No recusal. Five years ago, Judge Winter, right before he took senior status, had a conversation with the member of a law firm about whether he would continue to serve on the bench or take senior status. The lawyer told Judge Winter that if he chose to leave the bench, his firm would be interested in discussing the possibility of employing him at his firm. Judge Winter chose to continue on the bench as a senior judge. There were no further conversations on the matter. Now, one of the firms (I suspect that it is Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw L.L.P., but I could be wrong.) is appearing in a case before Judge Winter. He has stated that he does not think this conversation five years ago warrants recusal. No kidding.

The decision in In re CBI Holding Co. (Bankruptcy Services, Inc. v. Ernst & Young) can be found at the Second Circuit website. If I find a better site, I will post it.

Congratulations. I know that it's off-topic, but I want to congratulate fellow-blogger Heidi Bond of Letters of Marque, who has just disclosed on her blog that she will be clerking for the Honorable Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit. True, it's not as good as the Second Circuit, but it's still pretty good.

Hague Protocol of 1955. The dispute was simple. A shipper was seeking to recover from an air carrier for loss of goods transported by international air freight. The legal issue, however, turned on something more esoteric -- whether the United States was a party to the Hague Protocol of 1955, which amended tthe Warsaw Convention of 1929. The Warsaw Convention is a multilaateral treaty that regulates, among other things, the liability for international air carriers. The District Court had held that United States has acceded to the Hague Protocol when it ratified Montreal Protocol No. 4 in 1998, but the Second Circuit held that the United States did not become a party to the Hague Protocol until after the Senate consented to the Protocol's ratification on July 31, 2003. The case was remanded to the District Court for further proceedings. The decision in Avero Belgium Insurance v. American Airlines, Inc. can be found on the Second Circuit website. When I get a more direct URL, I will post it.