Musk Fights Latest Subpoena Over $44B Twitter Purchase

By Bonnie Eslinger

Elon Musk's counsel urged a California federal judge on Thursday to undo a magistrate judge's decision requiring the businessman to testify again before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission about his $44 billion purchase of the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, calling the subpoena overbroad and unconstitutional.

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Trump SPAC Investor Convicted Of Insider Trading

By Cara Salvatore

A Manhattan federal jury on Thursday convicted a Florida investment pro of securities fraud and conspiracy for allegedly exploiting confidential plans to take Donald Trump's media company Truth Social public in a $23 million insider trading case.

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Watchdog Seeks Texas Judge's Recusal In Noncompete Case

By Emily Sawicki

An industry watchdog is calling on U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker to step away from the U.S. Chamber's lawsuit in Texas federal court challenging the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's new noncompete rule, citing "ample financial conflicts" including his investments in Amazon, Apple and IBM, two of which are members of the Chamber.

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Fed. Circ. Wary Of Undoing Gilstrap's Toss Of Banking IP Suit

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Circuit didn't seem convinced Thursday morning that a patent case against online stockbroker TD Ameritrade had been wrongly tossed out of court, with a judge at one point telling banking patent owner Island Intellectual Property that "this is all abstract."

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Google Slams Maps Antitrust Suit As 'Cut-And-Paste Job'

By Bonnie Eslinger

Google's counsel urged a California federal judge Thursday to permanently toss a proposed antitrust class action over its Maps product, calling the complaint a "cut-and-paste job" from a 2020 House report and accusing plaintiffs of "trying to gin up an antitrust claim" where one doesn't exist.

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Lynk Labs Says Tech Group Is Samsung's 'Mouthpiece'

By Adam Lidgett

Lynk Labs Inc. has asked the Federal Circuit to throw out a brief from the High Tech Inventors Alliance in support of Samsung in a case where the tech giant won a Patent Trial and Appeal Board challenge to a Lynk Labs LED patent.

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Amazon, Walmart Face Dem Questions Over 'Dynamic Pricing'

By Sarah Jarvis

Senate Banking Committee Chair Sherrod Brown on Thursday raised concerns to Amazon and Walmart about corporations hiking prices by exploiting customer data and pricing algorithms, saying it undermines consumers' ability to comparison shop and save money.

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Senate Approves FAA Reauthorization Bill

By Henrik Nilsson

The U.S. Senate on Thursday passed legislation reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration's safety and airport improvement programs in a package that includes hiring thousands more air traffic controllers and inspectors, among other things.

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Maryland Enacts Data Privacy, Kids' Digital Safety Laws

By Allison Grande

Maryland's governor on Thursday signed data privacy legislation that strictly limits the personal information that companies can collect from consumers and a separate bill to boost online safeguards for children that's modeled after a California bill that's currently embroiled in a constitutional challenge. 

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AT&T Appeals $57M Fine For Selling Customer Location Data

By Jared Foretek

AT&T is appealing a $57 million fine from the Federal Communications Commission on allegations it failed to protect customer location data, calling the agency order an "abuse of discretion."

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Tablet Co. Wins China Duty Refund, Loses On Tariff Heading

By Jennifer Doherty

A digital writing tablet company will recoup the bulk of tariffs it paid under the Section 301 duty program to import its goods after the U.S. Court of International Trade rejected its preferred tariff classification Thursday.

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Amazon Shakes Wash. Suit Premised On Calif. Wiretap Claims

By Allison Grande

A Washington federal judge has tossed a putative class action accusing Amazon.com Inc. of unlawfully recording chat conversations with consumers, finding that the plaintiff couldn't sustain a suit containing only California claims because the e-commerce giant's usage agreement makes clear that Washington law governs such disputes. 

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Nintendo Gets Switch Suit Stay Pending Patent Review

By Rachel Riley

A Seattle federal judge agreed Thursday that Nintendo could pause an intellectual property suit against it while it seeks to challenge the validity of the patents at issue, saying the plaintiff could not now complain about delays since it waited six years to file its complaint.

