Fabrice Tourre, the Goldman employee who arranged the transaction at the center of the case, remains on the hook, the SEC says.

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It comes with risks: A car accident or cancer case can leave small businesses on the hook for big medical bills.

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The most important one was that record companies around the world kept suggesting that he remake the song in order to get to the hook faster, and in all case he resisted their suggestions.

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Its contract with BP stipulates that in the case of gross negligence Anadarko will be off the hook for most cleanup costs.

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Perhaps motivated by the absurd clarion calls from Congress and the press that financial enforcers are letting executives off the hook too easily, the SEC commissioners rejected settlement, and the case will now go to trial.

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In Diebold's case, like many others, his 401(k) plan appears to be contractually on the hook for any decline in the value of collateral received in exchange for the securities it lent out.

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And the court refused to let some of the lawyers off the hook simply because they were attorneys of record and claimed ignorance of the actual details of the case.

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But although the hung jury lets Merck off the hook for now, it falls short of a clear win and could allow plaintiffs to retry the case.

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