Apple Judge Skeptical Tech Giant Complying With Epic Order

By Bonnie Eslinger

The California federal judge overseeing Epic's antitrust suit against Apple reacted skeptically Wednesday to an Apple executive's claim that it has fully complied with her order aimed at allowing app developers to send users to outside payment platforms, saying some of Apple's new rules appear to "stifle competition."

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EEOC Atty Highlights Top PWFA Compliance Challenges

By Vin Gurrieri

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission legal counsel Carol Miaskoff gave her take Wednesday on some notable compliance challenges the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act will pose for employers, pointing to areas where numerous laws may overlap and the requirement that workers core tasks could be paused.

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FTX Says Full Recovery Coming Based On 2022 Crypto Price

By Yun Park

Bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX Trading Ltd. has claimed its proposed Chapter 11 plan would be able to pay creditors in full with a $13 billion distribution that exceeds the estimated allowable $11.2 billion in claims, but the payout is based on the value of cryptocurrency in November 2022, when the exchange filed for bankruptcy protection. 

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Analysis

High Court Ruling May Shake Up CFPB's Litigation Docket

By Jon Hill

A U.S. Supreme Court ruling that may come as soon as Thursday could decide the fate of not only the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding structure but also numerous pending enforcement actions the agency has brought around the country. Here, Law360 surveys what's at stake and where.

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Calif. Justices Weigh Striking Anti-Tax Ballot Initiative

By Maria Koklanaris

California Supreme Court justices sought to understand Wednesday if a measure approved for the November ballot that would make it harder to raise taxes would eliminate lawmakers' ability to tax and would illegally revise — rather than amend — the state constitution.

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Citibank Sued By Atty Over Fake Client Cashier's Check Scam

By Gina Kim

An attorney conned by a fake client and a counterfeit cashier's check sued Citibank in state court Wednesday, alleging it knew of other law firms that were similarly scammed and should have caught the fake check before she wired the funds from her client trust account into the scammer's pocket.

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Ritz-Carlton Can't Dump Suit Over 'Semen-Contaminated' Water

By Lauren Berg

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co. must face the majority of a couple's lawsuit alleging they were served water that had been contaminated with an employee's semen at its Half Moon Bay resort, a California federal judge ruled after dismissing claims against the hotel's parent company Marriott International.

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Dems Propose Scrapping Title VII Damages Caps

By Grace Elletson

House and Senate Democrats unveiled legislation Wednesday that would eliminate ceilings on the amount of damages workers can receive under federal civil rights law if a jury finds they've been discriminated against, a proposal the lawmakers say would correct outdated limits.

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AGs Blast Federal Data Privacy Law's Proposed State Override

By Allison Grande

California joined attorneys general from more than a dozen other states and Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to urge Congress to ensure that proposed federal data privacy legislation sets a "floor, not a ceiling" that would preserve more stringent protections states have enacted and allow them to add new laws to address rapid technological developments. 

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Bill To Undo SEC Crypto Accounting Bulletin Passes House

By Aislinn Keely

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to overturn the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's controversial cryptocurrency accounting guidance despite protests from Democrats to take a more targeted approach to amend the directive and a White House pledge to veto the bill.

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Sens. Call For Revamp Of SEC's Nixed Stock Buyback Rules

By Jessica Corso

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission should "promptly" reissue disclosure rules vacated by the Fifth Circuit last year so that companies are required to publicly disclose more information on their share repurchase plans, a bipartisan pair of U.S. senators told the agency's leader on Monday.

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Tesla Slams Class Bid For Musk Shares Lockdown In Del.

By Jeff Montgomery

Attorneys for Elon Musk and Tesla Inc. and its board have blasted class attorney motions to sequester billions worth of the automotive company's shares as an improper attempt to shield a nonfinal court ruling on Musk's 10-year compensation plan and as potential interference in a Tesla bid to reincorporate in Texas.

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Icahn, Xerox Investors Settle Nixed HP Merger Suit For $2.2M

By Elliot Weld

Carl Icahn will pay $2.2 million to Xerox under an agreement reached with a pair of the company's stockholders, who accused the billionaire investor in a consolidated shareholder derivative lawsuit of trading on non-public information regarding Xerox's now-doomed bid to acquire HP Inc. for $33 billion.