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Chancery Tosses Qualcomm Investor's Diversity Suit

By Leslie A. Pappas

A shareholder who sued Qualcomm Inc. for allegedly misleading the public and investors about its efforts to diversify its board has failed to show that the company didn't consider diverse candidates, Delaware's Court of Chancery said Thursday, dismissing the shareholder's case.

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Judge Mulls Twitter's Rent Intent In Colo. Eviction Fight

By Thy Vo

A Colorado state judge asked a Boulder landlord Thursday why Twitter's intent mattered when it stopped paying rent after being acquired by Elon Musk, as the landlord fights for access to records to rebut the social media company's wrongful eviction claims.

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FICO Blasts Discovery 'Sideshows' In VantageScore Suit

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois federal judge handling antitrust claims targeting the credit-scoring market should disregard the "sideshows" customers lodged by requesting confidential settlement records and other documents that are too far removed from the case's core issues, Fair Isaac Corp. argued on Wednesday.

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Bain Capital Plugs $250M Into Professional Services Firm

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Technology-enabled professional services company Sikich LLC on Thursday announced that it has secured a $250 million minority growth investment from private equity giant Bain Capital in a transaction built by four firms.

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Masimo Makes Offer To End Activist Politan's Proxy Contest

By Elaine Briseño

Medical technology company Masimo Corp. revealed Thursday that it is willing to appoint one of the director nominees put forth by activist investment firm Politan Capital Management LP in exchange for the company dropping its proxy fight, though Politan signaled distaste with the proposed deal.

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Deals Rumor Mill: Paramount, Peloton, International Paper

By Al Barbarino

Sony and Apollo plan to break up Paramount if their $26 billion bid prevails, private equity firms are eyeing a Peloton buyout, and International Paper gets a $15 billion bid from Brazil's Suzano. Here, Law360 breaks down the notable deal rumors from the past week.

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Firm Can't Get $99M Deal Reopened After Worker Poached

By Alyssa Aquino

A consulting firm that lost a $99 million National Archives and Records Administration contract based on a proposed manager's qualifications couldn't convince the U.S. Government Accountability Office that the worker's new employment for the contract winner warranted reconsidering the deal.

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Ex-Exec Should Get 78 Months For $5M Theft, Gov't Says

By Kelcey Caulder

Prosecutors on Wednesday asked that a Georgia federal judge sentence a former Facebook and Nike diversity executive who stole more than $5 million from the companies to 78 months in prison and order her to pay $5.1 million in restitution.

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SEC Says Bogus Billion-Dollar Co. Ran Stock Offering Fraud

By Katryna Perera

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday accused a man previously convicted of wire and tax fraud of conducting a fake stock offering on misrepresentations that he ran a diversified energy, health care, technology and real estate company that would net billions in revenue when in fact it tallied less than $15,000 in sales.

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IP Considerations For Companies In Carbon Capture Sector

As companies collaborate to commercialize carbon capture technologies amid massive government investment under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, a coherent intellectual property strategy is more important than ever, including proactively addressing and resolving questions about ownership of the technology, say Ashley Kennedy and James De Vellis at Foley & Lardner.

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Does Expert Testimony Aid Preliminary IPR Responses?

Dechert attorneys analyze six years of patent owners' preliminary responses to inter partes review petitions to determine whether the elimination of the presumption favoring the petitioner as to preinstitution testimonial evidence affected the usefulness of expert testimony in responses.

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Keeping Up With Class Actions: A New Era Of Higher Stakes

Corporate defendants saw unprecedented settlement numbers across all areas of class action litigation in 2022 and 2023, and this year has kept pace so far, with three settlements that stand out for the nature of the claims and for their high dollar amounts, says Gerald Maatman at Duane Morris.

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At-Large Suspect Charged With Murder Of Lewis Brisbois Atty

By Craig Clough

The Houston Police Department announced Thursday that it has charged a man in connection with the shooting death of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP attorney Jeffrey Limmer, although the suspect remains at large. 

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Titan Of The Plaintiffs Bar: Keller Rohrback's Derek Loeser

By Joyce Hanson

Derek Loeser's path to becoming one of the country's sharpest litigators, winning major cases against large corporations including Facebook and Wells Fargo, may very well have started at his family's dinner table when he was young.

