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October 03, 2024
OpenAI Hits $157B 'Post-Money' Valuation After $6.6B Funding
Artificial intelligence firm OpenAI announced it has raised $6.6 billion through a private funding round that values the ChatGPT developer at $157 billion, showing strong investor appetite for AI startups amid an otherwise sober fundraising environment.
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October 03, 2024
NCAA's Refined NIL Settlement Still Faces Opposition
The fight to approve a $2.78 billion antitrust settlement over the NCAA's name, image and likeness compensation rules grew tougher this week as a new group of athletes voiced their opposition to the deal's "illusory, contradictory and overreaching" terms.
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October 03, 2024
Judicial Picks From 3 States Remain Hearing-Less
With a dwindling number of days left on the Senate's 2024 calendar, Democrats are pushing to confirm more judges so President Joe Biden can meet or exceed former President Donald Trump's record.
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October 03, 2024
Calif. Can't Delay Bank's $20.7M Tax Refund, FDIC Tells Court
A California tax collection agency shouldn't be allowed to delay a $20.7 million tax refund it owes the shuttered Signature Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. told a New York federal court, saying that as the bank's receiver, it's entitled to the money now.
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October 03, 2024
Calif. Eateries End COVID-19 Coverage Fight
The operators of two high-end Napa Valley restaurants told the Ninth Circuit they have agreed to end their suit seeking to recover pandemic-related losses from a Hartford unit following the California Supreme Court's ruling in a similar case that a virus exclusion didn't render limited virus coverage illusory.
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October 03, 2024
California Tribe Says Report Shows Flaws In Water Project
The Hoopa Valley Tribe urged a California federal judge to recognize as fact a recent report issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior's Office of Inspector General, which the tribe argued backs its challenge of the Bureau of Reclamation's management of California's Trinity River.
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October 03, 2024
Venable Assistant Sues Firm For Denying Medical WFH Status
A Venable LLP administrative assistant has sued her employer in Los Angeles Superior Court, accusing the firm of denying her medically necessary work from home request in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act by forcing her into unpaid administrative leave.
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October 02, 2024
Kirkland Accuses Ex-IP Atty Of Delaying Bias Suit Discovery
Kirkland & Ellis LLP told a California federal magistrate judge Wednesday that a former Kirkland intellectual property associate has delayed discovery production in her discrimination lawsuit against the firm, arguing that her discovery responses cite an erroneous legal standard, are non-committal and are "not even close to being proper."
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October 02, 2024
Calif. AI Election Law Blocked As 'Blunt Tool' Stifling Speech
A California federal judge Wednesday blocked a recently enacted state law cracking down on election-related deepfakes, acknowledging the risks posed by artificial intelligence, but agreeing with a conservative content creator that the law is an overly broad "blunt tool that hinders humorous expression and unconstitutionally stifles" the free exchange of ideas.
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October 02, 2024
Cognizant Exec Cites India's Talent Pool To Explain Workforce
A Cognizant Technologies vice president repeatedly denied in testimony Wednesday that the company is biased toward Indian workers in a class action brought by former employees, and said the company's high percentage of Indian workers with visas is due to the "vast pool of engineering talent" in that country.
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October 02, 2024
Freshworks Can't End Investors' IPO Disclosure Suit
A California federal judge has told software company Freshworks it cannot escape a proposed investor class action alleging it omitted information from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings when it made its initial public offering, saying the court cannot currently decide if its alleged omissions damaged investors.
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October 02, 2024
Sonos Beats Remaining Claims Of Google Speaker IP Suit
A California federal judge on Wednesday dropped the remaining patent infringement claims in Google's wireless technology battle against speaker maker Sonos Inc., rejecting the tech giant's contention that there was substantial evidence of infringement.
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October 02, 2024
Lab Co. Settles Bogus Testing Claims With Feds For $27M
Precision Diagnostics Toxicology Lab, one of the nation's largest drug testing laboratories, has agreed to pay $27 million to resolve allegations that it billed Medicare and other federal healthcare programs for medically unnecessary tests, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday.
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October 02, 2024
CAA Says Ex-Agents Stole Info To Build Unlicensed Agency
Creative Artists Agency hauled Range Media Partners into Los Angeles Superior Court, claiming that its rival was "built on deceit" by former CAA agents who schemed to skirt anti-exploitation regulations on talent agencies and steal CAA's confidential information.
