Ken Paxton impeached, 'Jamie Dimon never met Epstein,' DLA Piper defeats $180 mln malpractice suit, and Winklevoss twins seek dismissal of SEC suit ⬇
Reuters Legal
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☀️ Good morning from The Legal File! Here are today's top legal stories:
In historic proceedings, the 149-member Texas House on May 27 voted 121-23 to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton, a conservative firebrand and ally of former President Donald Trump who has been accused by his fellow Republicans of abuse of office. A Texas Senate resolution on May 29 said Paxton's trial must start before Aug. 28.
The 20 articles of impeachment presented by a Republican-led House committee accuse Paxton of improperly aiding a wealthy political donor, conducting a sham investigation against whistleblowers in his office whom he fired, and covering up his wrongdoing in a separate federal securities fraud case against him, among other offenses.
Paxton will now be temporarily removed from office pending a trial in the Senate, where his wife, Angela Paxton, is a senator. He has denied the accusations and denounced the proceedings as "illegal, unethical, and profoundly unjust" in a statement on Twitter after Saturday's vote.
"I look forward to a quick resolution in the Texas Senate, where I have full confidence the process will be fair and just," Paxton said.
JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon said in a deposition on May 26 that he had never met or communicated with late sex offender and former bank client Jeffrey Epstein, the bank said.
The largest U.S. bank faces lawsuits seeking damages by women who claim that Epstein sexually abused them, and by the U.S. Virgin Islands, where the late financier had a home.
Epstein was a JPMorgan client from 2000 to 2013, remaining so after pleading guilty in 2008 to a Florida state prostitution charge.
Dimon, who is not a defendant, had been ordered by a federal judge to set aside up to four days for depositions about what he knew about the bank's relationship with Epstein.
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"At today’s deposition, our CEO repeatedly confirmed that he never met with him, never emailed him, does not recall ever discussing his accounts internally, and was not involved in any decisions about his account," JPMorgan said in a statement.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan dismissed a $180 million legal malpractice lawsuit against global law firm DLA Piper on May 26, ruling that its ex-client Link Motion filed the case too late.
Marrero found that a three-year statute of limitations on Link Motion's claims expired in January 2022, eight months before the Chinese software company sued.
Link Motion's allegations stemmed from a 2018 shareholder lawsuit that forced the company into receivership. It never responded to the lawsuit and consented to being placed into receivership. However, in its legal malpractice lawsuit, the company argued that DLA Piper could have raised defenses against the shareholder claims, pegging damages at $180 million.
An exchange run by the twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss on May 26 asked a U.S. judge to dismiss a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit claiming it illegally sold unregistered securities in a program that promised high interest rates to hundreds of thousands of investors.
Gemini Trust Co's request was filed in Manhattan federal court in response to the SEC's Jan. 12 civil lawsuit against the exchange and the cryptocurrency lender Genesis Global Capital LLC, a unit of Digital Currency Group.
The SEC had sued over Gemini Earn, which let customers lend crypto assets such as bitcoin to Genesis, with Gemini taking an agent fee as high as 4.29%.
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