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Fla. Justices Let More Law Grads Work Before Admission

By Madison Arnold

Certain graduates of accredited law schools can work for up to 18 months in Florida under the same restrictions as students from law school practice programs after the state Supreme Court ordered a rule change Thursday.

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9th Circ. Says Judge Defied Order To Revive Opioid Case

By Elliot Weld

The Ninth Circuit on Thursday again revived a nearly 7-year-old case against a California doctor for allegedly selling opioid prescriptions and ordered that the case be reassigned, saying the presiding judge had defied the plain language of a previous order to reinstate the indictment.

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Sen. Menendez's 2nd Bribery Trial: All You Need To Know

In the wake of a 2017 mistrial on bribery charges, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez reaffirmed his dedication to public service and vowed never to stop fighting for the people of New Jersey.

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Daniels Defiant As Trump Atty Attacks Hush Money Account

By Stewart Bishop, Rachel Scharf, and Frank Runyeon

Adult film star Stormy Daniels was defiant on Thursday in the face of a grueling cross-examination by counsel for Donald Trump in the Manhattan hush money trial, who sought to discredit her account of a 2006 sexual encounter with him at a celebrity golf tournament.

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Coverage Recap: Day 10 Of Trump's NY Hush Money Trial

By Frank G. Runyeon

Law360 reporters are providing live updates from the Manhattan criminal courthouse as Donald Trump goes on trial for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Here's a recap from day 10.

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3rd Circ. Rejects Hunter Biden Gun Appeal, Trial Set For June

By Hailey Konnath

The Third Circuit on Thursday refused to consider Hunter Biden's appeal of three Delaware federal court orders declining to dismiss felony firearm charges against him, an order issued the same day the lower court again refused to toss the indictment and scheduled the trial for June.

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3rd Circ. Judge Jordan To Retire In January 2025

By Christine DeRosa

Judge Kent A. Jordan will retire from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit next year after serving on that bench for nearly two decades, Law360 has learned.

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Biden Taps Housing Atty, 2 More For Tax Court

By Anna Scott Farrell

President Joe Biden nominated three attorneys Thursday to serve as judges on the U.S. Tax Court, including a housing attorney who specializes in federal low-income housing tax credits, a legislative counsel for the Joint Committee on Taxation and an IRS attorney.

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Sens. Press Colleagues For Public Defender Funding

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., a former public defender, led a letter Thursday to Senate appropriators calling for the federal public defender program to receive its full funding request for the upcoming fiscal year. 

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Oil Trader Sues BakerHostetler, Alleges Fake CIA Program Con

By Craig Clough

A Swiss-based oil trading company sanctioned last year by the United Kingdom for alleged ties to Russia has sued BakerHostetler in California court, alleging a con man posing as a CIA agent tried to steal control of the company as the law firm vouched for his legitimacy.

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Texas Court Urged To Keep Alive Judge Romance Suit

By Lynn LaRowe

In a flurry of filings, a former shareholder in an engineering company has pushed a Texas federal court to reject bids to throw out his lawsuit over an ex-bankruptcy judge's secret relationship with a former Jackson Walker LLP attorney.

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Attys Want $102M In Fees In Stock Loan Antitrust Deal

By Sydney Price

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC attorneys asked for $102 million in fees for settling claims from investors that major banks colluded to avoid modernizing the stock loan market, saying the long and complex nature of the case warrants the payout.

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Denver Firm Gets $1.4M Fee For Elijah McClain Settlement

By Rose Krebs

A Colorado appellate court Thursday partially reversed a lower court decision awarding roughly $3.1 million to a Denver firm for its work on behalf of Elijah McClain's family in connection with a $15 million federal litigation settlement, ruling that the firm is only entitled to about $1.4 million.

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Houston Firm Can't Escape Litigation Funder's $2M Loan Suit

By Catherine Marfin

A Houston-based law firm doesn't have to turn over financial documents to a litigation funder that has alleged the firm failed to pay back a more than $2 million debt, but it does have to continue litigating the underlying matter, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.

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Attys Talk Stress, And Ways Forward, In NJ Wellness Push

By Jake Maher

At a panel sponsored by the New Jersey state judiciary on attorney mental health, current and former lawyers shared their experiences handling the stress of the legal profession.

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