judge

David Sokol, once considered a likely successor to Warren Buffett as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, resigned this week from Berkshire under a cloud of possible insider trading charges. But these recent ethical lapses are hardly the worst of Sokol's business transgressions.

On Oct. 20, New York courts ordered attorneys for foreclosing banks to swear they'd personally confirmed that their documents are true and accurate. But a Brooklyn judge has taken things a step further. Since the banks aren't complying, he has started throwing out foreclosure cases.

A U.S. District Court judge will not dismiss allegations against Toyota for problems related to sudden unintended acceleration in certain car models, as the automaker had hoped.

Toyota is asking a federal court in California to dismiss lawsuits claiming that electronics -- not floor mats or sticky gas pedals -- are the cause of unintended acceleration in its vehicles, saying plaintiffs have not proved there's a design defect in the vehicles' electronic systems.

An oil company was ordered to pay $22.9 million for understating the amount of royalty it owed the federal governments for oil pumped from offshore oil leases. A federal judge ruled that Kerr-McGee Corp. understated the value of the oil and natural gas produced from the leases, allowing it to pay...

A U.S. District judge struck down company patents on two genes linked to higher risk of breast and ovarian cancer. The ruling challenging patents on human genes was expected to have broad implications for the biotechnology industry and genetics-based medical research.