Investors are calling for an inquiry into mutual fund fees, but the Supreme Court is reminding them that it isn't beholden to public opinion. The mutual fund industry is being accused of charging "excessive" fees, which could be particularly harsh on individual investors who use these tools as their primary way to access the market. Currently, the mutual fund industry has more than $10 trillion in assets under management, some of it through retirement and 529 college savings plans.

The Court doesn't seem inclined to step into the fray, saying that regulatory agencies are better equipped to address the situation. Chief Justice John Roberts, for example, said during arguments that "It makes a lot more sense to have the SEC regulate rates than to have courts do it, doesn't it?"

All it takes is a little patience. F. Scott Yeager, a former Enron executive, got some good news from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which ruled that it wouldn't revisit his case. So, he no longer has criminal charges related to financial fraud hanging over him. Yeager has been acquitted on all counts. This follows a June ruling by the Supreme Court, which tossed a previous 5th Circuit Court ruling that could have resulted in a new trial.

The ruling said, "Today, ... it is clear under our initial ... analysis the jury made a finding in acquitting Yeager that precludes prosecution on insider trading and money laundering." Samuel Buffone, who was one of Yeager's attorneys, stated that his client shouldn't have been indicted to begin with and didn't do anything wrong. It has taken them seven years to get to this point.

Yeager landed in hot water because he sold stock in Enron for more than $54 million before it began the plunge that would ultimately end with its bankruptcy in 2001. He faced 125 counts, was acquitted of five (four for wire fraud and one for conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud) and wound up with a hung jury for the remaining 120, which included insider trading and money laundering. He was later indicted again on 13 counts of insider trading and money laundering.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Chrysler's sale to Fiat can proceed. Over the past week we thought that Chrysler's bankruptcy was almost over. But then a group of Indiana pension funds filed suit with the court to delay the sale.

At issue was $42 million of $6.9 billion of secured debt. The pension funds held that Chrysler's offer of 29 cents on the dollar violated their creditor rights.

A United Auto Workers union health care trust, a more junior unsecured debtor, would receive 55% equity stake. This deal was much more favorable than the offer to the Indiana pension funds.

Three separate requests filed in Indiana by pension funds and consumer groups have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the sale of Chrysler to a group led by Fiat. The groups filing the complaints hope to buy some time while challenging the deal. Some believe that this case could set a precedent for General Motors, which is trying to employ a similar "quick-sale" strategy as Chrysler. Late Friday, an appeals court stayed the closing of the sale until this afternoon, which gave the pension funds and opponents the weekend to make their plea to the Supreme Court.

The three pension funds argued that the sale of Chrysler unlawfully rewarded unsecured creditors, like the union rather than secured lenders. The funds hold roughly $42 million of Chrysler's $6.9 billion in secured loans. Lawyers for the pension funds argued, "the need for the court to review the profound issues presented by Chrysler's novel bankruptcy sale far outweighs the cost of delaying [a sale]."

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.

As Mel Brooks once said, "It's good to be the king." I often fantasize being a politician just for what it's worth after leaving office. We learned this week that Al Gore is now at least a centi-millionaire -- yes, he's worth over $100 million. That's a lot of global warming tacos.

An interesting exclusive article on Bloomberg.com is titled, "Pfizer, Exxon Find U.S. Justices as Shareholders May Cost Them." The premise of the article is that Supreme Court Justices' ownership of stocks occasionally requires them to side-step rulings, like this week's deadlock that allowed lawsuits over Pfizer's Rezulin diabetes drug. U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts owns the stock and needed to sit on the sidelines.

The same article cited Mark Herrmann, a product-liability lawyer at Jones Day in Chicago, as saying, "If you're on the industry side, it kills you that Roberts recused himself. That's your fifth vote.''

Bloomberg cites stocks either currently held or sold from in Chief Justice Roberts portfolio. They are:

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.