While the horrific oil spill by the Exxon Valdez happened all the way back in 1989 (yes that was 19 years ago!), Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) is still in litigation over how much it should be forced to pay in damages.

Last month, Exxon Mobil won a big victory when the Supreme Court (in a 5-3 decision) lowered the company's punitive damages from $2.5 billion all the way down to $507.5 million. While this was good news for Exxon Mobil, there was one little detail left to work out -- interest on all that money. Of course, Exxon Mobil does not want to pay that interest, and today the Supreme Court decided that a lower court needs to make this decision.

So just how much interest are we talking about here? Roughly $500 million and counting, as Exxon announced earlier that the victims of the oil spill have requested $488 million in interest. This works out to about $15,000 per victim.

What does this amount mean to Exxon? Ten hours of sales. That's right, ten hours. You would think the company would just pay the money and be done with the whole mess, but Exxon will continue to fight and will have its day in the lower court of appeals.

Things just keep looking brighter for Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM). After reporting the highest profits ever posted by an American company, it is able to look forward to an even more profitable 2008. With crude oil prices steadily creeping upward and renewable energy replacements a distant solution, Exxon can look forward to, once again, rewriting the record books.

As if that wasn't enough, the Supreme Court recently ruled that Exxon's punitive damages in the Valdez case were excessive and dropped them to one fifth of the original ruling. In 1994, the original judgment against Exxon in Baker v. Exxon was $287 million in actual damages and $5 billion in punitive damages. At the time, the punitive damages were equivalent to one year of profit for the oil company. After two subsequent appeals, the judge reset the damages to $4 billion, $4.5 billion, and ultimately to $2.5 billion. On Wednesday, twenty years after the original accident, the Supreme Court ruled that Exxon now owes $507 million. With interest, that would come to approximately $1 billion, but Exxon is expected to appeal the interest.

Back in June, Georges Yared blogged about one of the silliest lawsuits in sports history: Major League Baseball decided that it would take on fantasy baseball leagues, battling for a licensing fee for the use of statistics, such as batting averages, home runs and earned run averages. Major League Baseball sought to limit the number of companies that could use its data for operating fantasy baseball websites in exchange for a fee, and CDM Fantasy Sports Corp sued, essentially arguing that data about a factual event such as the outcome of a baseball game was not proprietary because it could be garnered from various sources other than the league itself.

CDM won in federal court and baseball appealed to the Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case. According to the Wall Street Journal, "In taking on the fantasy-baseball operators, and losing, MLB has likely cost every pro sports league millions of dollars. All the leagues had been getting fees from fantasy operators."

It's good to see Major League Baseball lose here: after failing miserably to protect the game's integrity from the threat of illegal drugs, gouging fantasy players for fees should have been the last thing on the league's mind. MLB doesn't need any more controversy right now, and should never have waded into this battle in the first place.

In what may end up being a net positive for eBay, albeit possibly an expensive one, a settlement has been reached in the litigation over patent infringement between eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY) and MercExchange. Financial figures of the settlement have not been disclosed, but a report from Computerworld indicates that eBay shall purchase the three patents which were the subject of the litigation, as well as a number of other related technologies and developments.

Mike Jacobson, eBay senior vice president and general counsel, was quoted by Computerworld as stating: "In addition to resolving the litigation, this settlement gives us access to additional intellectual property that will help improve and further secure our marketplaces." MercExchange founder and CEO Thomas Woolston, is quoted in the same report as stating: "It seemed like the right time to put it behind us."

In May of 2003, a jury in the case found eBay guilty of patent infringement and an injunction was sought and granted. However, in reviewing the US Court of Appeals decision, the Supreme Court unanimously derailed the long standing practice of issuing immediate injunctions in cases of intellectual property infringement, insisting that in the future, such injunctions must meet the requirements of a four-factor test.

An article in today's Wall Street Journal [subscription required], entitled "Ruling allows workers to sue on 401(k) losses," examines a unanimous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, upholding the right of workers to sue over losses in their 401(k) retirement-savings accounts in some circumstances.

With the stock market showing a lot of volatility and many retirement accounts in the red, employees mind find some solace in this recent ruling. The Journal quoted Gregory Ash, a pension attorney as saying, "Employers -- or whoever they appoint in their stead -- have an established obligation to run retirement plans as `prudent experts' on behalf of participants. Failure to do so can invite litigation."

