MLM Counties News. Notices. Need-to-know Information.

Merrill Lynch & Co., the world’s third-largest securities firm by market value, was sued by the U.S. government and accused of discriminating against a quantitative analyst because he was an Iranian Muslim. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claimed in ...

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission defended its record in pursuing stiff fines against companies after critics accused the agency of favoring business over investors. The SEC has imposed almost as many corporate penalties through the first half of 2007 ...

Comverse Technology Inc.’s founder and former Chief Executive Officer Jacob “Kobi” Alexander said backdating stock options isn’t illegal and that he relied on lawyers and accountants when dealing with the options. “Backdating options is not illegal,” Alexander’s lawyers in Windhoek, ...

Google Inc. was told by a federal judge to go to the U.S. Justice Department with its complaint that Microsoft Corp.’s operating system may not comply with a 2001 antitrust settlement. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who oversees the settlement ...

A Jackson County judge has wiped out one of the year’s largest verdicts in Kansas City. In a rare ruling, Judge Edith Messina threw out a $17.3 million jury verdict in a class action lawsuit against American Family Mutual Insurance ...

Psychiatric patients arriving at probate court for their competency hearings might someday appear from the familiar surroundings of their hospitals. A group of psychiatric hospitals have asked the St. Louis Probate Court to consider video-conferencing the hearings, which are held ...

A Washington dry cleaner won’t lose its shirt for allegedly misplacing a pair of pants belonging to a local judge after a court rejected his $54 million lawsuit. Judge Judith Bartnoff, of the District of Columbia Superior Court, ruled for ...

Missouri’s William Hungate, 84, former federal judge, dies William L. Hungate, a former district judge, congressman and jazz singer known for his wit, died at a Chesterfield hospital Friday from complications related to brain surgery. He was 84. A judge ...

The U.S. Supreme Court gave companies, labor unions and interest groups more power to run broadcast ads before elections, limiting the reach of a federal campaign-finance law. The 5-4 ruling Monday marks a shift for the court, which in 2003 ...

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider reviving a Maine law that seeks to block tobacco shipments to children by putting new requirements on United Parcel Service and other package-delivery companies. The justices said they would review a federal appeals court ...

In the majority opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the U.S. Supreme Court found an Alaska high school principal properly confiscated a banner from a student in 2002 because she said it promoted illegal drug use. The student, Joseph ...