Commercial Contracts

  • December 17, 2024

    Supplier Wins $3.5M In Case That Shook Up Auto Contracts

    A Michigan state judge invoked both "The Godfather" and the ancient Greek king Pyrrhus of Epirus in a decision awarding a rubber manufacturing company $3.5 million, finding it was strong-armed by erroneous court orders into selling parts at a loss.

  • December 17, 2024

    Heartland Payment Settles Florida School Lunch Card Suit

    Parents from Florida and elsewhere have settled a proposed federal class action with a payment processor over alleged unfair surcharges collected after depositing lunch money onto school-sponsored reloadable cards used by their kids.

  • December 17, 2024

    Colo. Atty Accused Of Poaching Seeks State Justices' Take

    It's time for Colorado's Supreme Court to weigh whether law firms may prohibit attorneys from soliciting co-workers to depart their firm together, a lawyer accused of soliciting BigLaw firms to poach her department from a Denver personal injury firm argued Monday, asserting the case is a matter of first impression.

  • December 17, 2024

    Insurer Settles Coverage Row Over Conn. Plane Crash

    An aviation insurer seeking to avoid coverage for a 2021 crash that killed all four passengers aboard a Cessna private jet settled its suit with the owners and operators of the jet, according to a notice in Connecticut state court.

  • December 17, 2024

    Connecticut Gallery Wants To Erase Most Of 'Fake' Art Suit

    A Connecticut art gallery has asked for a judge's permission to seek summary judgment on most counts in a lawsuit alleging that it sold a fake Keith Haring chalk drawing for $165,000 after vouching for its authenticity, writing in a proposed memorandum that the plaintiff's remedies are limited to rescission of the purchase agreement and a refund.

  • December 16, 2024

    BNY Scores Exit In Mutual Fund Conflict Of Interest Suit

    A Pennsylvania federal magistrate judge on Monday granted The Bank of New York Mellon's bid to toss a proposed class action claiming that it failed to disclose conflicts of interest when funneling client assets into mutual funds and other investment vehicles that favored the bank, ruling that the claims are preempted by the Securities Litigation Uniform Standards Act.

  • December 16, 2024

    Lye Indirect Buyers Can't Certify Price Fixing Class

    A New York federal judge denied a bid for class certification from indirect buyers of lye who allege manufacturers of the chemical colluded to inflate prices, saying Monday they didn't show common questions predominate for their proposed classes or that most members suffered an injury due to the alleged cartel.

  • December 16, 2024

    Texas Bitcoin Mining Enterprise's Investors Accuse It Of Fraud

    Founders of a Texas-based bitcoin mining company are being accused of fraud by several investors in a new lawsuit claiming they attempted to conceal the sale of the company's operational facilities to a competitor, which led to the company's filing for bankruptcy earlier this year.

  • December 16, 2024

    Amazon Judge Again Doubts Late-Delivery Refund Claim

    A Washington federal judge suggested Monday an Amazon.com customer paying extra for a specific delivery time should expect their package to arrive within that time frame, but she questioned why the putative class action plaintiff never requested a refund of the shipping fees.

  • December 16, 2024

    Vegetable Co. Seeks $5M Policy Limit For Facility Fire

    A Pacific Northwest vegetable processor said its insurer owed the full $5 million limit of its policy after a fire broke out at a Washington state facility and caused over $73 million in property damage and business income losses combined, according to a complaint removed to federal court.

  • December 16, 2024

    Court Approves Mandated $115M Door Factory Sale

    A Virginia federal court has approved the planned $115 million sale of a door-skin manufacturing plant after a landmark order forced Jeld-Wen to unload the factory in a long-running private antitrust case by rival Steves & Sons Inc.

  • December 16, 2024

    Boeing Says Records Loss Should Get 737 Max Suit Tossed

    The Boeing Co. is asking a Washington federal court to throw out a suit from a defunct African airline over fallout from a 737 Max airplane deal, saying that the plaintiff airline's loss of records was intentional and warrants sanctions.

  • December 16, 2024

    Disney, Fox And Warner Bros. Can't Duck Fubo's Antitrust Suit

    A New York federal court refused dismissal bids Friday from Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery as they tried to duck an antitrust case over their sports-only streaming service, and also denied Fox's motion to sever the claims against it and transfer the venue to the Central District of California.

  • December 16, 2024

    The Biggest Patent Decisions Of 2024

    This year's notable patent decisions from the Federal Circuit provided clearer guidelines on double patenting and opened the door for new ways to invalidate design patents. Here's a look at the cases from 2024 that will shape patent litigation going forward.

  • December 16, 2024

    Ecuador Banana Co. Prez Ordered To Jail Over $6.9M Award

    A Miami federal judge issued an arrest order for the president of an Ecuadorian banana company that ignored court orders to turn over financial information at the request of Chiquita Brands International, which is trying to enforce a $6.9 million arbitration award.

  • December 16, 2024

    NJ Judge Approves Settlement In Artificial Turf MDL

    A New Jersey federal judge has granted final approval to a proposed nationwide settlement to end a multidistrict litigation brought by consumers who purchased retired artificial fields from FieldTurf USA Inc.

  • December 16, 2024

    Blindsided Developer Says $112K Legal Bill Should Be $25K

    A real estate developer fighting a $112,000 legal bill from Conrad & Scherer LLP testified in a Florida state court Monday that he hired the firm for its banking regulation expertise but not for trial work in a lawsuit over a luxury house in Colorado.