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October 02, 2024
Nipple Cover Co. Can't Nix 'Grippy, Not Sticky' False Ad Suit
A California federal judge on Wednesday declined to nix a proposed class action claiming Cakes Body falsely touts its reusable pasties as stay-in-place but that they don't work the way they're advertised, finding the plaintiff plausibly alleges the "grippy, not sticky" representations describing the product are misleading to consumers.
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October 02, 2024
9th Circ. Won't Force New Factory Farm Water Regs On EPA
The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday tossed green groups' lawsuit seeking to revive their petition for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to create new, stronger Clean Water Act regulations for large animal feeding facilities.
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October 02, 2024
Epic's Samsung, Google Cases Over Play Store Linked
The judge mulling what changes Google will have to make after a jury found its Play Store policies violate antitrust law will also oversee a new case filed by Epic Games accusing Samsung of helping Google preemptively undermine any fix imposed by the court.
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October 02, 2024
Pfizer Didn't Warn Of Tumor Risks In Depo-Provera, Suit Says
Pfizer Inc. faces a product liability and negligence suit filed Tuesday in California federal court alleging it distributed the hormonal contraceptive drug Depo-Provera without adequately warning patients and doctors about the risk of brain tumors associated with its use, a danger that has been widely published in scientific journals for years.
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October 02, 2024
Hyundai, Kia Drivers' $145M Car-Theft Deal Wins Final OK
A California federal judge has signed off on a $145 million settlement that closes out consolidated consumer claims alleging Hyundai and Kia knowingly sold defective vehicles with design flaws that spawned a car-theft crime wave following a viral TikTok trend that popularized tips for breaking into their cars.
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October 02, 2024
Doctor Cops To Dealing Ketamine That Killed Matthew Perry
A physician pled guilty in California federal court Wednesday to helping supply the ketamine that killed "Friends" star Matthew Perry, including by providing illegally obtained vials of the drug for Perry's personal assistant to administer at home.
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October 02, 2024
Meta Facing Another Author Class Action Over LLM Training
Another author has launched a proposed class action against Meta Platforms Inc. in California federal court alleging the social media giant swiped material from hundreds of thousands of copyrighted books to train its series of large language models named Llama.
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October 02, 2024
FisherBroyles Hit With Malpractice Suit Over Stem Cell Case
A Southern California stem cell treatment center hit FisherBroyles LLP with a $10 million malpractice suit in state court over the law firm's work defending it in a patent infringement case that settled, claiming the defense was so incompetently handled that it had to hire WilmerHale as the case approached trial.
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October 02, 2024
TikTok Can't End Browser Privacy MDL
An Illinois federal judge on Tuesday held TikTok and parent company ByteDance to multidistrict litigation in which users claim the video platform's in-app browser illegally tracks activity on third-party sites, and gave the plaintiffs a chance to replead one claim under California law.
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October 02, 2024
Class Cert. In Bonus Suit Against X On The Verge Of Failure
A California federal judge appeared inclined to deny a former X Corp. employee's class certification bid in his suit claiming the social media platform failed to pay promised bonuses after Elon Musk took over, urging the parties to tackle whether a renewed motion is necessary.
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October 02, 2024
Reed Smith Enviro Ace Remembered As Kind Mentor
Todd Maiden, a longtime environmental attorney in Reed Smith LLP's San Francisco office who died last month, was deeply passionate about preserving the environment and enjoyed mentoring young associates. He leaves behind a legacy as the "kindest and gentlest of souls," his former colleagues said.
Expert Analysis
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Bayer Antitrust Case Hinged On Evolving Market Definition
Generic flea and tick medication manufacturer Tevra's evolving market definition played a key role in the development and outcome of its five-year antitrust litigation against Bayer Healthcare, highlighting challenges that litigants may face when a proposed definition is assessed at trial, say Amy Vegari and Colleen Anderson at Patterson Belknap.
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NYC Wage Info Bill Highlights Rise In Pay Transparency Laws
With New York City the latest to mull requiring companies to annually report employee wage data, national employers should consider adapting their compliance practices to comply with increasingly common pay transparency and disclosure obligations at state and local levels, says Kelly Cardin at Littler Mendelson.
