FERC Must Heed DC Circ. 'Shift' On Gas Reviews, Chair Says

By Keith Goldberg

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Willie Phillips said Thursday that the D.C. Circuit wrongly wiped out the agency's approval of a Northeast pipeline expansion project, but acknowledged that recent court decisions will force FERC to rethink how it reviews gas infrastructure projects.

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EPA Urges DC Circ. Not To Block Coal Ash Rule Implementation

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

A Kentucky electric utility is "misleading" the D.C. Circuit about how clean former coal ash pits are once the material is removed, and should not be allowed to block implementation of a new coal ash rule, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday.

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Chancery Fast-Tracks Suit Over Renewable Energy Co. Buyout

By Jeff Montgomery

Delaware's Court of Chancery on Thursday expedited a lawsuit accusing a Repsol SA subsidiary of breaching an agreement requiring it to buy out the remaining shares in a Chicago-based renewable energy venture the Repsol unit co-owns.

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Quinn Emanuel Challenges Oro Negro Execs' Discovery Bid

By Madison Arnold

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP is pushing back against a bid for firm documents from its former client, Oro Negro Drilling Pte. Ltd., saying the company that provides oil services in Mexico and its subsidiaries are "weaponizing" the firm's party status to gain a tactical advantage in related legal battles.

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Florida Banker Denies Laundering Money For Father

By David Minsky

A Florida banker pled not guilty Thursday to federal charges connected to laundering money for his father, who was convicted for his role in a corruption scandal involving canceling fines for a defective hydroelectric dam in exchange for millions in bribes while he served as Ecuador's comptroller.

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Texas Judge Seeks More Info In $150M Ukrnafta Award Feud

By Caroline Simson

A Texas magistrate judge on Thursday ordered Ukraine's largest oil company to turn over bank statements as he grapples with a bid by U.S.-based Carpatsky Petroleum Corp. to bar the Ukrainian company from draining those accounts, part of Carpatsky's long-running effort to enforce a $150 million arbitral award.

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Tax Or Fee, Utility Rates Beyond Review, Ga. Justices Hear

By Chart Riggall

A Georgia city told the state Supreme Court on Thursday that its use of utility fees to bolster city coffers was not an illegal tax, despite a sports bar owner's claims to the contrary, and that a trial court rightly said it could not decide the matter.

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Judge Blocks Manhattan Project Waste From Mich. Landfill

By Carolyn Muyskens

A state judge barred a southeast Michigan landfill from accepting shipments of radiological material Wednesday, issuing a temporary restraining order days after surrounding communities sued over planned deliveries of contaminated soil and debris left over from the development of the first atomic bomb.

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Calif. Port's Approval Of Hydrogen Project Challenged

By Tom Lotshaw

Two conservation groups filed a California state court lawsuit challenging the Port of Stockton's review and approval of a hydrogen production and distribution facility, arguing it conducted an inadequate environmental review and failed to ensure project impacts are mitigated.

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3 Firms Lead Vistra's $3B Buy Of Leftover Stake In Nuclear Biz

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Retail electricity and power generation company Vistra Corp. has agreed to acquire the remaining 15% equity stake in its subsidiary Vistra Vision LLC, which owns nuclear generation facilities, from minority investors Nuveen Asset Management LLC and Avenue Capital Management II LP in a deal valued at more than $3 billion and built by three law firms.

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Gold Mine Operator Agrees To Pay $3M In Water Pollution Row

By Madeline Lyskawa

The operator of the controversial Buckhorn Mountain Gold Mine has agreed to pay more than $3.1 million and take a variety of steps to investigate and remediate water pollution, under a proposed consent decree filed in Washington federal court on Thursday.

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BakerHostetler Adds Ex-Baker Botts Accident Response Duo

By Adrian Cruz

Months after hiring former Baker Botts attorney Greg Dillard to lead its catastrophic accident response team, BakerHostetler has announced the hire of two more attorneys from the firm as counsel in Washington, D.C., and Houston.

