John Keker, who represents plaintiffs' lawyer Steven Donziger, warned that Manhattan federal judge Lewis Kaplan is marching toward a "show trial" on the issue of "whether Ecuador stinks," with the Ecuadorian plaintiffs "tethered to a stick like a goat." Luckily for the goat, it may at last have found a receptive audience in New York.

Frank "Peter" Petrella helped world middleweight champion Jake LaMotta teach actor Robert De Niro how to box for the Academy Award-winning film Raging Bull. Now Petrella's daughter is taking those fight lessons into a different arena — the U.S. Supreme Court.

Given that 60 percent of the DOJ's FCPA enforcement actions last year involved alleged bribes to employees of state-owned companies, a lot was riding on Lindsey Manufacturing's argument that Congress didn't intend those employees to be considered foreign officials under FCPA. Judge Matz's ruling hewed closely to the specific facts before him, leaving open the possibility that another defendant may yet succeed in a similar challenge.