The nation's two largest grocery wholesalers, Supervalu and C&S Wholesale, conspired to allocate territories, restrain competition and inflate prices, according to a federal antitrust class action. Gary's Foods claims the defendants competed until 2003, when Vermont-based C&S decided to go after Supervalu territory in the Midwest.
    "Rather than extend their competition to the Midwest or continue to compete in New England, the Defendants conspired to allocate territories: Supervalu agreed to
    exit New England in return for C&S's commitment not to enter Wisconsin, Iowa, and other states in the Midwest," the complaint states. "This scheme has caused substantial harm to retailers: prices for wholesale sales and services have been inflated, fewer manufacturer discounts have been passed on to retailers, and the supply of wholesale sales and services has been artificially reduced."
The two defendants have combined annual revenue of $28 billion,according to the complaint. Gary's also claims the defendantsfraudulently concealed their conspiracy. Gary's demands treble damagesand punitive damages for the class. It is represented by Daniel Kotchenwith Kotchen & Low of Washington, D.C.

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the U.S. government is properly imprisoning two people as enemy combatants in Guantanamo - the first legal victory for the Bush administration in the issue for a long time, and the first of an expected 200 or more similar cases.
    U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., was the jurist who ruled about a month ago that the Bush administration had illegally imprisoned five Algerians at Guantanamo for nearly 7 years. He ordered the administration to release them.
    The recent case involved a Yemeni, Moath Hamza Ahmed al Alwi, and a Tunisian, Hisham Sliti.
    Judge Leon found that Sliti was an al Qaeda recruit who attended a military training camp in Afghanistan.
    Judge Leon ruled that though there was no proof that al Alwi had made war upon U.S. forces, his ties to the Taliban were sufficient to justify his imprisonment as an enemy combatant.

Embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has made a point of regularly going to work at his office in Chicago. He has signed legislation and issued pardons. He has sent out press releases about predatory lending and fighting poverty.

But his arrest on federal corruption charges has clearly complicated his work as the state's chief executive and already cost the state some $20 million. The state is facing a potential $2.5 billion budget deficit and the governor doesn't have the same horsepower — or clout — to address the problem that he had just a month ago.

No one in the state capital trusts Blagojevich enough to give him authority to trim the budget on his own, as he requested in November. Any other idea he advances would probably be rejected out of hand. Yet no other official can take the lead.

"Everything just comes to a halt. You have complete paralysis," said House Republican Leader Tom Cross of Oswego.

Blagojevich, a second-term Democrat, was arrested Dec. 9 on charges accusing him of scheming to swap President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat for profit, shaking down a hospital executive for campaign donations and other wrongdoing.

The governor has defiantly insisted he's done nothing wrong and that he will not resign. His aides say he is going about business as usual.

A same-sex couple in California has won a federal court ruling that their adopted son's Louisiana birth certificate must bear the names of both adoptive fathers.

The facts are so clear that no trial is needed, U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey wrote.

"What a great Christmas present for these guys!" said Kenneth D. Upton Jr. who represented Oren Adar and Mickey Ray Smith of San Diego.

In his ruling Monday, Zainey said Louisiana's Office of Vital Records must give full faith and credit to the New York State court in which Adar and Smith adopted the boy, he ruled Monday. The office had refused to issue a birth certificate listing both as the boy's legal parents.

Upton, reached at home Saturday evening, said he hopes to get a birth certificate in the coming week but doesn't know whether the Louisiana Attorney General's Office — which is in charge, although a state health department attorney argued the case — will decide to appeal.

The attorney general's office will look into the matter next week, said Tammi Arender Herring, spokeswoman for Attorney General James "Buddy" Caldwell.

Upton, of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc. of Dallas, said it is the fourth case of its kind that he knows of. Cases in Oklahoma, Virginia and Mississippi also were decided in the parents' favor — the Mississippi case decided at trial about a month ago, he said.

Kothari Law Firm, located in the metro Atlanta, Georgia area, announces the creation of the Atlanta Georgia Bankruptcy Blog.

This weblog focuses on legal analysis of bankruptcy and other financial matters.

"The purpose of this weblog is to provide a varied overview of relevant and topical bankruptcy issues. This weblog will discuss bankruptcy issues currently in the news, as well as providing analysis of personal bankruptcy issues. In addition, other financial issues will be discussed, such as the credit crisis, mortgage issues, and other topics," says Sundeep Kothari, Bankruptcy Attorney.

The weblog is located at www.atlantageorgiabankruptcy.wordpress.com.

Kothari Law Firm is a debt relief agency helping people file for bankruptcy protection under the Bankruptcy Code.

Germany has filed suit at the World Court asking Italy to stop its legal system from awarding damages to victims of Nazi war crimes.

The complaint, filed Tuesday in The Hague, follows a ruling by Italy's top criminal court ordering Berlin to pay euro1 million (US$1.4 million) in damages to nine relatives of victims of a June 1944 massacre in the Tuscan town of Civitella.

In the atrocity, German soldiers killed more than 200 civilians to avenge a deadly attack by partisans.

In its filing with the World Court, Germany argued that as a sovereign state it has immunity in Italian courts, and that any decision rendered in the Italian judiciary is unenforceable.

Germany, which says it has paid reparations for Nazi crimes under international treaties with Italy, rejected the ruling handed down by Italy's Court of Cassation two months ago.

German Foreign Ministry spokesman Jens Ploetner said seeking compensation for World War II crimes was "morally understandable but it is, in judicial terms, the wrong way to address this injustice, and so this ruling is not acceptable for us."

Compensation claims against Germany have been winding through the Italian judiciary since the late 1990s, when Luigi Ferrini sought restitution for his arrest and deportation to Germany in 1944 to work as a slave laborer in the Nazi armaments industry.

Germany fought the case, pleading immunity. Ferrini lost in two lower courts before the Court of Cassation overturned the previous decisions in 2004 and recognized Italian jurisdiction.