Here's an important lesson to keep in mind: If the corrupt president of an impoverished African nation comes along and tells you he's going to pay you $27 million to buy a piece of land you own in Midtown, do not take him at his word. Stay skeptical, at least until you have the money in hand. Dictators, you see, tend to operate by their own set of rules; just they signed a silly piece of paper called a "contract" doesn't mean they can't change their minds later on. They can do what they want. That's one of the perks to being an autocrat!

A former New York Post editor who was fired last month for complaining about a ludicrously racist cartoon has filed a detailed complaint in federal court accusing editor Col Allan of racism, sexism, and all-round dickishiness of the highest order.

Sandra Guzman, the New York Post editor who was dismissed shortly after she spoke out against that controversial cartoon depicting President Obama as a chimpanzee, is taking aim at her former employer. She just filed a federal lawsuit against the Post, parent company News Corp, and the Post's editor-in-chief, Col Allan. If you're looking for some extraordinarily salacious reading material to keep you occupied this afternoon, well, here you have it. [HuffPo]

You'd think tech bloggers would learn from the peacemaking founders of Skype, who just dropped lawsuits holding back the $2.8 billion sale of their former company. Instead the writers are calling one another inaccurate, spineless "toddlers."

Nello Balan is the owner of Nello, the exceedingly mediocre Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. He's also one of the city's most shameless—and most notorious—publicity hounds. Balan's latest attempt at drumming up attention, however, now appears to be exploding in his face. Last week, a receipt "surfaced" indicating that Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich had spent $52,000 on lunch. (The bill was for $47,000, but TMZ, which first reported the story, said the billionaire had tacked on a $5,000 tip.) But a spokesman for Abramovich tells us the bill wasn't his and the mogul may pursue legal action against Balan for suggesting otherwise.

Whether or not hedge fund billionaire Julian Robertson was a resident of New York City way back in 2000 may seem like a trivial question. Unless, that is, you work for the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance and you're arguing he did spend the majority of his time in NYC that year and you'd like to see him cough up the $27 million in city taxes he owes.

It's hard to believe that there is actually an inventor of product placement; like swine flu, it always seemed just nature's dark side. But someone thinks he did in fact invent it and is willing to sue to prove it.

Does riding a mechanical bull sound like a fun time? If you do decide to engage in the activity and you head over to Johnny Utahs, one of the few places in the area that has the gizmo set up for its customers, keep in mind that if you get wasted and then fall off the bucking beast and injure yourself, you probably won't get very far if you file a lawsuit against the restaurant for negligence.

The fiendish "government" is trying to ban clove cigarettes. So Big Clove has invented a novel way to fight back: Getting a court to declare that their clove cigarettes are not, in fact, cigarettes. Dude. Come on. Just declare it.

Many have criticized Wall Street firms for not doing more to manage risk in the lead up to the financial crisis and many have wondered just how much has changed over the past year. Let it be known that JPMorgan Chase is no longer playing by the old rules when banks were handing out loans to anyone who asked. If you're an accused murderer? Well, then, the new JPMorgan Chase wants nothing to do with you.

Michael Bloomberg built his estimated $16 billion fortune thanks to Bloomberg LP, the financial news provider he founded in 1981. Thirty years later, it is now one of the most lucrative media operations on the planet. Banks and large corporations pay $1,250 a month for each Bloomberg terminal that's installed in its office. There are no discounts available and the company never engages in price negotiations. And while Bloomberg faces competition from the likes of Reuters and Dow Jones, neither company has been able to successfully dislodge the grip that Bloomberg has on the financial media marketplace. No wonder. Getting Bloomberg to cancel your monthly subscription is about as easy as getting Columbia House to stop billing your credit card for those "free" DVDs it insists on sending you every month, even after you've called the 1-800 number a dozen times to complain.

• Barack Obama had lunch today at Craftsteak, just so you know. [NBC]
• Corsino, the latest restaurant by Jason Denton of 'ino and 'inoteca fame, has opened in the space previously occupied by Frederick's Downtown. [UD, GS]
• Unfortunate news for new NYT restaurant critic Sam Sifton: His predecessor, Frank Bruni, says it's impossible for critics to be anonymous these days. [CNN]
• Did you know LA has surpassed NYC as the "deli capital of America"? That's what the author of a new book on the delicatessen says, at least. [LAT]
• Megu is the latest restaurant to get slapped with a labor lawsuit. [GS]
• Bon Appétit isn't following in Gourmet's footsteps and closing down. But it did reportedly hand out pink slips to a bunch of staffers today. [Gawker]
• Fashion stylist Robert Verdi, who says "thin is in," isn't the most tolerant guy in the world: "I think food is for fat people and poor people," he says. [Cut]

Carrie Prejean and her breasts are headed to court. The ex-beauty queen turned anti-gay activist is being sued by the organizers of the Miss California USA pageant who say they paid for her boob job.

Did you hear about the $1 billion lawsuit filed against Greenhouse last week because the club allegedly denied entrance to a group of black partygoers? It turns out the crowd had turned up at the Soho club to attend a book party for Teri Woods, "a pioneer of the enormously successful urban or hip-hop fiction genre," and the author of the newly-released novel, Alibi.

Remember that $2 million lawsuit that was filed against NBC a couple of weeks ago for using several fonts in a recent ad campaign without securing permission? NBC never responded to our request for a comment when we first reported on the suit. Fortunately, "Weekend Update" anchor Seth Meyers issued a response on Saturday Night Live this past weekend: "The joke is on them. We don't have 2 million dollars!" [NBC, previously]

As if Conde Nast didn't have enough to worry about: the New Guinea tribesmen suing the New Yorker for defamation now want a cool $45 million. Beware, reporters: Even your cab driver is lawyered up these days.

One of Oprah's flight attendants wants monetary revenge for not having sex. Christina Hendricks got married. Jail makes Roman Polanski sad. And Blago and Trump's hair wars will be television gold. Happy Monday and welcome to your gossip roundup!

• The New York City Wine & Food Festival is underway, although if you haven't secured tickets by now, you can forget about attending any of the events. [GS]
• What should Andre Balazs call the Standard's Boom Boom Room now that legal issues have forced a name change? "Mile High Club" gets one vote. [NYT]
• Buddha Bar has been sued over 400K in unpaid legal bills. [Eater]
• There's a pasta renaissance taking place in the city, apparently. [NYP]
• A Q&A with Katie Lee Joel, who has a new cookbook (and who says she'd be just as well known today even if she'd never married Billy Joel). [TONY]
• The Times Magazine's "food issue" is now online. [NYT]

NBC's legal team has one more headache on its hands. On Tuesday afternoon, the company was served with a lawsuit by the Font Bureau, one of the country's leading typographic design firms and the company responsible for crafting typefaces for the likes of Apple, Microsoft, and the New York Times Co. What would prompt a company that designs fonts to wage a legal assault on the media conglomerate? It seems NBC didn't secure the rights to use a handful of Font Bureau's trademarked typefaces. The same ones, we should add, that have been used as part of NBC's fall marketing campaign to tout shows like The Jay Leno Show, Saturday Night Live and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

What a small world! Who would've thought? Marty Singer—the lawyer laying into my boss for a cool mil over the McSteamy Tape—would be taking other big-money cases on behalf of sleazy celebrities? Well, he got to Kate Gosselin!