-The-Ring of the Day: Ben Sigel in the Massachusetts Fourth District

    Yesterday’s spectacle marked a sad day for the country, but I’m not going to dwell on that: I was also reminded yesterday that we have it in our hands to create a better politics and a better civic culture just by voting for candidates who are smart, conscientious, public-spirited, and of good character. Well. We……