The Browser War is finally over; eleven years after the U.S. Department of Justice first challenged Microsoft’s inclusion of Internet Explorer in the Windows Operating system the European Commission accepted Microsoft’s settlement offer to resolve the European Statement of Objections on the same grounds. The settlement, announced by the Commission on December 16, 2009 came after the Commission had issued a formal Statement of Objections on January 15, 2009 challenging the inclusion as an unlawful tying arrangement. Microsoft responded with a written response arguing that the practice was pro-competitive, benefitted consumers, and did not foreclose competing browsers from the marketplace.

Recent revelations regarding a Washington, D.C. Metrobus driver’s criminal history are raising disturbing questions about employer’s obligations to investigate a potential employee’s criminal record, and exposure to liability if a third party is injured. A Metrobus driver, who was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer after the driver allegedly attempted to rob the officer at gunpoint, had a long and sordid criminal history. He had been hired by Metro soon after completing a ten-year prison sentence for robbing two men at gunpoint. Also in his criminal past – a voluntary manslaughter charge for fatally shooting a man during an argument; felony murder charges when an accomplice in an armed robbery shot a man to death; and drug and gun possession charges. No ordinary bus driver….

After downing five double vodkas (about 15 ounces of 80-proof alcohol) in the waterfront bars of Valdez, Alaska, Joe Hazelwood stumbled out into the street. Most prudent folks would cab it home to sleep it off; instead, Hazelwood headed off to work. His job, exactly 20 years ago, was to captain a 900-foot long supertanker holding 53 million gallons of crude oil.

The Supreme Court of the United States, in 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett, 129 S. Ct. 1456 (2009), recently held that a provision in a collective bargaining agreement that clearly requires employees to submit their Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (“ADEA”) claims to arbitration is enforceable.

International problem: You are litigating a case in a foreign jurisdiction, yet crucial evidence is within the United States. How do you obtain and use the evidence? Thanks to 28 U.S.C. § 1782, all individuals or organizations with an interest in foreign or international legal proceedings may obtain broad U.S.- style discovery in support of proceedings abroad, whether or not such discovery is authorized in the foreign jurisdiction. Section 1782, in part, provides as follows: “The district court of the district in which a person resides or is found may order him to give his testimony or statement or to produce a document or other thing for use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal. . . . The order may be made . . . upon the application of any interested person . . . .”

We have come to expect bidding wars over 20-game winners and clean up hitters in baseball, but the competition for high-level talent has extended into an unlikely field: suits. Yes, that suits as in men’s clothes. In a drama that sounds more like a made-for-tv reality show than a courtroom case, two high-end clothiers at Tyson’s Galleria Mall in McLean, Virginia engaged in a battle royal over a popular suit salesman who was generating nearly $1 million in annual revenue from suit sales.

An interesting First Circuit Court of Appeals case recently addressed whether an employer must allow an employee to display her facial piercing at work based on her claim of religious protection. What religion, you ask? The Church of Body Modification, of course. That’s right, according to the employee, as a card-carrying member of the Church of Body Modification, she was required to display all of her piercings at all times, including her eyebrow piercing. As such, she claimed that she was not required to obey company dress code rules that expressly prohibit facial piercing. But, the First Circuit determined that the employer could not reasonably accommodate the plaintiff without suffering undue hardship and granted it summary judgment. The employee’s termination was upheld.