Opponents of a proposed $10 billion oil refinery in southeastern South Dakota on Wednesday asked the state Supreme Court to strike down a state permit that would let a Texas company to begin construction.

Gabrielle Sigel, an attorney for three groups fighting the Hyperion Energy Center, said the Board of Minerals and Environment erred when it approved an air quality permit last year because its study did not include a full-blown environmental impact statement.

Sigel said the refinery would be the largest industrial project in state history and that the preparation of an impact statement should involve other agencies and evaluate a project's broader effect. State officials abused their discretion by bypassing that process, she said.

Attorneys for Hyperion and the board countered that an environmental impact statement is not required by state law that and board members took into account all relevant environmental issues when issuing the air quality permit.

The state Department of Environment and Natural Resources can require an impact statement but decided it wasn't necessary. "The board agreed," said Rick Addison, a Dallas-based attorney representing Hyperion.

New York's attorney general is investigating tax strategies of some of the nation's largest private equity firms, including Bain Capital, founded by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, an official familiar with the probe said Sunday.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is examining whether the firms have abused a tax strategy to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the probe. The practice involves converting some fees collected for managing accounts into fund investments, resulting in a lower tax rate.

Some tax experts who spoke to The New York Times, which first reported the investigation Sunday, believed the strategy was potentially illegal, though other experts said it was commonplace and proper.

The Democratic attorney general sent subpoenas to more than a dozen firms, including Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company, TPG Capital, Sun Capital Partners, Apollo Global Management, Silver Lake Partners and Bain Capital, according to the official.

Oil companies operating in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast will have a negligible effect on polar bears and walrus, according to a federal Appeals Court ruling Tuesday that backed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rules on harassment of the animals.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the agency correctly issued rules that provide legal protection to oil companies if small numbers of polar bears or Pacific walruses are incidentally harmed.

"We're glad that the court has reaffirmed the appropriateness of our conservation measures," agency spokesman Bruce Woods said.

The Center for Biological Diversity sued over the rules, claiming both individual animals and entire populations must be analyzed for protection. Center attorney Rebecca Noblin said the Appeals Court agreed but concluded the Fish and Wildlife Service had done sufficient separate analyses. Noblin called the decision disappointing.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act generally prohibits the "take" of marine mammals. Take is defined to include harassment or annoyance that has the potential to injure or that could disrupt behavior patterns such as migration, nursing, breeding and feeding.

Law Offices of Howard G. Smith announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court for the District Court of the Virgin Islands on behalf of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired the common stock of Tibet Pharmaceuticals, Inc. pursuant and/or traceable to the Registration Statement and Prospectus issued in connection with the Company’s Initial Public Offering, including all those who purchased Tibet stock after December 28, 2010.

Tibet focuses on the research, development, manufacturing, marketing and selling of modernized traditional Tibetan medicines in China. The Complaint asserts violations of the federal securities laws against Tibet, its officers and directors, and underwriters of the IPO for issuing allegedly inaccurate statements of material fact about the Company’s financial and business condition, which ultimately caused trading of Tibet’s stock to be halted and delisted by the NASDAQ, causing investors to lose nearly their entire investment. The Complaint alleges that defendants misrepresented and failed to disclose the Company’s material internal control deficiencies, which rendered the Registration Statement and Prospectus materially false and misleading.

No class has yet been certified in the above action. Until a class is certified, you are not represented by counsel unless you retain one. If you purchased Tibet common stock pursuant or traceable to the Company’s IPO and/or after December 28, 2010, you have certain rights, and have until July 25, 2012 to move for lead plaintiff status. To be a member of the class you need not take any action at this time, and you may retain counsel of your choice.

http://www.howardsmithlaw.com.

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday that three families cannot sue a mortgage company for allegedly charging them a loan discount fee without giving them a lower interest rate.

The high court's decision tosses out lawsuits filed in 2008 against Quicken Loans, Inc., in Louisiana by three families who claimed they paid the fees without receiving anything in return. The Freeman family paid $980 and the Bennett family $1,100 in loan discount fees but allegedly did not get lower interest rates in return. The Smith family allegations focus partly on a loan origination fee of $5,100, which they claim was a mislabeled loan discount fee.

A federal judge threw the lawsuit out, saying the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act made the lawsuit improper. That decision, which was upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, was appealed to the Supreme Court.

The law says no "person shall give and no person shall accept any portion, split, or percentage of any charge made or received for the rendering of a real estate settlement service in connection with a transaction involving a federally related mortgage loan other than for services actually performed."

The argument is over whether that law "prohibits the collection of an unearned charge by a single settlement provider, or whether it covers only transactions in which a provider shares part of a settlement-service charge with one or more other persons who did nothing to earn it," said Justice Antonia Scalia, who wrote the opinion.

The Rosen Law Firm, P.A. today announced that it has filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of investors who purchased the securities of Houston American Energy Corp. between March 29, 2010 and April 18, 2012.

To join the Houston American class action, visit the firm's website at http://rosenlegal.com, or call Phillip Kim, Esq. or Laurence Rosen, Esq., toll-free, at 866-767-3653; you may also email pkim@rosenlegal.com or lrosen@rosenlegal.com for information on the class action.

The Complaint asserts violations of the federal securities laws against Houston American for failing to adequately disclose problems with its Tamandua #1 well, and the well's C7 and C9 formations. Namely, that the Company failed to disclose that: (i) the continued investment in testing and completing the C7 and C9 formations in Tamandua #1 well was unproductive and not commercially viable; (ii) the Company lacked adequate internal and financial controls; and (iii) as a result of the foregoing, the Company's statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

www.rosenlegal.com