Court upholds $185 million award against Argentina

The Supreme Court has upheld a British natural gas company's multimillion dollar award against the government of Argentina.

BG Group won $185 million through arbitration of a dispute with Argentina over investment in natural gas development. An arbitration tribunal said the company did not have to first submit the dispute to Argentine courts before arbitration could begin.

Argentina asked a U.S. court to throw out the award. The federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., sided with Argentina because it found that judges, not arbitrators, should decide where attempts to resolve the dispute should begin.

But the Supreme Court said Wednesday the arbitrators get to make that call and that they were correct to rule in favor of BG Group in this case.

High court sides with parent who fled with child

The Supreme Court has made it harder for a parent in a custody dispute to seek the immediate return of a child under an international treaty to deter child abduction.

The justices ruled unanimously Wednesday that a one-year clock begins ticking when a child is taken out of its country of residence, even if the parent left behind cannot determine where the child is living. In the one-year period, the Hague Convention on child abduction gives judges little option but to return the child to its home country.

After a year, judges have more discretion and must take account of evidence that the child is settled in its new home.

Fla. high court: Immigrant can't get law license

The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that immigrants in the country illegally can't be given a license to practice law.

The question was raised when a man who moved here from Mexico when he was 9 years old sought a license in Florida. The court said Thursday that federal law prohibits people who are unlawfully in the country from obtaining professional licenses. The justices said state law can override the federal ban, but Florida has taken no action to do so.

Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court granted a law license to Sergio Garcia, who arrived in the U.S. from Mexico as a teenager with his father. But that ruling was only after the state approved a law that allows immigrants in the country illegally to obtain the license.

Two men found guilty for selling U.S. company’s technology

A federal jury found two men guilty Wednesday of economic espionage involving the theft and sale of a U.S. company’s technology to a competitor controlled by the Chinese government.

The jury returned the verdicts against Robert Maegerle and Walter Liew.

They were accused of stealing Delaware-based DuPont Co.’s method for making titanium oxide, a chemical that fetches $17 billion a year in sales worldwide and is used to whiten everything from cars to the middle of Oreo cookies.

A federal jury found two men guilty Wednesday of economic espionage involving the theft and sale of a U.S. company’s technology to a competitor controlled by the Chinese government.

Prosecutors said DuPont was unwilling to sell its method to China, so it was stolen and sent to a company called Pangang Group Co. Ltd., according to testimony during the diplomatically dicey proceedings. The jury heard six weeks of testimony.

Prosecutors alleged that Pangang’s factory is the only facility inside China known to be producing titanium oxide the DuPont way, which uses chlorination.

UN court: Australia cannot use seized documents

The United Nations' highest court on Monday banned Australia from making any use of documents it seized from a lawyer working for East Timor in an arbitration case over a multibillion-dollar oil and gas deal between the two nations.

The International Court of Justice also ordered Canberra not to "interfere in any way in communications" between East Timor and its legal advisers in the arbitration or future negotiations on a maritime boundary between resources-rich Australia and its tiny, impoverished northern neighbor.

Australian agents in December raided the Canberra office of a legal adviser to East Timor and seized documents and data. That followed claims by a former Australian spy that his country bugged the East Timorese government ahead of negotiations on the Timor Sea Treaty that carves up revenue from oil and gas under the sea between the two countries.

East Timor wants to renegotiate the treaty, arguing that it is invalid because of the alleged bugging.

It went to the world court arguing the seizure was illegal. Monday's orders did not address that claim, which will be litigated later.

7 now guilty in Pendleton contractor bribery case

Two civilian defense contractors have pleaded guilty in a San Diego federal court, bringing to nine the number of defendants who have admitted guilt in recent days to their involvement in a scheme involving bribes and kickbacks at Camp Pendleton and other federal facilities.

Federal prosecutors say Paul Dana Kay of PK Excavation and Manuel Ramirez of MRN Construction, Inc., entered the pleas to violations of the Anti-Kickback Act on Friday.

Six former contractors and a former Defense Department employee have pleaded guilty in the past two weeks to involvement in the scheme.

They include Natividad Lara Cervantes, who referred to himself as "The Godfather of Camp Pendleton," and admitted accepting bribes.

Sentencing is scheduled for April. The defendants face maximums ranging from three years to 20 years in prison.

Court grants law license to man in US illegally

The California Supreme Court granted a law license Thursday to a man who has lived in the U.S. illegally for two decades, a ruling that advocates hope will open the door to millions of immigrants seeking to enter other professions such as medicine, accounting and teaching.

The unanimous decision means Sergio Garcia, who attended law school and passed the state bar exam while working in a grocery store and on farms, can begin practicing law immediately.

It's the latest in a string of legal and legislative victories for people who are in the country without permission. Other successes include the creation of a path to citizenship for many young people and the granting of drivers licenses in some states.

"This is a bright new day in California history and bodes well for the future," the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles said in a statement.

The court sided with state officials in the case, which pitted them against the White House over a 1996 federal law that bars people who are in the U.S. illegally from receiving professional licenses from government agencies or with the use of public money, unless state lawmakers vote otherwise.