Employers were charged with accusations that employees were offered subpar investment options and were charged prohibitive fees to make changes.

Before employees get too excited, the same article cites a minority opinion that may provide the ballast for employers to defend themselves against such claims.

Regardless, retirement advocates and investors should be pleased.

Zack Miller is the managing editor of IsraelNewsletter.com and a former equity analyst for a leading multinational hedge fund.

Disgruntled former Enron shareholders looking to recoup some of their losses have been dealt a major blow by the Supreme Court, which declined to review their lawsuit against the investment banks that helped Enron CFO Andrew Fastow enter into sham transactions designed to hide debt and inflate the company's profits.

The Supreme Court's decision not to hear the case is, frankly, insane. Major investment banks entered into deals with Enron that clearly served no economic purpose other than to inflate the company's financial statements.

For instance, some of the transactions involved things like selling a barge to a consortium of investors and then buying it back for more money during the next quarter. What could these sophisticated investment bankers possibly have thought was going on?

In effect, the investment banks served as maitre d's renting out hotel rooms in 15-minute slots to leggy blondes who signed with names like "Crystal Divinity" and men who signed "John Doe." And now they're trying to claim that they didn't know there was any kind of scheme.

These investment banks willingly helped Enron conspire to defraud investors, and now they're being shielded from civil liability for the scheme that they were an integral part of. That's wrong.

Oil giant Exxon Mobil (NYSE: XOM) got some good news today as the Supreme Court has decided to hear the company's appeal against this summer's ruling over its liability from the Exxon Valdez oil spill back in 1989.

Over the summer, the company was hit with a $2.5 billion fine, but it has argued that it should not have to pay up. It is estimated that with interest, the total amount could actually balloon closer to $4.5 billion.

The Exxon Valdez disaster was caused when the Valdez, loaded with 53 million gallons of oil, ran aground on a reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound. The result was 11 million gallons of oil polluting more than 1,200 miles of Alaskan shoreline, the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

At the heart of the whole debate is one man, Captain Joseph Hazelwood, who was accused to have been under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident. Exxon Mobil contends that it should not be held responsible for the mistakes of a captain that violated all company policies, but opponents are not buying that argument. The plantiffs argue that Exxon Mobil was aware that Hazelwood had a drinking problem and still allowed him to captain the ship.

This week, the U.S. Supreme Court gave product manufacturers more control over setting minimum prices for their products on retail shelves. While that may not sound very significant, don't tell that to large discount chains like Target Corp.(NYSE:TGT) and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT). These two retailers, which daily set prices on certain products lower than what manufacturers would like, are destined to see some significant blowback because of this court ruling. It may take some time, though -- but come the "back to school" and winter holiday shopping seasons (which will be here before we know it) -- the pinch will start.

Using a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court basically turned back the dial to the year 1911, which was the year that the same court declared manufacturer-set minimum prices were illegal practice. There is no doubt that the retail landscape (which practically did no exist then) has changed in that time, and that the power discount and regular retailers have over pricing on their shelves causes friction with many manufacturers currently.

It's my guess that both Target and Wal-Mart have irked many a vendor by stating a minimum price for a certain product before it is allowed on the shelf. As such, manufacturers either take the bait (err, business) and capitulate or walk away and sell to someone else that's more into a retail "partnership" than for providing the absolute lowest price to all customers. Which tactic is right? There isn't one. It remains to be seen how giving manufacturers more control over pricing will affect sales to customers (if at all), but I have a feeling this specific variable will become ultra-important in retail during the latter half of 2007 and into 2008.

Ben Stein is my hero of tell-it-like-it-is commentary on all things, and he had some pretty harsh words about the Bush Administration's refusal to file a brief in an extremely important case that is before the Supreme Court. The Supremes will decide whether shareholder can collect damages from investment banks, accounting firms and other companies that "merely aided and abetted" securities fraud. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (A frequent target of Mr. Stein's columns) even went so far as to urge the solicitor general at the Justice Department not to file the SEC's amicus brief in the case.

One of the most common arguments against allowing shareholders to recoup damages through class-action lawsuits is that the added risks and costs for the companies make U.S. financial markets less competitive. Mr. Stein trashes that argument pretty effectively:

That same old whining about how poor, poor Wall Street, where high-ranking officials can make only $50 million or $60 million a year and where hedge fund managers can make $1 billion-plus a year, might be hurt if stockholders were actually protected from sneak attacks by investment bankers.

