Joe Satriani filed a copyright infringement suit in Los Angeles last Thursday (December 4). He is seeking a jury trial, damages and “any and all profits” attributable to the alleged copyright infringement. He is alleging that Coldplay’s Viva La Vida track is a rip off of his song If I Could Fly.
The Memphis based broker Morgan Keegan is under fire for allegedly selling toxic debt to seniors. Multiple lawsuits have been filed charging the firm with failing to disclose to investors the risks of seven mutual funds that were stuffed with risky subprime debt. Many of the people that invested in these funds were seniors who were advised that the funds were conservative investments. Instead of being conversative, the funds were extremely risky. In fact, the funds have lost 50 to 86% over the last year. These dramatic losses have decimated the retirement accounts of many seniors. It appears that these investors should have never been sold these funds and it further appears that these funds failed to disclose the risks. While all investments carry risks, they must be properly disclosed. Hopefully through litigation, the investors will be reimbursed their losses. If you have invested in a mutual fund that was labled conservative and have suffered considerable losses due to the funds improper exposure to subprime debt, feel free to contact our lawyers today.
There are some so-called experts out there that have announced that the real estate market will bottom later this year or in early 2009. This theory is premised largely on the belief that once the worst of the subprime crisis ends, the market will bottom and slowly tick upwards. This theory may be failing to consider the following. In August 6, 2008 edition of the Wall Street Journal, the paper reported a story of FirstFed Financial a LA based bank that just posted a 70 million first quarter loss. The loss was not due to subprime mortgages which the bank largely and smartly steered away from. Instead, these loses are tied to payment option mortgages made to people with good credit. Certain bank analysts are prediciting that up to 48% of these option ARMS could wind up in default. Firstfed has taken the extraordinary effort of contacting borrowers with these loans that are current in payments and offering modifications so that the loans remain in good standing. I am afraid that the mortgage crisis will continue, simply moving to another group of mortgages turned toxic.