[JURIST] Leading Tuesday's corporations and securities law news, a federal appeals court has upheld a lower court decision against Canadian Research in Motion Ltd. [corporate website], the company that produces the popular BlackBerry [product website] e-mail pagers. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit held [opinion, PDF] that the trial court was correct in determining that Research in Motion violated patents held by NTP Inc. in making and selling the BlackBerry devices in the United States. The companies had agreed to a $450 million settlement [AP report], but NTP appears to be pushing for more money, arguing that their technology was used in other devices as well. Bloomberg has more.

In other corporations and securities law news…

• As reported earlier on JURIST's Paper Chase, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) [corporate website] has reached a settlement over its role in Enron's collapse [JURIST report]. In a press release, CIBC said the $2.4 billion settlement will end a lawsuit with Enron shareholders and awaits approval from the head plaintiff, the Board of Regents of the University of California. Though CIBC admitted no wrongdoing in the case, the bank has previously admitted to criminal conduct [US DOJ press release] by its employees in the Enron scandal. Reuters has more.
• The SEC [official website] has settled with – and banned – a former Prudential Securities [corporate website] broker. Chauncey Steele agreed to civil charges that will ban him from trading securities without admitting any wrongdoing in the alleged "painting the tape" scam. Steele was recently ordered by a federal court to pay $150,000 for his role in the scam, which involves making planned, small purchases of stock to make it appear to have greater value to unwary investors. The SEC suit alleged that Steele had orchestrated the scheme [SEC press release]. Reuters has more.