The Walnut Creek bomb squad and the fires in Paradise

Pete BennettJanuary 18, 2022 No comments

When your wife and sons are threatened with death by fire this is what it looks like.

Mark Filip, P.C.

Pete BennettJanuary 17, 2022 No comments

Hey George, our moms attended Rye Country School but it gets better my grandfather was David Leslie Milne partner at Patterson, Teele and Dennis located at 120 Broadway NY NY where Marvin Pierce was CEO of McCalls Magazine also located at 120 Broadway.

Looks like you know Attorney Mark Philip who in my opinion as his role as the court appointed monitor for the PG&E Ethics Program for the San Bruno Explosion is playing hooky with another Federal Judge who is extremely mad about the loss of life like my friends killed in Florida.

Do you remember me from a bar in Ft. Myers Beach?

Mark Filip, a former federal judge and high-ranking Justice Department official, helps to lead Kirkland’s government enforcement defense and internal investigations group, and serves as a member of the Firm’s Executive Committee. As a partner in the Firm’s Chicago and Washington, D.C. offices, Mark has successfully guided numerous Fortune 100 companies and financial institutions through complex mission-critical moments, counseling leaders and Boards of Directors on high-stakes matters at the intersection of litigation, public policy, and reputation. He is a fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Mark has deep experience in both private practice and in government service, having served as a federal judge for the Northern District of Illinois and at the highest levels of government, including as Deputy Attorney General of the United States. Among various Fortune 100 companies and financial institutions, his clients span across a broad array of industries including healthcare, energy, defense contracting, manufacturing, media, professional sports, mining, agricultural production, and gaming.

In his public representations, Mark has helped many of the world’s leading businesses resolve significant disputes with government authorities, including:

BP, in relation to the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill;
Goldman Sachs, in relation to its Malaysian 1MDB bond offerings;
Boeing, in relation to allegations concerning its 737 Max airplane;
J.P. Morgan Chase, in relation to allegations of market manipulation and “spoofing”; and
GM, in relation to allegations regarding ignition switches in its automobiles.

Mark has represented well-known individuals and major corporations, and has successfully resolved disputes with government authorities including: the Department of Justice; Securities and Exchange Commission; Federal Trade Commission; Department of Labor; Environmental Protection Agency; Department of Defense; Department of Homeland Security; Congress; Federal Reserve; New York Department of Financial Services; state attorneys general; and foreign regulators.

Many of Mark’s representations involve “crisis management” situations with substantial media, congressional, law enforcement, and regulatory scrutiny, as well as related civil litigation. Mark’s practice also includes a broad securities practice for clients in a variety of industries.

Mark also leads internal investigations for a wide array of boards and companies, across industries, issues ranging from financial and accounting practices to #metoo allegations, and countries around the world. He has also represented numerous special board committees convened in response to shareholder demands.

Mark has an active civil practice, including particularly in the area of class action defense. For example, he represents Allergan in expansive class action and Multi-District Litigation (MDL) litigation concerning its manufacture and sale of opioid products. Mark has substantial experience with the federal MDL process, and he has served as a judge in class action matters during his tenure on the federal bench, and as an advocate in such cases in private practice.

Prior to joining Kirkland, Mark worked at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he served as Deputy Attorney General of the United States after being unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate. As Deputy Attorney General, Mark was second-in-command of the Justice Department and oversaw all of its criminal and civil enforcement efforts. He also represented the Justice Department in its interactions with Congress, the White House, other cabinet-level Departments, and numerous foreign governments. Mark served as Acting Attorney General after the inauguration of President Obama, until U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was confirmed.

Prior to serving as Deputy Attorney General, Mark spent four years as a federal judge on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois after being confirmed 96–0 by the U.S. Senate. During his time as a trial judge in Chicago, Mark presided over a full docket of federal cases, including lawsuits concerning intellectual property disputes, securities law, criminal law, antitrust issues, employment and sexual harassment laws, and a wide variety of commercial and property disputes.

