| Top execs plot to prevent strike
With worries mounting that upcoming contract talks will be both contentious and complicated, heads of studios and networks have confabbed in recent days to hammer out strategies for heading off a work stoppage. The planning was capped by a Thursday morning powwow led by Nick Counter, president of the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers. Heavyweights in attendance included CBS topper Leslie Moonves, Warner Bros.' Barry Meyer, ABC's Anne Sweeney, DreamWorks Animation's Jeffrey Katzenberg and NBC's Marc Graboff. Those at the meeting, Counter told Daily Variety, resolved to propose to the unions in the next few weeks that both sides agree to the creation of a jointly funded outside study group to generate a report -- a showbiz version of the report from the Iraq Study Group, headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton.
In Arbitrations, Use of Spanish Is Growing
When Anibal Martin Sabater joined Houston's Fulbright & Jaworski four years ago, he said he rarely got to use his Spanish skills. "We always had a strong Latin American presence when it comes to arbitration, but when I came here in 2003, I don't think we had any arbitration cases in Spanish even though several of those involved Latin America," said Sabater, a native of Spain who works as an international arbitration adviser. "Right now, it's become a necessity for firms doing arbitration with Latin American companies to provide Spanish-speaking counsel," Sabater noted. Expansion of U.S. companies' work in Latin America, the growing sophistication of Latin American companies as well as the rising use of arbitration in general have driven the use of Spanish in this area, lawyers said.
Water allocation talks resume with mediator
Keystone - A professional mediator has taken on the task of ending the century-old water wars between Colorado's Front Range and the Western Slope, renewing efforts to find a "global solution" for dividing a limited resource. John Bickerman, an attorney from Washington, admitted he was "parachuting into an ongoing war" when he met Monday for the first time with about 40 officials from the Denver Water Board and a panoply of water providers from west of the Continental Divide. "There's a lot of emotion and friction that I've witnessed," he said. "What I do see is a commitment ... to try to work out a deal." The historic divisions are entrenched and exacerbated by the ever-increasing demand for water on both sides of the Divide. So suspicious are both sides that the process of choosing a mediator took months before they hired Bickerman, an adjunct law professor at Georgetown University with no personal interest in the outcome.
South Africa: Vedanta Dispute to Be Heard in June
ZAMBIA Copper Investments (ZCI), whose only asset is a 28,4% stake in the Konkola copper mine in Zambia, confirmed on Friday that the long-awaited arbitration hearing in its dispute with Vedanta Resources would take place by the middle of June. Once the arbitration hearing was concluded, an independent investment bank would be able to value ZCI's stake in Konkola, it said. In the meantime, ZCI shareholders were urged to continue exercising caution in their share dealings. .
MUW, alumni mediation to continue; suit still pending
The tumultuous battle for control of Mississippi University for Women's alumni association will press on.Defendants and plaintiffs in the internal-dispute-turned lawsuit agreed to continue the case set to be heard by Lowndes County Chancery Court Judge Dorothy Colom Thursday afternoon until May 8. The 117-year-old MUW Alumnae Association took “W" President Claudia Limbert to court to stop her disaffiliation of the organization and formation of a new alumni association to replace it.Since the suit was filed on March 29, the MUWAA has had to include MUW and the Institutions of Higher Learning Board in the complaint against Limbert.Both sides also agreed to continue the court-ordered mediation that began Wednesday, and now the new alumni group formed by Limbert will join those sessions.As part of the agreed-upon terms, approval of that new association's affiliation agreement won't be on the state IHL Board's agenda for approval until the dispute with the old organization is settled.
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