The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

The Morning Wrap

Game On: The NFL has reached a deal with the referees union to end the lockout after outrage put more pressure on the league to remove replacement  refs. ESPN reports that the regular refs will be back on the field starting tonight. ESPN's Jeffri Chadiha writes that the lockout damaged the credibility of the league.

Voter ID: One of the arguments among opponents of voter id laws is that it makes it exceedingly difficult to obtain the ids for some groups of voters. NPR tagged along with two seniors in Pennsylvania to see how the process of obtaining an id worked.

Campaign Cash: When it comes to advertising dollars, Barack Obama's go a bit further than Mitt Romney's. The Washington Post reports that because most of Obama's money is held in his own coffers, he is able to take advantage of discounted advertising rates. Compare that to Romney who has more cash held by the Republican party and outside interests.

SCOTUS: As the summer comes to an end, our own Tony Mauro reports that instead of taking the summer off, the justices have been speaking out, much to the delight of the news media and court aficionados. 

Arnold & Porter Team Assists Turkey with Islamic Bond Offering

Arnold & Porter has advised Turkey in its first Islamic bond offering, the firm announced on Wednesday.

The issue, which complies with Sharia law, brought in $1.5 billion for Turkey. Turkish government real estate assets that the issuer receives and the government leases back are the basis for the offering. The lease certificates are due in 2018.

Steven Tepper, the lead Arnold & Porter partner on the matter, based out of New York, said the offering will help Turkey acquire investors who follow Islamic finance principles. The Islamic bond offering is the latest in a series of financial matters that Turkey has turned to Tepper for help during the past two decades.

King & Spalding Expands Healthcare Practice in D.C.

Updated 4:05 p.m.

King & Spalding has grown its healthcare practice in Washington with the addition of a former Department of Health and Human Services official.

Mark Polston, formerly deputy associate general counsel for litigation in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services division of HHS, joins King & Spalding as a partner.

During the seven years Polston spent with the agency, he focused on litigation involving Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act and healthcare fraud.

Former Clyde's Restaurant Official Pleads Guilty in Embezzlement Scheme

A longtime former employee of Clyde's Restaurant Group who stole more than $640,500 pleaded guilty in Washington federal district court today.

Nancy Preston, formerly the corporate controller at Clyde's, where she oversaw the company's centralized accounting function, was charged in August with mail fraud in a decade-long embezzlement scheme.

Preston, a 55-year-old resident of Vienna, Va., agreed to turn over $258,000 in stock awards and must pay back an additional $389,069, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia said today. U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras scheduled sentencing for December 12. Preston's plea agreement said the trial judge will determine the punishment.

Prosecutors said Preston diverted money from Clyde's to make payments on a personal credit card. Preston was also accused of using a company vendor to buy goods for personal use. Preston was the corporate controller at Clyde's, which owns restaurants in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, from 1992 to 2011.

Judge Affirms Ban on Lobbyists Sitting on Agency Boards

Updated 1:19 p.m.

A federal district judge in Washington on Wednesday threw out a suit six lobbyists brought against the government over the Obama administration's ban on federal lobbyists sitting on agency boards and commissions.

The lobbyists, who sought appointment or reappointment to Industry Trade Advisory Committees (ITAC) overseen by the Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative, alleged that the prohibition infringed on their constitutional right to petition the government and used an unlawful classification that penalizes them. They sued for "a declaration that this policy is unconstitutional" and for the consideration of their ITAC applications, according to the complaint.

The plaintiffs are Erik Autor, who represented the National Retail Federation on an advisory board; Nate Herman, who represented the Travel Goods Association on an advisory board; Cass Johnson, who represented the National Council of Textile Organizations on an advisory board; Stephen Lamar, who represented the American Apparel & Footwear Association on an advisory board; William Reinsch, who was "interested in applying to represent the National Foreign Trade Council" on an advisory board; and Andrew Zamoyski, who represented the Society of Chemical Manufacturers and Affiliates on an advisory board, according to the complaint.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson found that the lobbyists failed to make their case.

Libertarian Candidate Sues to Participate in Presidential Debates

Updated 1:34 p.m.

Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson has filed a federal lawsuit in California against the organizers of the upcoming series of presidential debates, arguing that the political parties violated the Sherman Act by conspiring to prevent him from participating.

Johnson, the former Republican governor of New Mexico who will appear on ballots in all 50 states, does not meet the Commission on Presidential Debates requirement to have the support of at least 15 percent of the national electorate in assessments by five polling organizations selected by the commission.

Johnson's lawsuit argues the selection and timing of those polls are secretive, and that the Republican and Democratic parties conspired earlier this year to agree to rules that would restrain Johnson from participating in the electoral process.

The Morning Wrap

Class Certified: A California federal judge has certified a class in a gender discrimination lawsuit against discount retail giant Costco Wholesale Corp. The Recorder reports that lawyers say its the first class of women certified in a gender discrimination case since the U.S. Supreme Court's blockbuster ruling in Wal-Mart v. Dukes.

No Prosecution: In what The New York Times reports is a blow to New York law enforcement's use of stop-and-frisk, the Bronx district attorney's office has stopped prosecuting people arrested for trespassing at public housing projects unless the arresting officer can be interviewed.

Libor No More: The British Bankers' Association is expected to give up its oversight of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, a benchmark interest rate used to set trillions of dollars in financial products worldwide, The Wall Street Journal reports. Libor has been a source of controversy and litigation after U.S. and U.K. financial regulators found that the rates had been manipulated in the past.

FTC Settles with Holding Company over Reporting Violation

It's practically antitrust 101: If your deal is big enough, you have to report the transaction to the government.

Publicly traded holding company Biglari Holdings Inc. was busted by the Federal Trade Commission for failing to do so, and today agreed to pay $850,000 to settle the case.

In 2011, the company acquired an 8.7 percent stake in restaurant operator Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. - an investment in excess of $66 million, the threshold at the time for pre-merger reporting under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act.

Biglari failed to notify the antitrust agencies, arguing that the law exempts acquisitions of up to 10 percent of voting securities if the acquisition is made solely for the purpose of investment, according to the FTC.

Consumer Financial Agency Testing Its 'Aggressive Ability to Investigate'

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau grabbed headlines yesterday with the news that Discover Financial Services agreed to pay $214 million to settle charges that it deceptively marketed credit card add-on services.

But that settlement - which resembles a $210 million penalty paid by Capital One Bank in July for similar allegations - is not the hottest topic in the consumer finance bar.

Rather, lawyers who follow the agency closely have zeroed in on a little-noticed petition by mortgage lender PHH Corp., which filed the first-ever challenge to a CFPB civil investigative demand, calling the agency's request for information "overly broad and unduly burdensome."

Last week, CFPB Director Richard Cordray in a nine-page decision denied the petition and ordered the company to produce all relevant documents within 21 days.

Palestinian President's Son Sues Magazine for Libel

Yasser Abbas, a son of President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, filed a $10 million lawsuit late last week against Foreign Policy Group LLC, claiming that an article published about his business dealings in Foreign Policy magazine was libelous.

Abbas and his brother Tarek Abbas were the subject of a June 2012 article in Foreign Policy by Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The article, "The Brothers Abbas," posed the question of whether the two men were "growing rich off their father's system."

In a complaint (PDF) filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on September 20, Yasser Abbas argued that the question behind Schanzer's article – whether Abbas had profited because of his father's position and "at the expense " of the Palestinian people and U.S. taxpayers – rose to the level of libel. Abbas' business ventures, according to the complaint, have included tobacco distribution, construction consulting and insurance. Abbas' brother Tarek is also referenced in the article but he isn't a plaintiff in the case.