San Francisco Chronicle: Abercrombie to Pay $50 Million in Bias Suits. Teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch said Tuesday it will pay $50 million to settle charges that it discriminates against women and minorities in hiring, saying it hopes to avoid a prolonged conflict over the matter.
I’ll be updating the Abercrombie & Fitch contracts page soon.
USA Today: Cherkasky Begins New Era for Marsh. The executive suite of ousted Marsh & McLennan CEO Jeffrey Greenberg is being retrofitted as a conference room. The company’s $25 million Falcon 900 jet is for sale. And last week Marsh held its first conference call with the media in memory. For a besieged insurance giant with almost $12 billion in annual sales, the moves could be dismissed as token stabs at corporate resuscitation. But for Michael Cherkasky, the rumpled former prosecutor newly tapped to lead the revival of the world’s largest insurance brokerage, the changes represent a crucial distancing from the old guard that led the firm to the brink of ruin after allegations of bid-rigging and collusion.
So, which stage does the removal of a CEO represent in the loss process? Clearly not denial. I’m split between bargaining and acceptance. Marsh & McLennan released Michael G. Cherkasky’s employment agreement last week. The employment agreement for his predecessor – Jeffrey Greenberg – is also available.
Motley Fool: Is Marsh Ringing the Value Bell? Marsh & McLennan has the highest yield this company’s share price has offered since 1988. The dividend has risen every year for the past 10 years at a 12% clip. The company is sporting its lowest P/E in its lifetime. So, why not buy?
After last year’s Putnam fiasco, you would think that parent Marsh & McLennan would clean up their act or stop doing business in New York. Well, neither of those two happened, so New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued Marsh – this time for bid-rigging. Damages? So far, over $10 billion in market cap. Ouch! BusinessWeek also has an interesting article about this: The Secret World of Marsh Mac.
You can find the employment agreement for Jeffrey Greenberg of Marsh & McLennan on the web site. I’ve also posted the employment agreement for Evan Greenberg of ACE Ltd., which was also named in the suit. AIG contracts are also available, but no employment agreement from dad Maurice Greenberg.
Red Herring: Conway to Take the Stand. Less than a week after he was booted from the top spot at PeopleSoft, Craig Conway is expected to face tough questions from Oracle lawyers in a Delaware courtroom on Wednesday.
You can find Craig Conway’s Employment Agreement and other PeopleSoft contracts on the web site.
USA Today: Martha Stewart Will Serve Her Time in W. Va.. Martha Stewart has been ordered to serve her sentence for lying about a stock sale at the federal prison in Alderson, W.Va., a source close to the case told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons provides a handy Inmate Locator to help you keep track of Martha Stewart or any of your other favorite inmates. I’ve added some new Martha Stewart Living contracts to the web site, including her latest Employment Agreement.
SiliconValley.com: Kumar, Facing Jail Time, Disavows Concept of 35-Day Month. In March of 2002, dissident Computer Associates investor Sam Wyly, who the year before had mounted an unsuccessful campaign to unseat the software company’s board of directors, demanded that CA fire its top three executives.
This coming from a company that offers solutions enabling “you to meet regulatory compliance issues.” I guess they weren’t using their own software. I’ve posted Computer Associates contracts, including a deferred prosecution agreement, on the web site.
CNET News.com: Jury slaps Sony with $82 million verdict. Immersion, a maker of force-feedback joysticks, said Wednesday that a jury on Tuesday found that Sony’s PlayStation unit infringed on its patents and awarded the company $82 million.
I’ve posted Immersion contracts, including a number of licensing agreements, on the web site.
Forbes: Software Company Sees Goldmine in Patent Cases. While it tries to build its line of scheduling software, Austin-based Forgent has been hiring lawyers to extract revenue from the company’s store of old patents. Already, Forgent has reaped nearly $50 million by claiming that one of its patents covers JPEG, the popular standard for digital images. Sony Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc. are among the tech giants that have settled with Forgent.
Interesting article that compares Forgent to “trial lawyers.” Also, the article includes a quote from an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) comparing this to class-action lawyering. Do I detect an anti-plaintiff bias? Anyways, I’ve posted Forgent contracts on the web site.
Techweb: HP, WordLogic Settle Lawsuit Hewlett-Packard Co. has settled a lawsuit in which WordLogic Corp. accused the company of using its software for handheld computers without a license, the company said Friday.
View WordLogic contracts. WordLogic did not provide a copy of its license with Compaq Computer, but I did find a Software Distribution Agreement between WordLogic and Handango.