The international law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP won two awards in the Major Transaction category for Corporate/Strategic Acquisition of the Year and for Financing Deal of the Year at The M&A Advisor 3rd Annual International M&A Awards. The awards were presented for Greenberg Traurig's role in the business combination of Liberty Acquisition Holdings Corp. and Promotora de Informaciones, a transaction that involved more than 100 firm attorneys. The firm was also a finalist for M&A Deal of the Year and Turnaround Deal of the Year in the Major Transaction category and for Media, Entertainment and Telecom in the Sector Transaction category.

Leading the Liberty deal team at Greenberg Traurig were, from the Fort Lauderdale office, shareholders Donn Beloff, Bruce March and Brian Gavsie, and associate Bernie Grondin; from the Miami office, shareholders Patricia Menendez-Cambó, Chair of the firm’s Global Practice Group, Randy Bullard, and Mark Lopez, and associate Enrique Conde; from the New York office, shareholders Alan Annex and Ken Gerasimovich; from the Tysons Corner office, shareholder Jason Simon; from the Chicago office, shareholder Peter Lieberman; and from the Wilmington office, shareholder Kelly Terribile. The winners were announced at the 3rd Annual International M&A Awards Gala on Tuesday, October 11, 2011, at The Cornell Club in New York City.

Comprised of more than 350 lawyers in more than 30 offices, Greenberg Traurig’s Corporate and Securities/M&A Practice provides advice and services to companies and entrepreneurs throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. Greenberg Traurig’s practice groups and attorneys have been recognized as No. 1 in their respective geographic regions by The National Law Journal, Chambers & Partners, Corporate Board Member magazine, Latin Lawyer magazine and numerous regional and local professional publications.

Most recently, Greenberg Traurig ranked 5th among all law firms representing investment banks in U.S. mergers and acquisitions transactions, with 12 announced transactions, in the 2011 Six-Month Banker Representations listing published by Corporate Control Alert. Firms were ranked by the total number of deals having a value of $100 million or more during the period from January 1, 2011 to June 30, 2011. According to league table reports published by Bloomberg, mergermarket and Thomson Reuters, during the first half of 2011, Greenberg Traurig had 50 M&A deals announced globally, with a value of approximately $60 billion, up from 30 announced deals valued at approximately $16 billion in the first half of 2010. The firm's advance was propelled by its role in several high-profile transactions. Greenberg Traurig ranked in the top 15 law firms nationally and top 20 law firms globally in eight rankings in the reports, which highlight deal activity at top law firms across a broad array of deal types, regions, and industry sectors.

For additional information, please visit www.gtlaw.com.

A Utah man has been charged in federal court after authorities say he threatened to shoot air marshals, hijack the flight and urinate in the cabin of a Delta Airlines plane en route from Amsterdam to Detroit.

During a Thursday appearance in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, a judge allowed Jared L. Hansen to remain free pending a Nov. 7 hearing in Detroit. Hansen was ordered to surrender his passport and abstain from drinking alcohol, among other conditions.

He didn't return a telephone message seeking comment Thursday, and no attorney was listed for him in court records.

Hansen, 31, was aboard an Oct. 4 Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit when authorities say he attempted to use the bathroom in the business class section of the cabin. Members of the flight crew asked him to either return to his seat or use the facilities in the rear of the cabin, but he refused, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

Hansen, who was believed to be heavily intoxicated, then threatened to urinate in the cabin and exposed himself, authorities said.

Gays and lesbians are not entitled to the same heightened legal protection and scrutiny against discrimination as racial minorities and women in part because they are far from politically powerless and have ample ability to influence lawmakers, lawyers for a U.S. House of Representatives group said in a federal court filing.

The filing Friday in San Francisco's U.S. District Court comes in a lesbian federal employee's lawsuit that claims the government wrongly denied health insurance coverage to her same-sex spouse. Karen Golinski says the law under which her spouse was denied benefits — the Defense of Marriage Act — violates the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection.

But attorneys representing the House's Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group counter that DOMA is subject to a lower level of court scrutiny because gays and lesbians don't meet the legal criteria for groups who receive heightened protection from discrimination. Under that lower standard, DOMA is constitutional, they argue.

A panel of judges at a U.N.-backed court investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will consider whether to stage a trial in absentia for four Hezbollah members accused in the slaying.

The suspects were indicted earlier this year, but Hezbollah has refused to arrest them and send them for trial in the Special Tribunal for Lebanon's purpose-built courtroom.

The court said in a statement Monday that a pretrial judge preparing the case has asked trial judges "to determine whether proceedings in absentia should be initiated" against the four men.

Iranian-backed Shiite militia Hezbollah denies involvement in the Feb. 14, 2005, truck bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others, including the suicide bomber, in Beirut.

A key member of the legal team defending John Edwards against campaign finance charges will not represent the former Democratic presidential candidate at his upcoming trial following questions about a potential conflict of interest.

A motion filed by federal prosecutors says Raleigh defense lawyer Wade Smith will withdraw. The move comes after prosecutors questioned whether Smith had a conflict of interest due to a 2009 conversation with a financial advisor for Bunny Mellon, a wealthy socialite who provided the bulk of nearly $1 million used to support Edwards' pregnant mistress, Rielle Hunter, as he ran for president in 2007.

According to the government, Smith told Mellon's advisor that Edwards knew the money was intended to help him. That appears to conflict with statements by Edwards that he knew nothing of the payments.

Edwards is charged with six felony and misdemeanor counts related to campaign finance violations. He has pleaded not guilty. A trial is scheduled to begin in January.

Smith is among the most well-known defense lawyers in North Carolina, with a list of previous clients that includes members of the Duke University lacrosse team cleared of charges they gang-raped a stripper.

A young Nigerian allegedly on a terrorist mission for al-Qaida prayed, washed and put on perfume moments before trying to detonate a bomb in his underwear to bring down an international jetliner on Christmas 2009, a prosecutor told jurors as the man's trial opened Tuesday.

Virtually everyone aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 had holiday plans, but Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab believed his calling was martyrdom, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel said.

In the plane's bathroom, "he was engaging in rituals. He was preparing to die and enter heaven," Tukel said. "He purified himself. He washed. He brushed his teeth. He put on perfume. He was praying and perfuming himself to get ready to die."

After returning to his seat, Abdulmutallab pushed a small plunger on the chemical bomb in his underwear, an action that produced a "pop," the prosecutor told jurors.

The bomb didn't work as planned but Abdulmutallab was engulfed in flames, said Tukel, who displayed the flight's seating chart on a screen to show jurors where things happened on the plane.

Opening statements began after an unexplained 70-minute recess requested by Abdulmutallab and his attorney, Anthony Chambers, shortly after they entered the courtroom.