Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Martin Garbus, Esq. filed a shareholder derivative suit Monday against Marvel Entertainment and its Chief Executive Officer Isaac Perlmutter, as well as Stan Lee, the creator of Marvel superhero characters, and Lee’s wife and former Marvel Studios head, Avi Arad. The suit is for more than US$750 million (£528M) — about half of the estimated proceeds from Marvel’s movies.

Plaintiff Stan Lee Media (SLM) has four shareholders who live in Florida, California and Canada, and include Jose Abadin and Nelson Thall. The company is suing for recovery of civil damages representing one-half of film and book earnings from such blockbuster films as Spider-Man, Iron Man, X-Men, Hulk, and Fantastic Four franchises.

Defendants are accused of copyright violations over both the Marvel superhero characters and intellectual properties created by Stan Lee. Spider-Man’s three cinematic outings, starring Tobey Maguire, earned more than $1bn (£702m). “Most of Marvel’s financial success, including from the films, comes out of assets created by Stan Lee that are the subject of this suit,” the complaint states.

Lee, 86, has denied the allegations and has previously filed his own $50 million counter lawsuit against SLM, claiming the company has destroyed his name and reputation and prevented his effort to develop such properties as “The Accuser” and “The Drifter” and others via his first-look deals with Disney and Virgin Comics. Lee also co-created Daredevil, Doctor Strange and Thor.

Former dot-com company STM further alleges that it has agreed to pay Lee a $250,000 annual salary plus $100 million in company stock in exchange for the rights to the superhero characters. “That money should have gone to the corporation,” said Garbus. Lee’s counsel, Mark Williams, replied: “We look forward to a positive resolution for Stan Lee and his family.” Marvel has said the court pleadings, which were filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, are filled with “ridiculous claims”.

SLM ran out of operating capital during the dot-com meltdown in December 2000, closing operations entirely by December 19 of that year. The company was placed into Chapter 11 Reorganization in Bankruptcy by Stan Lee in 2001. During the insolvency proceedings, Lee assigned the major character franchises he had created to his new public company, POW! Entertainment, without the bankruptcy court’s approval.

Two multi-billion dollar lawsuits for damages were filed against Lee, his new company, his new partner Arthur Lieberman and Marvel Entertainment for cybersquatting and failure to disclose the existence and value of the Rights Assignment Lee made to the company when he founded it.

The company remained under bankruptcy protection until the US Trustee for the Central District of California moved to dismiss the bankruptcy proceedings for failure of the company as debtor in possession to comply with basic requirements of filing monthly reports and paying quarterly fees to the Trustee. SLM was taken back by the shareholders after its dismissal from bankruptcy and hired a legal and accounting forensic consultant to review all transactions that occurred during bankruptcy.

By November 2006, all of the officers and directors of the company had resigned or abandoned their positions and the company’s lawyers for the debtors in possession attempted to obtain court authorization to destroy or dispose of the company’s books and records. This initiated a long-running legal battle between shareholders and the company’s founder, Lee.

The plaintiffs in this most recent suit contend that Lee, Perlmutter, Arthur Lieberman and Avi Arad conspired in bad faith to conceal and misappropriate financial interests in Lee’s creations assigned to Stan Lee Media in 1998. SLM’s meltdown involved its former President Peter F. Paul fleeing to Brazil, contributions made to Bill and Hillary Clinton, Paul’s extradition and more. In 2007, SLM filed a $5 billion lawsuit in which it claimed co-ownership of all of Stan Lee’s creations for Marvel.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Apple Inc. today has introduced the much-anticipated iPhone at the Macworld Conference in San Francisco.

The iPhone is claimed to be “a revolutionary mobile phone” as stated on the Apple website. The device appears to be running a mobile version of the Apple operating system Mac OSX. It is approximately the same size as a 5th generation iPod, it has a 3.5-inch LCD touchscreen display that is used to access all features of the phone including number dial, as well as making phone calls. The iPhone plays music, movies, displays pictures and is able to connect to a wireless network.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the device by walking onto the stage and taking the iPhone out of his jeans pocket. During his 2 hour speech he stated that “Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone, We are going to make history today”.

