A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on Friday denied a motion to dismiss a torture suit brought against former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld by two American citizens captured while working in Iraq. Judge Wayne Andersen dismissed two other counts but allowed the count alleging the plaintiffs were subject to cruel and degrading treatment methods during their detention.

The plaintiffs, Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, were working for a private Iraqi security firm called Shield Group Security. There they witnessed suspicious activity that they reported to US authorities, but they were later arrested by US forces and detained without representation.

The plaintiffs brought a cause of action recognized in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics [opinion text] against Rumsfeld, claiming that he was personally responsible for the alleged unconstitutional treatment they faced while in detention. While allowing the suit seems in conflict with the recent decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, which extended heightened pleading requirements under Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)beyond antitrust cases, the judge wrote that Iqbal "requires vigilance on our part to ensure that claims which do not state a plausible claim for relief are not allowed to occupy the time of high-ranking government officials," but is not supposed to be a "categorical bar on claims against" them.

RCN, the cable operator, said on Friday that it has agreed to sell itself to the private equity firm ABRY Partners for $1.2 billion, including debt, as the leveraged buyout industry continues to get back to business.

ABRY, a media and telecom specialist based in Boston, will pay $15 a share in cash, a 22 percent premium over Thursday’s closing price.

Private equity firms have been more active this year as they finally put their billions of dollars in untapped funds to use. Earlier this week, Bain Capital agreed to pay $1.63 billion to acquire a unit of Dow Chemicals, and last week CKE Restaurants reached an accord to sell itself to THL Partners for $928 million.
One of the main enablers for the upswing in private equity activity has been the opening up of the credit markets and the willingness of banks to lend to riskier transactions again. ABRY said that it has lined up financing from SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, General Electric’s GE Capital and Societe Generale, among other firms.

Shares in RCN, which provides cable TV and broadband services in the Washington, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston and Chicago areas, have risen about 185 percent over the past 12 months ended Thursday.

Thousands of miles (kilometers) from the Siberian jail where its founder is imprisoned, representatives of the ruined Russian oil giant Yukos and the Russian government will meet face to face for the first time at the European Court of Human Rights this week as the dismantled company seeks to prove that its rights were violated.

Fearful it would never get a fair day in a Russian court, Yukos representatives filed a complaint with the European court on April 24, 2004 on the ground that it was "targeted by the Russian authorities with tax and enforcement proceedings, which eventually led to its liquidation."

Six years later, Thursday's hearing is a milestone in Yukos' efforts to win acknowledgment that the Russian government's actions were "unlawful, disproportionate, arbitrary and discriminatory, and amounted to disguised expropriation" of the company. Russian authorities had accused Yukos of shady deals and shell companies used to hide revenue from tax authorities.

Russian authorities began pursuing Yukos in 2002 on allegations of tax fraud. Through the courts, they ultimately froze its assets, forced it to sell its shares in other companies and declared it insolvent in 2006 before the company was finally liquidated a year later.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oligarch who founded the company in the chaotic years that followed the Soviet collapse, was convicted on charges of fraud and tax evasion and has been imprisoned since 2003.

Yukos would not give up the fight, however, and representatives of the company's entities that managed to survive kept pressing the complaint they filed with the European court, which was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.

A federal judge has approved Affiliated Media Inc's bankruptcy reorganization plan, clearing the way for the publisher of the Denver Post and San Jose Mercury News to emerge from Chapter 11 protection this month.

Judge Kevin Carey of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware, at a Thursday hearing approved the plan, which he called "fair, equitable and reasonable," and warranted by "exceptional and unique circumstances."

Affiliated Media is holding company for MediaNews Group, which it said is the second-largest U.S. newspaper publisher by circulation, owning 54 daily newspapers and more than 100 non-daily newspapers.

The company has said all but one of its newspapers were profitable, but a restructuring was needed because of the slump in advertising, which generates about 80 percent of its revenue. It has said the current environment could not sustain what it called "yesterday's balance sheet."

Penton Business Media Holdings Inc, a publisher of 113 trade magazines such as Ward's AutoWorld, Restaurant Hospitality and National Hog Farmer, won court approval of its reorganization plan, and expects to emerge from bankruptcy within a few days.

Judge Arthur Gonzalez confirmed the New York-based company's Chapter 11 plan on Friday in Manhattan bankruptcy court.

The plan will eliminate more than $270 million of debt, with second lien holders recovering 15 cents on the dollar. Penton will get as much as $51.2 million of new equity from its owners, court records show. Management and the board of directors will remain intact.

Penton filed for a "pre-packaged" reorganization with the support of its lenders on Feb. 10, after the privately held company struggled with falling advertising sales as many readers shifted to digital media from print.

Many publishing rivals have faced similar pressures. Penton has said revenue fell 7.5 percent in 2008 and an estimated 26.2 percent in 2009.

The company is owned by private equity firm MidOcean Partners and by an investment fund sponsored by Wasserstein & Co, the buyout firm once controlled by the late Wall Street dealmaker Bruce Wasserstein.

Melbourne Federal Court Judge Christopher Jessup's decision opens the door for claims from 600 other litigants in a lawsuit against U.S. pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co. over its since-recalled drug Vioxx. The painkiller was taken off the global market in 2004 after research showed it raised the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Graeme Peterson, 59, of Melbourne, sued Merck and its Australian subsidiary, Merck Sharpe & Dohme, arguing the painkiller caused him to have a heart attack in 2003, leaving him unable to work.

The judge found that Merck Sharpe & Dohme failed in its duty of care by not warning Peterson's doctor about the drug's potential cardiovascular risk, and by its sales representatives emphasizing the drug's safety.

New York insurance law firm Anderson Kill & Olick, has named Larry Kill as chair of its Corpor ate & Commercial Litigation practice.

Kill has represented clients in a wide range of complex commercial litigation, with an emphasis on antitrust counseling and litigation, class action treble damage cases, trademark litigation and corporate person of interest criminal investigations.

Kill, a name shareholder who joined the firm in 1972, returns to the firm after a two-year hiatus at Reed Smith, where he has been a partner in the Antitrust and Competition practice.