| Volume 98 Number 1 |
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The People’s Lawyer’s Tip of the Day
Have you been bothered by a door-to-door salesman? Under the law, you have three days to change your mind whenever you sign a contract negotiated in your home by a salesperson. The best advice is don't talk to any salesperson who shows up at you door. But if you make a mistake and get talked into a bad deal, the law gives you three days to cancel.
For more general information about the law, check out my website.
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AT&T Interested in Buying DirecTV
Could satellite broadcaster DirecTV become a part of AT&T? According to industry insiders, the two companies are already in exploratory talks.
DirecTV has nearly 20 million customers in the United States with an additional 17 million across Latin America. AT&T's television branch U-Verse services more than 6 million homes.
AT&T first expressed interest in acquiring DirecTV after Comcast entered into a deal to purchase Time Warner Cable. While AT&T and DirecTV have an existing relationship bundling AT&T home Internet with DirecTV satellite, many industry experts Dish Network would be the most obvious choice for a potential merger. In fact, DirecTV and Dish Network attempted a merger nearly a decade ago, only to be squashed by federal regulators before anything could become final.
AT&T and DirecTV have already assembled legal teams to deal with issues they may face from federal regulators. Traditionally, when only a few companies control a market, consumer prices go up. In light of the recent Comcast and Time Warner Cable merger, this could be especially true for cable and satellite customers.
What do we know about a potential AT&T merger with DirecTV?
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Mercedes Issues Recall for C-Series
It has been a bad year for car recalls. Since the start of the year, there have been more than 17 million vehicles recalled internationally. While GM and Toyota top the list of most recalls, they aren't the only ones with bad news.
Do you drive a 2008 - 2011 Mercedes C-series? If so, a problem with the rear light could impact visibility, or even cause a fire. In order to address the issue, Mercedes has issued a recall for 284,000 vehicles in the United States and Canada. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Mercedes will replace the bulbs and connectors at no expense.
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For the Lawyers
Arbitration clause survives the contract.
The Sixth Circuit recently answered the question of whether an arbitration clause survives the termination of the contract containing it.
A class of employees alleged FLSA violations by their employer. Each of their employment agreements had an arbitration clause and a “survival clause” which listed a few of the contractual clauses that survive termination of the agreement. But the survival clause did not mention the arbitration clause. The Sixth Circuit cited Litton v. NLRB, 501 U.S. 190 (1991), which “recognized a ‘presumption in favor of postexpiration arbitration of matters unless negated expressly or by clear implication [for] matters and disputes arising out of the …contract.’”
Because the survival clause in the instant case was silent about arbitration as well as about other clauses that would logically survive the contract’s termination, the court found that silence was not enough to expressly negate the survival of the arbitration clause.
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