Poor, poor Wall Street, where the Champagne flows like water and the players get billions for helping the rich get richer. We had better protect them instead of the widows and orphans who were wiped out by the fraud at Enron.

Stein's exactly right. These guys are paid way too much money for what they do not to be held financially accountable if they mess up or act in bad faith. And if a judge can sue a dry cleaner for $54 million for losing his pants, shouldn't shareholders be able to seek restitution from investment banks in cases of securities fraud?

The U.S. Supreme Court today handed business a huge victory by making it more difficult for investors to file fraud lawsuits.

By an 8-to-1 vote, the justices ruled that plaintifs must show that executives knew they were engaged in wrongdoing. This will give companies another way win early dismissal of these suits without paying huge legal fees.

Though I hate crooked CEOs as much as the next person, I think the court made the right decision. Investors shouldn't be able to run to the court house every time a company's stock unexpectedly falls. Fear of these lawsuits has caused some companies to communicate as little as possible with investors.

The people who made out biggest in these cases were the law firms such as the class action kings at Milberg Weiss & Bershad, which was indicted last year, along with some of its attorneys, for allegedly paying kickbacks to clients involved in some cases.

Last month, The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reported that the firm's David Bershad was in talks that may lead to a guilty plea to the charges. Another former partner, Steven Schulman, was indicted along with Bershad. Melvyn Weiss, the head of the firm, and former partner William Lerach have also been investigated by prosecutors though formal charges haven't been filed against either of them.

Ben Stein, one of my favorite financial writers, took a look at the issue of liability for investment frauds in his latest piece for the New York Times. In 1994, the Supreme Court inexplicably ruled that investment banks, accounting firms, and similar institutions could not be held liable for aiding and abetting securities fraud. Sound stupid? It is.

Fast forward to Enron. Last month, a three-judge panel in New Orleans ruled that a class-action lawsuit against investment banks involved with the company could not proceed. According to Stein, "The panel held that although its ruling might prevent justice from being done and satisfaction from being had, the acts of the investment bankers were at most aiding and abetting, not direct acts, and therefore not actionable under 10(b) as construed in the Central Bank case."

The case is now destined for the Supreme Court, and Ben Stein and I hope that they will do the right thing and hold banks accountable for participating in schemes that dupe investors. Given that most companies are insolvent after their collapses due to fraud, the banks and accountants are pretty much investors' only hope of getting some money back.

Patents have become a high-stakes game for tech companies. Of course, a glaring case is Research in Motion (RIMM), which recently had to shell out $612 million in a patent infringement case. The plaintiff in the case had no actual business; rather, its mission is to enforce its patent portfolio.

So, today's Supreme Court decision in favor of eBay is heartening news for the tech industry. The auction giant is the subject of a patent dispute with MercExchange over its "buy it now" feature. A federal court ruled in favor of MercExchange's injunction.

But this did not pass muster with the Supreme Court. Apparently, the High Court thinks injunctive powers can provide too much leverage on the part of a plaintiff; that is, it may force a settlement -- even if the defendant has a solid case.

In fact, in the eBay case, an injunction would have closed about a third of the company's business. Thus, the Supreme Court is not hiding behind fancy legal theories – but doing what it is supposed to do:  set policies on a national level that meet the broad requirements of the constitution.

Patent trolls are way more scary to U.S. businesses than the kind of trolls you find on message boards, or under bridges. So scary, in fact, that eBay is going all the way to the Supreme Court to argue against their ability to gain injunctions to shut down the businesses of the companies from whom they seek to receive damages.

In this case, eBay has been sued by tiny MercExchange over its Buy-It-Now technology (which eBay says has been altered to avoid infringement, anyway). A jury at the lower court found that eBay was infringing on MercExchange's patent, and then an appeals court upheld the finding, and imposed an injunction barring eBay from using the patented technology.

eBay hopes to make it harder for patent-holders to obtain injunctions (they're "virtually automatic" and can seriously harm a company's livelihood), and to have the court weigh a variety of factors before shutting down a business, for instance, whether or not the patent-holder plans to use its IP for anything other than lawsuits.