[JURIST] In Thursday's corporations and securities law news, a federal judge ruling in the Qwest investor lawsuit threw out claims against former Qwest president Afshin Mohebbi, former sales executive Gregory Casey, and some claims against the company. The claims arose from a investor lawsuit accusing the company and its executives of misleading investors in the company's massive accounting and securities fraud. Qwest has already agreed to pay $250 million to investors to settle SEC accusations of a massive accounting fraud at the company. Read the SEC litigation release in the Qwest case here. AP has more.

In other news, the SEC suspended trading for 26 small companies because of a failure to file required financial reports. The suspension will last until December 15 if the companies file the required papers by that date. Read the SEC press release here. AP has more…. As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, the SEC filed civil fraud charges against three former Kmart Corp. executives and five current and former managers of big vendor companies in a $24 million accounting fraud by the company. Read the SEC litigation release and complaint [PDF]. AP has more…. As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, Bank of America has asked the US District Court for the Western District of North Carolina to dismiss a lawsuit filed against it by insolvent Italian dairy company Parmalat. Paper Chase has background on the suit. Dow Jones has more…. The SEC is investigating Jefferies Group Inc., a New York-based brokerage, to determine whether brokers gave gifts to mutual fund executives to win trading business. Bloomberg has more…. As previously reported on JURIST's Paper Chase, Microsoft announced the filing of seven lawsuits against senders of bulk e-mail for violating the federal Can-Spam Act [PDF] by failing to label sexually explicit content. Read the Microsoft press release here. Newsfactor.com has more…. The SEC announced the United States District Court for the District of Columbia has entered final judgments against Discover Capital Holdings Corp., Indianapolis Securities, Inc., and Eli and Ari Dinov, over charges they participated in the fraudulent, unregistered offering of Discover Capital's preferred shares. The Dinovs also consented to a bar which prevents them from associating with any broker or dealer. Read the SEC administrative proceeding barring the Dinovs from further activity in the field here. Read the SEC litigation release here.