As the landmark f-cubed securities trial draws to a long-awaited end, shareholders' counsel Arthur Abbey responded to Vivendi's defense lawyers with spirit, humor--and some facts Vivendi would rather forget.

After an eight-year odyssey through the California courts, San Francisco antitrust lawyer Joseph Alioto may have finally reached the end of the line in a sprawling price-fixing case against Big Pharma.

Why would the parties agree to give any money to U.S. investors, whose claims would arguably be barred by the Supreme Court's Morrison decision? Maybe because some of these investors are big pension funds, and everyone wants to keep them happy.

With the announcement that he's Dechert's chairman-elect, Levander joins the select club of active litigators in charge of diversified Am Law 100 firms.

The ruling overturns a controversial decision that permitted an Air Products-sponsored shareholder amendment to push the Airgas annual meeting up by eight months. The amendment would have permitted Air Products to gain control of the Airgas board--but the Supreme Court found it invalid.

When Huntsman announced earlier this week that it terminated its merger agreement with Hexion Specialty Chemicals as part of a settlement, it looked like the end of Hexion's suit against Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank. You'll recall that after Vice Chancellor Stephen Lamb of Delaware Chancery Court found Hexion had willfully breached its merger agreement with Huntsman, he ordered Hexion to fulfill its obligations under the agreement. To make good on that order, Hexion, represented by Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman, sued Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank in New York state court to force them to fund the deal.

That didn't take long. A couple of Manhattan federal district court judges overseeing billion-dollar securities cases are already weighing the effect of the Supreme Court's game-changing ruling in Morrison v. NAB.

We weren't the only ones struck by Vivendi's Paris gambit aimed at preventing French class members from participating in the company's securities fraud trial in New York. On Tuesday, class counsel for the plaintiffs in New York demanded that Vivendi withdraw the suit.