UNITED STATES
New York Times
By BEN PROTESS APRIL 8, 2014
Some law school students send the Justice Department résumés and references. At the University of Virginia School of Law, one class is sending document requests and lawsuits.
The students, along with professors and a university librarian, are tackling the contentious world of white-collar crime, challenging federal prosecutors to unseal settlements with big banks and corporations. In a matter of months, the classroom litigators at the law school’s First Amendment clinic filed their first lawsuit against the Justice Department and won the release of a secret settlement deal.
Building on the test case, the clinic ramped up its effort this week, filing a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain 30 other settlement deals that remain under wraps, a preliminary move that could foreshadow another lawsuit. The deals — mostly nonprosecution agreements with the British bank HSBC, the casino Las Vegas Sands Corporation and a smattering of other corporate giants — spared the companies indictment in exchange for cash penalties and other concessions. …
The experience emboldened the students to request the 30 remaining deals, which spanned the last two decades and a number of industries. Edward D. Jones struck a deal in 2004, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston settled a sex abuse scandal in 2005, and the medical devices company C. R. Bard reached an agreement last year — all of which remain private.
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