FDIC's Gruenberg To Resign In Workplace Report Aftermath

By Jon Hill

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg committed Monday to resigning from his post amid continuing fallout from his agency's toxic workplace scandal, bending to mounting pressure for his exit.

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SolarWinds Accuses SEC Of 'Troubling Pattern' Of Distortion

By Jessica Corso

SolarWinds Corp. is calling out the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for what it deems to be a "troubling pattern" of overstating its case against the government contractor, saying that a recent admission by the agency "dooms" claims that the company knew a customer had been hacked and failed to report it.

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Colo. Gov. Voices 'Reservations' In Signing AI Bias Bill

By Allison Grande

Colorado's governor has approved the nation's first framework to clamp down on algorithmic discrimination in certain artificial intelligence technologies, although he expressed several "reservations" about the measure that he urged the Legislature to address before the law takes effect in 2026. 

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FTC Says Albertsons Execs Deleted Texts In Kroger Case

By Nadia Dreid

Kroger and the Federal Trade Commission are at each other's throats over discovery in the agency's in-house challenge to the grocery giant's $25 billion merger with Albertsons and in district court, with the grocers accusing the agency of "running out the clock" and the FTC accusing the grocers of deleting text messages.

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Autonomy CEO Reaped $516M From HP Acquisition, Jurors Told

By Bonnie Eslinger

Ex-Autonomy CEO Michael Lynch took home more than $516 million from the software company's $11.7 billion sale to HP, an FBI agent testified Monday as the government's last witness in a trial over allegations Lynch duped HP into overpaying to buy the company.

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Transparency Act Violates Constitution, Groups Tell 11th Circ.

By Natalie Olivo

The Corporate Transparency Act's reporting requirements violate the Fifth Amendment's protection against self-incrimination and other constitutional provisions, libertarian think tank Cato Institute and others said Monday in urging the Eleventh Circuit to uphold an Alabama district court's ruling against the law.

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Investor Group Wants Slowdown On Del. Corporation Law Bill

By Jeff Montgomery

Critics of a fast-tracked proposal to amend Delaware's General Corporation Law to give controlling stockholders wider influence or vetoes over some board decisions are urging the state's bar association to tap the brakes, following a Chancery Court decision striking down a Moelis & Co. stockholder agreement as flouting existing law.

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Archegos Lied To Banks To Obtain Credit Lines, Jury Told

By Elliot Weld

The former director of risk management at the fallen private capital fund Archegos told a Manhattan federal jury Monday that he lied to banks about the fund's portfolio to induce them to extend lines of credit at the direction of his former boss, Archegos Chief Financial Officer Patrick Halligan.

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SEC Says Firm Broke Short-Selling Rules During Pandemic

By Emilie Ruscoe

An Austin, Texas-based trading firm has agreed to pay $1.5 million as part of a deal to end U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claims it unlawfully bought follow-on offering shares of companies it had just shorted, including those of cruise ship companies bruised by 2020 COVID-19 outbreaks.

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Ex-BlackRock VP Says He Was Fired After Whistleblowing

By Sarah Jarvis

BlackRock Inc. has been sued in New York state court by a former vice president and purported whistleblower who alleged he faced retaliation and wrongful termination after raising concerns about self-dealing, corruption and conflicts of interest at the asset management firm.

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CFPB Fines Debt Relief Co. $400K For Charging Illegal Fees

By Katryna Perera

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Monday ordered Western Benefits Group to pay a $400,000 civil money penalty and permanently cease operations after finding that the company charged illegal advanced fees for student loan debt relief services and falsely told consumers the advanced fees would be applied toward paying down their debt.

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Insider Trader Settles With SEC Over Friend's ADI Tip

By Brian Dowling

A Massachusetts accountant who admitted to trading on inside information about Analog Devices Inc.'s plans to buy a California semiconductor company has settled related civil charges lodged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a Monday filing in federal court.

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Crypto Groups Move To Ditch 'Irrational' SEC Dealer Rule

By Aislinn Keely

A pair of crypto industry groups suing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over its expansion of the dealer definition have asked a Texas federal judge to grant them a win in the suit and cut down the "unexplained and irrational rulemaking" they claim violated the rulemaking process.

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Senate Report Ties Automakers To Uyghur Forced Labor

By Courtney Buble

BMW, Jaguar Land Rover and Volkswagen imported cars and their parts that were manufactured by a Chinese company sanctioned for using forced labor, according to a congressional report released Monday raising concerns about compliance with recent measures to crack down on labor violations.

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China Sanctions 3 US Firms For Arms Sales To Taiwan

By Daniel Wilson

The Chinese Government has sanctioned units of Boeing, General Atomics and General Dynamics over the companies' sales of weapons to Taiwan, barring the companies from trade or investment in China, citing alleged threats to its sovereignty.

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DOL, Fringe Benefit Co. Strike Deal In Funds Management Suit

By Patrick Hoff

A fringe benefits company and two of its executives have agreed to pay over $4 million to resolve a U.S. Department of Labor lawsuit alleging they mismanaged funds meant for government contractor employees' benefits, the federal government told a Maryland federal court.

