Goldman Sachs Group Inc will ask a Canadian court on Wednesday to hear its appeal of a lower court decision allowing Shaw Communications Inc to buy the broadcast arm of bankrupt Canwest Global Communications Corp.

An Ontario Superior Court judge ruled on Feb. 19 that Shaw could acquire Canwest's television arm, putting a quick end to a last-minute bid for the assets, filed the night before by a consortium led by private equity fund Catalyst Capital and backed by Goldman.

The Catalyst consortium includes the Asper family, Canwest's founders. Leonard Asper was chief executive of Winnipeg, Manitoba-based Canwest, Canada's largest media group, until last Thursday when he stepped down to avoid potential conflict of interest concerns.

Goldman Sachs is a partner in Canwest's specialty TV arm after helping the media group acquire popular channels such as History Television and Food Network Canada from Alliance Atlantis in 2007 for C$2.3 billion.

It wants the Ontario Court of Appeal to set aside the deal that allows cable operator Shaw to buy the Canwest TV assets.

Google's latest effort to settle the copyright lawsuit brought against it by The Authors Guild and several publishers in 2005 suffered a setback on Thursday when the U.S. Department of Justice said that copyright and antitrust issues arising from the revised settlement proposal haven't been adequately addressed.

The lawsuit charged that Google's effort to scan and digitize books violates copyright law. Google and the plaintiffs have been trying to reach an agreement that allows Google to make scanned books available in a limited form online and to sell electronic access to digital books with the consent and participation of copyright owners.

The DoJ filed a statement of interest with U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York stating that despite good faith negotiations on the part of the parties involved, "the amended settlement agreement suffers from the same core problem as the original agreement: It is an attempt to use the class action mechanism to implement forward-looking business arrangements that go far beyond the dispute before the court in this litigation."
A hearing on the proposed amended settlement is scheduled for February 18 and the judge is likely to take the DoJ's concerns seriously. The original settlement, presented in October 2008, was shot down after widespread criticism.

Google in a statement said that the DoJ's filing "recognizes the progress made with the revised settlement, and it once again reinforces the value the agreement can provide in unlocking access to millions of books in the U.S."

The company said that it is looking forward to Judge Chin's review of the DoJ filing and that the settlement, if approved will expand online access to published works and provide authors and publishers with new ways to distribute their works.

Toyota's public relations nightmare appears far from over.

The beleaguered automaker is facing renewed allegations that it systematically withheld information and ignored safety issues that could have prevented fatal accidents.

Dmitrios Biller, a former Toyota lawyer who handled product liability lawsuits, said in multiple media interviews that the automaker willfully tried to suppress evidence of defects.

"Toyota is a very secretive corporation," Biller told the L.A. Times. "It doesn't believe anybody outside the corporation deserves to know what is going on inside, even if it kills somebody."

"You have to understand that Toyota in Japan does not have any respect for our legal system. They did not have any respect for our laws."

Toyota's public relations nightmare appears far from over.

The beleaguered automaker is facing renewed allegations that it systematically withheld information and ignored safety issues that could have prevented fatal accidents.

Dmitrios Biller, a former Toyota lawyer who handled product liability lawsuits, said in multiple media interviews that the automaker willfully tried to suppress evidence of defects.

"Toyota is a very secretive corporation," Biller told the L.A. Times. "It doesn't believe anybody outside the corporation deserves to know what is going on inside, even if it kills somebody."

"You have to understand that Toyota in Japan does not have any respect for our legal system. They did not have any respect for our laws."