Canadian drug company Biovail Corp. has fired Kasowitz Benson Torres & Friedman LLP, the law firm that engineered the company's high-profile lawsuit that claimed hedge funds and research analysts colluded to depress its stock price.

Kasowitz Benson, which is based in New York, is embroiled in a legal controversy over whether it willfully violated a protective order when it used information subpoenaed from Banc of America Securities in a shareholder suit in New York Federal court. That information was used to draft Biovail's February 2006 complaint against SAC Capital Management LLC, Sigma Capital Management LLC, Gradient Analytics Inc., Gerson Lehrman Group, former Banc of America Securities analyst David Maris and others.

Judge Richard Owen presides over the shareholder suit filed against Biovail in 2003. For the last month, Owen has been presiding over hearings to probe the violation of the protective order. Those hearings are scheduled to resume in early April.

Biovail's public relations firm Sitrick & Co. said in an e-mail statement that the company terminated Kasowitz Benson because of "issues arising from proceedings before Judge Owen." Biovail said it "maintains confidence in its pending lawsuits."

A spokesman for Kasowitz Benson had no comment.

A lawyer defending Kasowitz Benson during the hearings in front of Owen earlier this week disclosed documents against Biovail's will. The lawyer argued in court that Kasowitz Benson had a right to disclose the information because the firm was being accused of wrongful conduct.

"We have asked Biovail to come forward and clarify the record. They have declined to do so to date," said John Siffert of Lankler Siffert & Whohl LLP. "We are not saying that Biovail had an appreciation for the protective order barring what we did anymore than we did, but at least they knew about the protective order and didn't tell us," Siffert said.

Evidence introduced in court shows that Kasowitz Benson lawyers continued to use and share material obtained from Banc of America after they were told about a March 2005 court order preventing its use in other venues.

According to evidence that came up during hearings in front of Owen, Kasowitz Benson drafted and circulated to several law firms a shareholder complaint that was later filed against SAC and others in New Jersey federal court. That complaint closely mirrors the one filed by Biovail against the same defendants a month earlier and uses some of the same information obtained from Banc of America.

Lawyers representing shareholders suing Biovail in New York federal court argued in a letter sent to Judge Owen last week that Biovail's lawyers drafted and caused the filing of the New Jersey shareholder complaint to hamper class certification in New York.

Kasowitz Benson also represents Fairfax Financial Holdings, a Canadian insurer who sued some of the same defendants and alleges a similar conspiracy to depress its stock.

Last June, Kasowitz Benson partner Marc Kasowitz testified in front of a Senate hearing about hedge funds, alleging that supposedly "independent" research reports are routinely bought and paid for by short-selling hedge funds, and warned lawmakers that "the potential for gross fraud and abuse is stunning."

"David Shapiro is a truly extraordinary legal scholar and lawyer, with whom we already have had the privilege of working on important matters for Manatt clients," said Chad Hummel, Chair of Manatt's national Litigation Division. "From our successful prior collaborations, we know that Professor Shapiro fits perfectly with our firm's national litigation practice and especially our expanding appellate and U.S. Supreme Court practice. We are honored and thrilled that Professor Shapiro has agreed to become a consultant to Manatt."

Professor Shapiro clerked for Supreme Court Justice John M. Harlan, and he joined Harvard Law School as an assistant professor in 1963. Professor Shapiro served as Associate Dean of Harvard Law School from 1971 to 1976. In 1986, he was named the William Nelson Cromwell Professor at Harvard Law School. Professor Shapiro has also been a visiting professor at various law schools around the country and internationally, including Stanford, Oxford, University of Pennsylvania, University of Arizona and New York University.

From 1988 to 1991, Professor Shapiro took a leave of absence from Harvard Law School to serve as Deputy Solicitor General for the first Bush administration. As Deputy Solicitor General, Professor Shapiro argued 10 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Throughout his career, Professor Shapiro has participated in over 60 U.S. Supreme Court cases, and in 2006 he contributed to three amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases.

Professor Shapiro received his B.A. from Harvard College, magna cum laude in 1954 and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School, summa cum laude, Fay Diploma in 1957. At Harvard Law School, he served as Note Editor for the Harvard Law Review.

http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/facdir.php?id=65

A federal judge said on Friday he would issue an injunction barring Vonage Holdings Corp. from using Internet phone call technology patented by Verizon Communications Inc., but delayed signing the order for two weeks.

Vonage shares fell sharply after the ruling, falling 16.8 percent, or 68 cents, to $3.37 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

The two-week period gives Vonage time to try and convince U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton to stay his injunction while it appeals the entire case. "I will sign the injunction at the time I rule on the stay," he said.

Hilton agreed with Verizon that it would suffer irreparable harm if he allowed continued infringement of the voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies that allow consumers to make calls over the Internet.

He rejected arguments by Vonage that the harm to Verizon was outweighed by other factors, including the public interest.

A jury on March 8 found Vonage had infringed three patents owned by Verizon. The jury said Vonage must pay $58 million plus 5.5 percent royalties on future sales.

"They could not have been commercially successful if they had not taken these patents we have and put them into their technologies," Dan Webb, an attorney for Verizon, said at Friday's hearing on the injunction request.

Webb also cited documents Vonage filed with the court under seal, saying an injunction would cause "enormous business difficulties" for Vonage. Webb said the Vonage filings suggested that "they can't live with an injunction because of the way their technology is designed."