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Avoid Getting Burned By Agencies' Solar Financing Spotlight

Recently coordinated reports and advisories from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission maximize the spotlight on the consumer solar financing market and highlight pitfalls for lenders to avoid in this burgeoning field, says Mercedes Tunstall at Cadwalader.

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'Greenhushing': Why Some Cos. Are Keeping Quiet On ESG

A wave of ESG-related litigation and regulations have led some companies to retreat altogether from any public statements about their ESG goals, a trend known as "greenhushing" that was at the center of a recent D.C. court decision involving Coca-Cola, say Gonzalo Mon and Katie Rogers at Kelley Drye.

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King & Spalding Fights Bias Suit Over Summer Program

By Andrea Keckley

King & Spalding LLP is urging a Maryland federal judge to toss a discrimination suit filed by a straight white woman who says she was dissuaded from applying to a summer associate program open only to "diverse" applicants, arguing the student suffered no injury since she did not apply.

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Plaintiffs Firms Battle Over Proposed $9B Deal In J&J Talc Suit

By Ryan Boysen

Two leading plaintiffs law firms in the multibillion-dollar litigation over Johnson & Johnson's tainted talcum powder are now warring among themselves, with Smith Law Firm PLLC suing Beasley Allen Law Firm for defamation after Beasley Allen accused the former of selling out clients to pay off litigation funders.

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Sheriff Who Shot Judge Had Depo Scheduled In Rape Suit

By Cara Bayles

The county sheriff who fatally shot a Kentucky state judge Thursday is a defendant in a federal lawsuit alleging one of his deputies repeatedly raped a woman in the judge's chambers.

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Chevron's Demise May Not Bring Deluge Courts Had Feared

By Brandon Lowrey

Though the death of Chevron deference has opened a door to attacking administrative decisions, the expected uptick in litigation probably won't threaten to clog federal courts, numerous administrative law experts told Law360.

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Federal Judges In Texas, Louisiana Taking Senior Status

By Lynn LaRowe

U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal of the Southern District of Texas and U.S. District Judge Lance Africk of the Eastern District of Louisiana announced this week that they are taking senior status in the coming months.

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Trump Again Asks To Delay Evidence In DC Election Suit

By Elliot Weld

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump again asked the Washington, D.C., federal judge overseeing his election interference case to push back a highly anticipated evidentiary filing from prosecutors, saying special counsel Jack Smith's office shouldn't be allowed to publicly lay out evidence until the court addresses Trump's concerns about the scope of discovery.

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Ellenoff Grossman Denied Arbitration In Ex-Atty's Firing Suit

By Rose Krebs

A New York federal judge has sent a former Ellenoff Grossman & Schole LLP associate's suit saying she was fired for protesting sexual harassment back to state court and denied the firm's motion to compel arbitration of the matter.

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Former Wilson Elser Attorney Drops 9th Circ. Benefits Appeal

By Emily Sawicki

The Ninth Circuit has agreed to dismiss a federal benefits lawsuit from a former Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP partner who claimed he was owed long-term disability benefits tied to chronic fatigue, after the parties held a lengthy mediation of the dispute.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Anna Sanders

Covington & Burling LLP and Pisanelli Bice PLLC lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Nevada Green Party's request to have Jill Stein's name reinstated on the state's presidential ballot Friday.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

The SEC will likely need to clear up confusion about fiduciary investment advice standards after two judges halted new retirement security regulations from the Labor Department. Meanwhile, the changing cyberinsurance market heads for what could be a seismic shift, as more insurers scale back standard IT breach policies. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

The past week in London has seen crypto exchange Binance face a new claim from the co-founder of SO Legal, a U.S. immersive art company take on a Bristol venue for copyright violations and Blake Morgan LLP hit with a pension schemes claim by The Trust for Welsh Archeology. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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It's No Longer Enough For Firms To Be Trusted Advisers

Amid fierce competition for business, the transactional “trusted adviser” paradigm from which most firms operate is no longer sufficient — they should instead aim to become trusted partners with their most valuable clients, says Stuart Maister at Strategic Narrative.

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