A Miami lawyer has filed a class-action lawsuit against domain nameauction site SnapNames.com, after the company announced that a formeremployee was bidding against potential customers in domain nameauctions.

Attorney Santiago Cueto filed the lawsuit Monday inMiami-Dade County Circuit Court on behalf of his brother, Carlos Cueto,and others who participated in SnapNames.com's online auctions. Thelawsuit alleges that a former vice president at SnapNames.com secretlybid on tens of thousands of domain name auctions over the past fouryears, leading to falsely inflated prices.

Some of the SnapNamesauctions run into the tens of thousands of dollars, Santiago Cuetosaid. His brother, who owns about 3,000 domain names, has longsuspected shill bidding in some domain name auctions, he said.

"He's been frustrated by the process for years," Santiago Cueto said. "I think the entire industry needs to be cleaned up."

SnapNames.com,a subsidiary of Oversee.net, sent out notices last week that it haddiscovered the employee bidding on domain name auctions. SnapNames,which resells expired domain names, calls itself the largest resalemarketplace for domain names. The company runs hundreds of auctions aday, it says on its Web sites.

Following a six-day trial, a federal jury here
dismissed Blue Nile Inc.'s $60.1 million claim against The Yehuda Diamond
Company, reaffirming Yehuda Diamond's right to compare the prices of its
clarity enhanced diamonds to the untreated diamonds sold by online retailer
Blue Nile.

Yehuda Diamond, based in New York, has earned widespread industry and consumer
loyalty for its successful competition with Blue Nile and other online
jewelers, favoring consumers not only with lower prices but also with
unsurpassed expert face-to-face service and full Federal Trade
Commission-compliant disclosure.

The suit [No. C-07-2017 TSZ], brought by Blue Nile and heard last month in
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, involved Blue
Nile's efforts to prevent Yehuda Diamond from comparing the price and
appearance of its clarity enhanced diamonds to those natural untreated
diamonds sold by Blue Nile.

Yehuda Diamond has consistently contended, even before Blue Nile filed the
lawsuit against it in December 2007, that Yehuda Diamond's price comparisons
are in the best interest of consumers.  After 4-1/2 hours of deliberations,
the jury agreed, dismissing both Blue Nile's federal and state claims that
Yehuda Diamond had engaged in false or misleading advertising.

Blue Nile, which has brought multiple lawsuits against smaller competitors
over the past decade, had petitioned the jury to award it exemplary damages of
$60,161,834.64, based on alleged actual damages of $20,053,944.88.   

"This is a momentous victory for all consumers and for free-market
competition," says Dror Yehuda, president of Yehuda Diamonds.  

"In essence, the jury told Blue Nile that it can't use its massive size and
legal muscle to prevent consumers from learning about lower-priced, quality
alternatives to Blue Nile diamonds," explains Mr. Yehuda.  "In recent years,
Blue Nile has preferred to fight its competitors in the courtroom than in the
marketplace."

The jury's decision clears the path for Yehuda Diamond to continue to inform
consumers of how much they stand to save by shopping at Yehuda Diamond
authorized retailers, who offer competitive prices along with personalized,
expert, face-to-face customer service for its clarity enhanced diamonds.  By
comparison, Blue Nile untreated diamonds are frequently higher-priced and Blue
Nile bypasses the retail distribution chain altogether.

Moreover, Mr. Yehuda vowed that his company will continue to press its own
lawsuit against Blue Nile [Court Case #08-CV-9751] filed in November 2008 in
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In that ongoing case, Yehuda Diamond contends that consumers who purchased
rubies, emeralds, sapphires or jewelry containing those stones from Blue Nile
were not informed that the gemstones had been treated to enhance their
appearance.

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Two Hudson County residents are suing General Mills over the cereal maker's claims that Cheerios helps reduce cholesterol, NJBiz.com reports.

Edward Myers and Elsa Acevedo are the lead plaintiffs in the $5 million class-action suit filed in U.S. District Court in Newark, the Web site said.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning to General Mills over the issue in May, the Web site noted.

Kuwait-based telecom firm Zain is not concerned over a lawsuit by South Africa-based Econet Wireless disputing the ownership of Zain Nigeria, Zain's chief executive said in remarks published on Monday.

"Saad al-Barrak affirmed that the group is not facing any risk from a legal dispute over Zain Nigeria," al-Rai newspaper reported. "(This issue ) is old and dates back to before 2006."

Last week, Econet said it disputed the purchase in 2006 by Celtel, now called Zain, of a majority stake in a group called Vee Networks Limited, now Zain Nigeria.

Barrak said that Econet has lost similar cases that it had filed in British courts over past years, the newspaper reported.

Zain Nigeria has traded under various brands since 2001 due to a series of boardroom conflicts.

It has been known as Vee Networks, Vmobile, Celtel and now Zain Nigeria.

Econet -- which has operations in nine countries in Africa, Europe and the East Asia Pacific rim -- said in a statement it was pursuing arbitration proceedings because it believed it had been denied its right of first refusal over the stake.

It has now appealed to legal authorities including an international tribunal operating under the auspices of the United Nations for the transaction to be unwound.

Zain, a hot but tricky potential acquisition target for stagnating Western telecoms groups, has invested more than $12 billion in Africa.

Nigeria is the group's biggest market, contributing 21 per cent of customers and 17 per cent of revenues.

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