Today Apple also released their Media Center device – Apple TV. It will directly compete with Microsoft’s Media Center operating system. Apple has taken a different approach to the media center market; rather than storing content (such as movies, music and photos) on the device, Apple TV connects to a computer (Mac and Windows) over a wirless network connection and plays all content stored on that computer. This makes it substantially easier for users to organize their media content.

Saturday, November 4, 2006

On November 13, Torontonians will be heading to the polls to vote for their ward’s councillor and for mayor. Among Toronto’s ridings is Don Valley East (Ward 33). One candidates responded to Wikinews’ requests for an interview. This ward’s candidates include Zane Caplan, Shelley Carroll (incumbent), Jim Conlon, Sarah Tsang-Fahey, and Anderson Tung.

For more information on the election, read Toronto municipal election, 2006.

Wednesday, December 24, 2014With the English-language Wikinews continuing to increase the amount of original content published, we take a look back at some of the eighty-plus original reports from our contributors during 2014.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Today, Zimbabwean officials informed the media that an Air Zimbabwe Boeing 767 aircraft carrying 250 people had crashed at Harare International Airport, before they announced the reports were false and the incident had in fact been a drill to simulate the occurrence of such an event. Initial reports suggested that a flight from London had crashed upon landing at the airport. However, Medical Rescue International later stated in a post on Facebook that no airplane had crashed and it had “joined up with other services to attend to a mock accident at Harare International Airport … Good to keep the practising up.”

Those behind the staged accident had reportedly not told any other governmental departments, resulting in relatives inquiring with Air Zimbabwe as to what had happened. A senior figure for Air Zimbabwe stated that he was “concerned that this incident led to many, many calls to us. People were frightened. No actual plane was involved, but there was a scenario involving a Boeing 767 plane that had been hijacked and forced down at Harare airport.”

It was reported that Peter Chikumba, chief of Air Zimbabwe, had also not been informed that the exercise was to take place, and that the airline had set up an emergency helpdesk to liaise with the families of victims. Alan McGuinness, a correspondent for Sky News, stated, “journalists who arrived at the airport saw smoke rising from a runway and were then taken to a room where they were told to wait. David Chawota, the head of the Zimbabwe Civil Aviation Authority, said the media was duped to make the drill more realistic.” Chawota stated, “telling the media was part of the exercise. We wanted to see how the media would react,” he said.

Chawota himself told BNO News that an airliner had crashed. Michael van Poppel, head of BNO News said that “while I first thought Chawota was just misinformed by others, although that would be odd since he is the CEO of the aviation authority, I was stunned to hear that he actually knew it was a drill and wanted to see the media’s response … This basically means he was lying to me when I spoke to him, but also to other reporters he spoke to … I think it was absolutely irresponsible of this CEO and I can’t imagine what the families of passengers travelling to Harare around that time must have gone through when they heard news reports that there had been an ‘accident’ at the airport.”

McGuinness reported, “Stuart Sprake, general manager of FX Logistics, works at Harare airport and believed the secrecy surrounding the drill will help emergency crews learn valuable lessons.” Sprake told reporters “they (the crews) had to find their way through crowds and traffic … training exercises should be ad hoc — the less people know about it the better.”

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

President of Poland Andrzej Duda promised on Monday to veto the Senate’s plans to change the arrangement of the country’s Supreme Court. The new law, which passed 55 to 23 on Saturday, would place the selection of judges in the hands of the ruling political party, the Law and Justice Party (PiS). The proposed law was met with protesters across Poland asking Duda to veto the bill and objections from officials of the European Union, who described the measure as anti-democratic. Duda also planned to veto another law that would have placed the council that proposes candidates for judgeship under the power of government officials.