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Kroger Must Keep Fighting Metal-Tainted Baby Food Claims

By Hailey Konnath

An Ohio federal judge Wednesday refused to throw out a proposed class action accusing the Kroger Co. and its subsidiaries of selling baby food tainted with toxic metals, ruling that the mothers who sued have plausibly alleged that they wouldn't have purchased the product had they known the truth.

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Amazon Seeks To Ax $525M Verdict Over Data Storage Patents

By Lauren Berg

Amazon asked an Illinois federal judge Wednesday to throw out a jury's verdict that the e-commerce giant owes $525 million for infringing three of Kove IO's patents relating to cloud data storage technology, saying the Chicago software company didn't actually prove infringement.

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SEC Doubles Down On $2B Ripple Labs Sanction Bid

By Jessica Corso

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is standing by its call for crypto platform Ripple Labs to pay $2 billion as punishment for selling unregistered securities, telling a New York federal judge that a lower penalty would send the wrong message to the industry at large.

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Shockwave Medical Investor Challenges $13B Deal With J&J

By Sydney Price

A shareholder of cardiovascular treatment company Shockwave Medical Inc. is attempting to halt the company's "unfair" $13 billion proposed transaction with Johnson & Johnson by filing a securities suit, saying the transaction will only benefit company insiders and damage public shareholders.

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Lyft Driver Asks Calif. Justices To OK Intervening In PAGA Suit

By Craig Clough

An attorney for a Lyft driver who sued the company under the Private Attorneys General Act urged the California Supreme Court on Wednesday to find her client has standing to intervene in a competing PAGA Lyft case that reached a settlement, saying the deal threatened to "extinguish" her client's rights.

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Google Fights Subpoena On Texas Amid Ad Tech MDL

By Ali Sullivan

Google is urging a New York federal judge overseeing sweeping multidistrict litigation over the tech giant's alleged monopoly in digital advertising to stamp out a subpoena seeking discovery from Texas in related litigation in the Lone Star State.

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Fuel Truck Exec Cops To Rigging Firefighting Contract Bids

By Gina Kim

An Idaho fuel truck company executive accused of conspiring with others to manipulate bids for U.S. Forest Service firefighting contracts to suppress other competitors in the market over an eight-year period pled guilty Wednesday in federal court, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

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AMC Objector Says Chancery Settlement Lacked Due Process

By Leslie A. Pappas

An AMC Entertainment Inc. stockholder who opposed a class settlement that the company reached with other shareholders to end Chancery Court litigation over a controversial share conversion told Delaware's Supreme Court Wednesday that the deal should be unwound for lack of due process.

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Skadden Taps SoFi Bank, Shearman Attys For Co-Lead Roles

By Jack Rodgers

Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP has hired two new co-leaders of its financial institutions regulatory group to advise banks, financial institutions and other market participants on regulatory and legislative developments, the firm announced Wednesday.

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Reed Smith Lands Kirkland Corporate Pro In Houston

By Madison Arnold

A former Kirkland & Ellis partner has joined Reed Smith LLP's Houston office as a capital markets and corporate lawyer, the firm announced Wednesday.

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What's Extraordinary About Challenges To SEC Climate Rule

A set of ideologically diverse legal challenges to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate disclosure rule have been consolidated in the Eighth Circuit via a seldom-used lottery system, and the unpredictability of this process may drive agencies toward a more cautious future approach to rulemaking, say attorneys at Thompson Coburn.

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Is The Digital Accessibility Storm Almost Over?

Though private businesses have faced a decadelong deluge of digital accessibility complaints in the absence of clear regulations or uniformity among the courts, attorneys at Epstein Becker address how recent federal courts’ pushback against serial Americans with Disabilities Act plaintiffs and the U.S. Department of Justice’s proposed government accessibility standards may presage a break in the downpour.

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How New Rule Would Change CFIUS Enforcement Powers

Before the May 15 comment deadline, companies may want to weigh in on proposed regulatory changes to enforcement and mitigation tools at the disposal of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, including broadened subpoena powers, difficult new mitigation timelines and higher maximum penalties, say attorneys at Venable.

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Series

Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Years of participation in swimming events, especially in the open water, have proven to be ideal preparation for appellate arguments in court — just as you must put your trust in the ocean when competing in a swim event, you must do the same with the judicial process, says John Kulewicz at Vorys.

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