Early in his career, Mark served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago, where he prosecuted a variety of criminal cases, including political, judicial, and police corruption, and financial and tax fraud.

Bin Laden Bankers and Bechtel Corporation

Pete BennettJanuary 17, 2022Bechtel Corporation, Bennett v. Southern Pacific, Big Law, bin Laden Group, Fremont Group, PG&E No comments

The Contractors

note: Just before 9/11 Bin Laden Group were investing with Fremont Group which included Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Back when Americans were still debating whether there was just cause for a preëmptive strike against Iraq, few arguments were scrutinized more closely than the Bush Administration’s contention that there were covert links between Al Qaeda and Iraq. At the C.I.A., analysts pored over aerial satellite photographs. At the Treasury Department, experts sifted through financial records. At the National Security Agency, Arab-speaking linguists eavesdropped on phone conversations. But, even after Secretary of State Colin Powell put his credibility on the line, in a damning, dot-connecting speech before the United Nations last February, questions persisted about the solidity of the alleged links between Saddam and Osama.

Now there is a new and demonstrable connection, but it is not the kind that the Bush Administration had in mind. In fact, it is more likely to fuel the speculations of conspiracy theorists than it is to put their fears to rest. It turns out that a money trail runs—albeit rather circuitously—from the lucrative business of rebuilding Iraq to the fortune behind Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden’s estranged family, a sprawling, extraordinarily wealthy Saudi Arabian dynasty, is a substantial investor in a private equity firm founded by the Bechtel Group of San Francisco. Bechtel is also the global construction and engineering company to which the U.S. government recently awarded the first major multimillion-dollar contract to reconstruct war-ravaged Iraq. In a closed competitive bidding process, the United States Agency for International Development chose Bechtel to rebuild the major elements of Iraq’s infrastructure, including its roads, railroads, airports, hospitals, and schools, and its water and electrical systems. In the first phase of the contract, the U.S. government will pay Bechtel nearly thirty-five million dollars, but experts say that the cost is likely to reach six hundred and eighty million during the next year and a half.

When the contract was awarded, two weeks ago, the Administration did not mention that the bin Laden family has an ongoing relationship with Bechtel. The bin Ladens have a ten-million-dollar stake in the Fremont Group, a San Francisco-based company formerly called Bechtel Investments, which was until 1986 a subsidiary of Bechtel. The Fremont Group’s Web site, which makes no mention of the bin Ladens, notes that “though now independent, Fremont enjoys a close relationship with Bechtel.” A spokeswoman for the company confirmed that Fremont’s “majority ownership is the Bechtel family.” And a list of the corporate board of directors shows substantial overlap. Five of Fremont’s eight directors are also directors of Bechtel. One Fremont director, Riley Bechtel, is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Bechtel Group, and is a member of the Bush Administration: he was appointed this year to serve on the President’s Export Council. In addition, George Shultz, the Secretary of State in the Reagan Administration, serves as a director both of Fremont and of the Bechtel Group, where he once was president and still is listed as senior counsellor.

Rick Kopf, the general counsel of the Fremont Group, which manages some eleven billion dollars in assets, confirms that the bin Laden family invested about ten million dollars in one of Fremont’s private funds before September 11, 2001. He noted that the bin Laden family has not enlarged its stake since then, but he declined to provide additional details about its association with the firm. He also chose not to discuss the origin or the nature of the relationship between the bin Laden and Bechtel families, both of which made fortunes in huge construction projects in the Arab world. The Fremont Group evidently does not go in for connecting the dots. As Kopf said, “Ownership is private and is not disclosed.”

The Sprint Executive Team - what a mess

Pete BennettJanuary 13, 2022 No comments

The Sprint Executive Team is rated a "C+" and led by CEO Michel Combes. Sprint employees rate their Executive Team in the Top 50% of similar size companies on Comparably with 10,000+ Employees.

The Admin department and Native American employees are more confident in their Executive Team, while the Communications department and the Marketing department think there is room for improvement. Out of their 4 competitors, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, and Parallel Wireless, Sprint's score ranks in 2nd place.

Last updated months ago.