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Tesla Must Face Sweeping Race Bias Class Action

By Amanda Ottaway

Tesla must face a class action by scores of Black workers accusing it of a widespread culture of racial discrimination at its factory in Fremont, California, a state trial court judge has ruled.

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6th Circ. Orders Sanctioned Prison Co. To Pay NLRB Atty Fees

By Ryan Harroff

The Sixth Circuit said a Federal Bureau of Prisons contractor has to pay the U.S. National Labor Relations Board's attorney fees from arguing the contractor should be held in contempt in a dispute over two fired union supporters, with one judge dissenting in part over 0.4 billable hour.

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Agri Stats Can't Pause DOJ Antitrust Suit Discovery

By Nadia Dreid

Agri Stats can't press pause on discovery while the Minnesota federal court overseeing the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust case against it decides whether to toss the enforcement action accusing the data compiler of helping meat processors swap sensitive business information.

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DOJ Says Google Ad Tech Case About Coercion, Not Dealing

By Bryan Koenig

The U.S. Department of Justice urged a Virginia federal judge Friday to preserve its case accusing Google of monopolizing key digital advertising technology, arguing the search giant is misconstruing a case that is really about forcing customers to use its ad exchanges, not about who the company does business with.

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Texas' Naive Witness 'Unacceptable' In Google Ad Tech Suit

By Catherine Marfin

A judge overseeing a Texas-led lawsuit accusing Google of anti-competitive conduct in the display advertising market has ordered the attorneys general bringing the litigation to provide an adequate witness who can speak to certain facts about the investigation, calling their failure to do so "puzzling and unacceptable."

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Oil & Gas Groups Press DC Circ. To Block EPA Methane Rule

By Keith Goldberg

Oil and gas industry groups have urged the D.C. Circuit to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's expanded methane emissions control requirements while they're being challenged in court, saying the agency failed to reckon with the requirements' outsized impacts on owners of low-producing oil and gas wells.

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Latham Hires 2 Skadden Healthcare Partners In DC

By Rachel Rippetoe

Latham & Watkins LLP has picked up two healthcare and life sciences partners from Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP in Washington, D.C., the firm announced Monday.

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Tiny Tweaks To Bank Merger Forms May Have Big Impact

The impact of proposed changes to the Federal Reserve Board's and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s bank merger review forms would be significant, resulting in hundreds of additional burden hours for bank merger applicants and signaling a further shift by the prudential bank regulators toward more rigorous scrutiny of mergers, say attorneys at Debevoise.

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Navigating Title VII Compliance And Litigation Post-Muldrow

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Muldrow v. St. Louis has broadened the scope of Title VII litigation, meaning employers must reassess their practices to ensure compliance across jurisdictions and conduct more detailed factual analyses to defend against claims effectively, say Robert Pepple and Christopher Stevens at Nixon Peabody.

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Ga. Law Creates Challenges For Foreign Ownership Of Land

Under Georgia's new law limiting certain foreign possessory interests in agricultural land and land near military properties, affected foreign persons and entities will need to do significantly more work in order to ensure that their ownership remains legal, say Nellie Sullivan and Lindsey Grubbs at Holland & Knight.

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The Opportunities, Risks And Rewards Of AI Acquisitions

As artificial intelligence acquisitions become an increasing area of focus for investors and technology buyers, entities should pay special attention to target identification, due diligence and more when structuring and executing a transaction with a company that has an AI-centric business model, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.

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Contract Disputes Recap: Saying What Needs To Be Said

Edward Arnold and Bret Marfut at Seyfarth Shaw examine three recent decisions that delve into the meaning and effect of contractual releases, and demonstrate the importance of ensuring that releases, as written, do what the parties intend.

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Mitigating Incarceration's Impacts On Foreign Nationals

Sentencing arguments that highlighted the disparate impact incarceration would have on a British national recently sentenced for insider training by a New York district court, when compared to similarly situated U.S. citizens, provide an example of the advocacy needed to avoid or mitigate problems unique to noncitizen defendants, say attorneys at Lankler Siffert.

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The Law360 400: Tracking The Largest US Law Firms

By Sam Bell and Pamela Wilkinson

The legal market expanded more tentatively in 2023 than in previous years amid a slowdown in demand for legal services, especially in transactions, an area that has been sluggish but is expected to quicken in the latter half of the coming year.

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Strategic Hiring Was The New Normal For BigLaw In 2023

By Emma Cueto

The 400 largest law firms by headcount in the U.S. grew more slowly in 2023 than in the previous two years, while Kirkland & Ellis LLP surpassed the 3,000-attorney threshold, according to the latest Law360 ranking.

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Senate Backs Asst. US Atty For Arizona District Judgship

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 66-26 on Tuesday to confirm Assistant U.S. Attorney Krissa M. Lanham to the District of Arizona.

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Connecticut Chief Justice Retiring In September

By Aaron Keller

Richard A. Robinson, the first Black state supreme court chief justice in Connecticut history, will retire from the bench effective Sept. 6, Gov. Ned Lamont's office announced Tuesday morning.

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