“I have decided to send back to parliament — in which case to veto — the law on the supreme court, as well as the law on the National Council of the Judiciary.” These laws “would not strengthen the sense of justice in society,” Duda told the public. He said he made this decision after extensive consultation with experts in a variety of areas, including legal experts, and particularly anti-communist activist Zofia Romaszewska.

Specifically, the law would require every one of Poland’s more than 80 Supreme Court justices resign and would empower the justice minister of the governing party to choose which justices will return to the bench and which must be replaced, and with whom. It would also require that judges take religious values into account in their work: “In social life, apart from legal norms there also operates a system of norms and values, undefined in law but equally established, derived from morality and Christian values […] The supreme court should take this duality into account in its rulings,” it reads.

Duda expressed his intent to sign a third bill that would allow the justice minister under some circumstances to select judges and assign cases for Poland’s local courts.

Supporters of the laws argued they are needed to eliminate corruption and render the court system more efficient. Deputy Justice Minister Marcin Warchol said the laws would prevent justice from “becom[ing] a form of privilege” and ensure all Poles are subject to the law. Warchol said in an essay, of PiS’s legal reforms in general, “If we do not ensure a minimum of democratic control over the judiciary, there will be no counterbalance for the growing corporatism of judges. And that would mean the creation of a new order: a judiciocracy instead of democracy.” Since coming to power in 2015 on a populist and anti-immigrant platform, PiS has taken control of Polish public media, limited the authority of the constitutional tribunal, the body that can rule acts of Parliament unconstitutional, and attempted a no-exception anti-abortion law, though plans for this last were cancelled in response to widespread protests. Some of these measures have been passed without any opportunity for public commentary or during nighttime sessions.

“Courts in our opinion are the stronghold of post-communists in Poland,” said party leader Jaros?aw Kaczy?ski. He went on to accuse the supreme court of “protecting people who had served the old [Communist] regime” and of being “controlled by lefties” and foreign elements.

Miko?aj Pietrzak of the Warsaw Bar Association told the press, “The courts are sometimes too slow, some of the fees payable by citizens are too high, the system of legal aid is inadequate and under-financed — we can see the problems […] But this is like going to the doctor with the flu and he treats you by amputating your leg.”

The protesters numbered in the tens of thousands in Warsaw alone, some of them singing “Highway to Hell” outside the Presidential palace, in reference to Duda’s location at the time in his vacation home on the Hel Peninsula. Protests across Poland continued through the weekend, with many holding up signs reading “3 X veto,” calling for President Duda not to support the new laws and candlelit vigils on Sunday night.

Some protesters did support the government’s decision. When ombudsman Adam Bodnar gave a speech asking the Senate not to pass the bill, spectators called out, “Who elected you? No one! No one!”

University of Warsaw constitutional law expert Marek Chmaj told Gazeta Wyborcza, “The act means the abolishment of the Supreme Court in its current shape, creating a substitute court composed of completely new judges […] Moreover, a disciplinary chamber is being created to watch the obedience of judges and representatives of legal professions.”

The State Department of the United States, one of Poland’s NATO allies, issued the following last Friday: “The Polish government has continued to pursue legislation that appears to undermine judicial independence and weaken the rule of law in Poland […] We urge all sides to ensure that any judicial reform does not violate Poland’s constitution or international legal obligations and respects the principles of judicial independence and separation of powers.”

The European Union threatened legal proceedings if Poland were to enact this measure, which it sees as a lapse in Poland’s treaty obligations to uphold democracy and the rule of law. President of the European Council Donald Tusk, himself a Pole, said, “It is my conviction that they are a negation of European values and standards, and that they put our reputation at risk […] Politically, they move us back in time and space — backward and to the East.” Legal action could result in economic sanctions or a loss of Poland’s voting rights, though this last would require a unanimous vote among the E.U.’s other 27 countries, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary — one of the 27 — likened the plans for measures against Poland to an “inquisition campaign.”

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