All Posts by

Elizabeth Lynch

Texas power market overhaul embroiled in potential conflict of interest

In October, Colorado-based E3 Consulting offered a plan for how the Public Utility Commission should redesign Texas’ deregulated power market. It produced a 44-page proposal, paid for by energy giants NRG and Chicago-based Exelon. Now the PUC — saying it wants an impartial review of the proposals — has hired…

Sotomayor slams refusal to take up ineffective counsel case

WASHINGTON (CN) — Spurring a dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to hear an appeal from a Florida man who claims his criminal case was affected by a conflict of interest that arose from using the same attorney as his co-defendants who took plea deals.

Former San Francisco Building Inspector Charged With Perjury And Conflict Of Interest

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — Bernard Curran, a former San Francisco senior city building inspector, has been charged with multiple counts of perjury and violations of local conflict of interest laws, San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin announced Friday. The arrest and charges were the product of an ongoing investigation…

Prosecutors drop China Initiative case against MIT’s Gang Chen

A federal judge has dismissed charges against Gang Chen, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) accused of lying about his ties to China. It was one of the highest profile cases under the government’s 3-year-old China Initiative, which is intended to prevent China from…

‘An inherent conflict of interest’: US officials under pressure over trading

In mid-December, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, brushed off calls for legislation to ban trading by members of Congress with a throwaway comment that has come back to haunt her. “We are a free-market economy,” she told reporters at the time. “They should be able…