A federal judge at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on March 11 certified two classes of investors challenging the U.S. government’s 2008 bailout of American International Group Inc. and named David Boies of Boies, Schiller & Flexner as lead class counsel. The case was brought by Starr International Company Inc., a major AIG shareholder, who claims that the government’s actions in overseeing a stock split constituted an illegal "taking" of shareholder property under the Fifth Amendment. Starr is represented by John Gardiner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Justice is looking to senior trial counsel Brian Mizoguchi; and Joseph Allerhand of Weil, Gotshal & Manges was tapped by nominal defendant AIG.
Cablevision Systems v. Viacom International
In an antitrust complaint unsealed on February 26, Cablevision Systems Corporation accuses Viacom International Inc. of strong-arming it into carrying a bunch of unpopular cable channels. Cablevision claims that it was forced to broadcast unpopular channels as a condition of getting a license to broadcast the more popular ones, constituting a violation of the Sherman Act and New York law. Cablevision has tapped Jerome Katz, Mariel Goetz, and Mark Popofsky of Ropes & Gray; Viacom is looking to Joseph Tringali and Peri Zelig at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.
