organization:us court

Blackwater settles Iraq killings legal case
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/01/2012176192887652.html

The US private security company formerly known as Blackwater has agreed to settle a wrongful death legal case with the families of four of its contractors killed in a gruesome 2004 ambush that was a defining moment of the Iraq war for the American public.

The families reached a confidential settlement with Academi, as Blackwater is now known, agreeing to the dismissal of their case before the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit based in Richmond, Virginia.

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Blackwater, which changed its name to Xe Services and then to Academi, came to symbolise the US policy of hiring private contractors to perform work previously handled by the military.

#mercenaires

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/20/walmart-sex-discrimination-class-action-rejected

The plaintiffs had provided statistical evidence that women earned less money and were promoted less often across the company. But Walmart argued there was no discrimination at the firm. Its lawyers argued that a class action representing women from across the country would imply a uniform policy of discrimination, but as individual managers made hiring and promoting decisions independently there was no class-action case to answer.

Slotnick added that large-scale class actions would now be far harder to bring against other companies, and that greater proof of system-wide discrimination would be needed before a major class-action lawsuit could be brought. Often such proof is only available after a case has been granted class-action status and the process of discovery – where lawyers can demand access to sensitive internal documents – begins.