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The Bank Preemption Ripple Effects After Cantero, Flagstar
The importance of federal preemption for financial institutions will only increase as technology-driven innovations evolve, which is why the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Cantero v. Bank of America and vacatur of Kivett v. Flagstar Bank have real modern-day significance for national banks, say attorneys at WilmerHale.
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Series
Being An Opera Singer Made Me A Better Lawyer
My journey from the stage to the courtroom has shown that the skills I honed as an opera singer – punctuality, memorization, creativity and more – have all played a vital role in my success as an attorney, says Gerard D'Emilio at GableGotwals.
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How Law Firms Can Avoid 'Collaboration Drag'
Law firm decision making can be stifled by “collaboration drag” — characterized by too many pointless meetings, too much peer feedback and too little dissent — but a few strategies can help stakeholders improve decision-making processes and build consensus, says Steve Groom at Miles Mediation.
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Election Outlook: A Precedent Primer On Content Moderation
With the 2024 election season now in full swing, online platforms will face difficult and politically sensitive decisions about content moderation, but U.S. Supreme Court decisions from last term offer much-needed certainty about their rights, say Jonathan Blavin and Helen White at Munger Tolles.
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Banking Compliance Takeaways From Joint Agency Statement
Federal bank regulatory agencies’ recent joint statement warning of risks associated with third-party fintech deposit services spotlights a fundamental problem that may arise with bank deposit products that are made through increasingly complex customer relationships, says Tom Witherspoon at Stinson.
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Workday AI Bias Suit Suggests Hiring Lessons For Employers
As state laws and a federal agency increasingly focus on employment bias introduced by artificial intelligence systems, a California federal court's recent decision to allow a discrimination suit to proceed against Workday's AI-driven recruitment software, shows companies should promptly assess these tools' risks, say attorneys at Williams & Connolly.
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Assessing The Practicality Of Harris' Affordable Housing Plan
Vice President Kamala Harris' proposed "Build the American Dream" plan to tackle housing affordability issues takes solid recommendations into account and may fare better than California's unsuccessful attempt at a similar program, but the scope of the problem is beyond what a three-point plan can solve, says Brooke Miller at Sheppard Mullin.
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Opinion
Litigation Funding Disclosure Key To Open, Impartial Process
Blanket investor and funding agreement disclosures should be required in all civil cases where the investor has a financial interest in the outcome in order to address issues ranging from potential conflicts of interest to national security concerns, says Bob Goodlatte, former U.S. House Representative for Virginia.
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The Ethics of Using Generative AI In Environmental Law
The rapid emergence of generative artificial intelligence tools is challenging environmental lawyers, consultants and government agencies to determine when and how these tools can be responsibly, ethically and productively integrated into their practices to streamline research, predictive analytics and regulatory compliance, say Ahlia Bethea and Pamela Esterman at Sive Paget.
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RealPage Suit Shows Growing Algorithm, AI Pricing Scrutiny
The U.S. Department of Justice's suit against RealPage for helping fix rental rates, filed last week, demonstrates how the use of algorithmic and artificial intelligence tools to assist with pricing decisions is drawing increasing scrutiny and action across government agencies, and specifically at the Federal Trade Commission and the DOJ, say Andre Geverola and Leah Harrell at Arnold & Porter.
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Fed. Circ. Patent Ruling Clarifies Section 101 Procedures
The Federal Circuit’s recent ruling in Mobile Acuity v. Blippar affirming a dismissal at the pleading stage illustrates important considerations and potential pitfalls for both filing and opposing a Section 101 motion to dismiss, say Thomas Sprankling and Vikram Iyer at WilmerHale.
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What NFL Draft Picks Have In Common With Lateral Law Hires
Nearly half of law firm lateral hires leave within a few years — a failure rate that is strikingly similar to the performance of NFL quarterbacks drafted in the first round — in part because evaluators focus too heavily on quantifiable metrics and not enough on a prospect's character traits, says Howard Rosenberg at Baretz+Brunelle.
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Calif. Ruling Clarifying Paystub Compliance Is Win For Cos.
In rare good news for California employers, the state Supreme Court recently clarified that workers couldn’t win extra penalties in wage and hour cases by claiming their employer intentionally violated state paystub law if the employer believed it had complied in good faith, say Drei Munar and Kirk Hornbeck at Hunton.