[JURIST] Leading Friday's corporations and securities law news, affiliates of both Sprint [corporate website] and Nextel [corporate website] plan legal action relating to the companies' planned merger. In a filing with the SEC today, Nextel Partners [corporate website], a Washington state company that distributes Nextel services, declared its intention to vote on forcing a stock buy-out by the new company. US Unwired Inc. [corporate website], a Louisiana company that distributes Sprint services, is suing to stop the merger because they claim it infringes on their contract to be the exclusive Sprint distributor in six southern states. AP has more.

In other corporations and securities news…

• ITT Educational Services [official website] announced in a press release Friday that it is no longer under investigation by the US Department of Justice. In a letter [PDF] to ITT, the DOJ said that it has not discovered enough evidence against ITT or its upper management to continue the investigation. The DOJ raided eight ITT campuses [JURIST coverage] last year. AP has more.
• Swiss pharmaceutical Roche [corporate website] has pledged to quickly resolve a legal dispute with its American partner Gilead Sciences [corporate website]. Yesterday, Gilead issued a press release charging that Roche has not effectively marketed and produced Tamiflu [Wikipedia entry] or properly paid Gilead's royalties. Tamiflu is a Gilead-produced drug that is believed to be the best hope in fighting an outbreak of avian flu [Wikipedia entry]. Gilead claims that Roche's actions violate the 1996 contract between the two companies. The New York Times has more.