However, Vonage's chief lawyer, Sharon O'Leary, told Reuters that Vonage customers would not be affected by the case. She declined to comment on the sealed, or secret, documents the company filed with the court.

O'Leary also she was pleased that the judge gave the company two weeks to try and stop the injunction.

"We will get the stay, either through the district court or the federal circuit court of appeals," O'Leary said. She said Judge Hilton himself raised the possibility that he could be overturned on appeal during arguments on Friday.

O'Leary said she was optimistic the company could get an appeals court to overturn both the injunction and the jury's verdict.

He declined to specify the loss. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

"We believed green onions may have been the source based on the presumptive positive testing, so we immediately removed them from our products to put public safety first," the statement said. "We later learned they were not the source of the E. coli outbreak."

The lawsuit alleges Taco Bell officials probably knew by Dec. 9 and certainly by Dec. 11 that tests for E. coli in the green onions were negative. The company and FDA officials said Dec. 11 that the green onions were not the source of the disease, and Taco Bell posted a press release Dec. 13 on its Web site that said lettuce appeared to be the most probable source of the outbreak, according to the suit.

Creed also said Taco Bell would no longer include green onions as a food ingredient. The lawsuit noted that lettuce remains in about 70 percent of Taco Bell‘s food selections.

Activist groups sued Viacom Inc. on Thursday, claiming the parent of Comedy Central improperly asked the video-sharing site YouTube to remove a parody of the cable network's "The Colbert Report."

Viacom responded by saying it had no records of ever making such a request.

Although the video in question contained clips taken from the television show, MoveOn.org Civic Action and Brave New Films LLC argued that their use was protected under "fair use" provisions of copyright law.

With Viacom identified by YouTube as the source of the removal request, they said Viacom should have known the use was legal and thus its complaint to YouTube to have the video blocked amounted to a "misrepresentation" that is subject to damages under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The challenge, filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, came about a week after Viacom filed its own, $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube, claiming that the wildly popular Web site is rife with copyrighted video from Viacom shows, including "The Colbert Report."

Neither YouTube nor its parent, Google Inc., was named in the latest lawsuit, filed on the plaintiffs' behalf by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society.

In a letter to the plaintiffs' lawyers, Michael D. Fricklas, general counsel for Viacom, said the company had no record of sending YouTube a complaint, despite YouTube's identification of Viacom as the source. YouTube had no comment about the discrepancy.

The complaint contends her gray tabby, Gumbie, became ill after eating food from an Iams Select Bites pouch in early February. Gumbie became lethargic, refused food and lost weight, she said, and a veterinarian diagnosed acute renal failure. The cat was "pet-hospitalized" and prescribed intravenous fluids.

Johnson told CNN she considers herself lucky. "Thankfully we got her to the vet in time. My cat was very ill, but there are lots of people around the country whose pets have died or been euthanized."

Since coming home, Gumbie has required a great deal of care. "It is stressful to have to stick a needle in the cat every day," said Johnson, who has had to administer daily subcutaneous fluid-and-drip injections since bringing Gumbie home.

Gumbie is likely to require medical tests and monitoring every few months, and Johnson expects this will increase her expenses considerably. She said she already has paid more than $3,000 in veterinary bills.

Johnson's attorney, Frank Jablonski of Progressive Law Group, said more than 95 people have joined the suit since it was filed, and he expects many more.

"We have all the clients we need," he said. "We wouldn't bring a lawsuit that we are not confident we will win." The lawsuit is seeking an unspecified amount of damages. Courts will have to certify the class and what venue will hear the case.

Menu Foods spokesperson Sam Bornstein declined to comment on the lawsuit but said the company has received tens of thousands of consumer inquiries and is doing its best to respond to them. "Our hearts go out to many thousands of pet owners, some of them for their losses and some for their worry," he said.

Menu Foods announced the precautionary recall March 16. The recall affects dog and cat food manufactured between December 3 and March 6, and is limited to "cuts and gravy" style pet food in cans and pouches produced at its plants in Kansas and New Jersey. The food is packaged under a wide variety of brand names.

Both the Food and Drug Administration and Menu Foods have been unable to identify the root cause of the problem, but the FDA said Tuesday that officials were focusing on a recent supply of wheat gluten as the likely culprit.

Pfizer Inc. said Thursday that a federal appeals court has overturned a lower court decision that upheld the patent protecting its widely-prescribed hypertension drug Novasc, a move that opens the door to early generic competition.

In a statement, Pfizer said the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a lower court ruling in favor of Pfizer, which found the Norvasc patent to be valid and enforceable. The appeal was brought by Apotex, which has been seeking to have the Pfizer patent nullified in order to put out a generic version of the drug.

Pfizer added that it is "reviewing the decision and is considering all its options, including seeking reconsideration."
Other generic drugmakers have also been seeking to put out generic versions of the drug, including Mylan Laboratories (MYL) . Norvasc is slated to lose patent protection later this year.

Prudential analyst Timothy Anderson said in his note Thursday that the appeals ruling could allow for the introduction of generic versions of Norvasc as soon as next week.

"We did not anticipate this ruling, but it will probably only have a muted impact on Pfizer which is already a washed-out, low valuation name," wrote Anderson.

"Earlier generic entry is a negative and could cost the company $1 billion in sales or so in 2007, but given Pfizer's size and cash generation this it not very material to the company's future outlook, in our opinion," Anderson added.