  • December 13, 2024

    OpenAI Slams Musk's 'Evidence-Free' Bid To Block For-Profit

    OpenAI urged a California federal judge Friday to reject Elon Musk's bid to block the artificial intelligence research organization from transitioning into a for-profit enterprise, scoffing at Musk's assertions of anticompetitive practices and arguing that the injunctive motion is "just another evidence-free effort to harass a competitor."

  • December 13, 2024

    NCAA, Pac-12, USC Say Reggie Bush Filed NIL Suit Too Late

    The NCAA, the University of Southern California and the Pac-12 Conference urged a Los Angeles state court to toss former USC star running back Reggie Bush's lawsuit accusing them of profiting off his fame without compensating him, saying Bush waited "far too long" to sue.

  • December 13, 2024

    Prindle Goetz Says Attys Took Trade Secrets To Rival Firm

    Prindle Goetz Barnes & Reinholtz LLP sued two former nonequity partners in California state court Thursday, accusing them of taking its confidential billing, compensation and client listing information with them in late 2022 before jumping to a rival law firm launched by a former equity owner at the law firm.

  • December 13, 2024

    US Bank Fails To Beat RMBS Suit From Commerzbank

    A New York federal judge has ruled that Commerzbank AG's suit against U.S. Bank may proceed, rejecting U.S. Bank's argument that presuit notification to certain residential mortgage-backed securities trust parties was unnecessary due to their alleged involvement in the misconduct.

  • December 13, 2024

    NHTSA Publishes Whistleblower Program Final Rule

    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration finalized its whistleblower program, which could award as much as 30% of monetary sanctions to a worker of an auto manufacturer who calls out bad behavior.

  • December 13, 2024

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

    This past week in London has seen a group of franchise operators hit Vodafone with a £120 million ($151 million) claim for allegedly imposing commission cuts, green energy tycoon Dale Vince pursue another libel action against the publisher of the Daily Mail, and parcel delivery giant Yodel face a claim by an investor that helped save it from collapse earlier in the year.

  • December 13, 2024

    ByteDance Ex-Coder Perjured Himself In Suit, Judge Finds

    A California federal judge imposed terminating sanctions against a former engineer at TikTok's parent company, finding he committed perjury in a suit alleging he was wrongly fired and ordered the dispute to arbitration.

  • December 13, 2024

    Mass. Law Wipes Out Pandemic Tuition Case Against Tufts

    Tufts University on Friday defeated a putative class action seeking tuition refunds for pandemic closures of the Boston-area school's campus, as a Massachusetts federal judge upheld a state law providing immunity to colleges that shut their doors during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Expert Analysis

  • A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates

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    Hourly rates for partners, associates and support staff continued to rise in the first half of this year, and this growth shows no signs of slowing for the rest of 2024 and into next year, driven in part by the return of mergers and acquisitions and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, says Chuck Chandler at Valeo Partners.

  • Mitigating Risks Amid 10-Year Sanctions Enforcement Window

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    In response to recent legislation, which doubles the statute of limitations for actions related to certain U.S. sanctions and provides regulators greater opportunity to investigate possible violations, companies should take specific steps to account for the increased civil and criminal enforcement risk, say attorneys at Freshfields.

  • Opinion

    States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions

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    Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.

  • Keys To Strong Parking, Storage Contracts For NYC Buildings

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    Drafting and enforcing unambiguous parking and storage unit license agreements are essential tasks for co-op and condo boards in New York City, with recent cases highlighting how prudent terms can minimize potential headaches, say Matthew Eiben and Adam Lindenbaum at Rosenberg & Estis.

  • Series

    Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.

  • Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice

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    The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.

  • In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State

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    On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.

  • Series

    After Chevron: FTC's 'Unfair Competition' Actions In Jeopardy

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    While the U.S. Supreme Court's decision ending Chevron deference will have limited effect on the Federal Trade Commission's merger guidelines, administrative enforcement actions and commission decisions on appeal, it could restrict the agency's expansive take on its rulemaking authority and threaten the noncompete ban, say attorneys at Baker Botts.

  • Expect The Unexpected: Contracts For Underground Projects

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    Recent challenges encountered by the Mountain Valley Pipeline project underscore the importance of drafting contracts for underground construction to account for unexpected site conditions, associated risks and compliance with applicable laws, say Jill Jaffe and Brenda Lin at Nossaman.

  • How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts

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    As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.

  • Series

    Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.

  • Anticipating Disputes In Small Biz Partnerships And LLCs

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    In light of persistently high failures of small business partnerships and limited liability companies, mediator Frank Burke discusses proactive strategies for protecting and defining business rights and responsibilities, as well as reactive measures for owners.

  • Opinion

    Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper decision will shape the contours of industry self-regulation in the years to come, providing opportunities for this often-misunderstood practice, says Eric Reicin at BBB National Programs.

  • 3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court clearly thinks it has done something big in overturning the Chevron precedent that had given deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, but regulated parties have to consider how agencies retain significant power to shape the law and its meaning, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • After Chevron

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    Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Chevron deference standard in June, this Expert Analysis series has featured attorneys discussing the potential impact across 37 different rulemaking and litigation areas.

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