Chancery Keeps $4.6B Cvent Sale Challenge Alive

By Jeff Montgomery

Most claims moved forward toward trial Friday in a Delaware Court of Chancery suit alleging breaches of fiduciary duty by the directors and CEO of cloud-based event management technology provider Cvent Holding Corp. and its controlling stockholder in a $4.6 billion take-private sale to affiliates of Blackstone Inc.

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Ill. Judge OKs $35M More In College Aid-Fixing Settlements

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois federal judge flagged a communication he considered a potential first Friday as he swiftly approved another $35 million in financial aid-fixing settlements that allow two more schools to exit an antitrust suit claiming they conspired with other elite universities to limit their offerings.

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Ill. Justices Say Performance Bonuses Count In OT Math

By Irene Spezzamonte

Two workers will have another shot at arguing an electric company failed to pay the proper amount of overtime because state law doesn't exclude performance bonuses from overtime math, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled Friday.

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Syngenta, Chevron Headed For October Paraquat Bellwether

By Cara Salvatore

An Illinois federal judge has set an October date for Syngenta and Chevron's first trial in a multidistrict litigation alleging that the pesticide paraquat causes Parkinson's disease, after the previous dismissal of trial-selected plaintiffs and the disqualification of an expert.

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Justices To Clarify Article III Standing For Certified Classes

By Dorothy Atkins

The U.S. Supreme Court granted LabCorp's request on Friday to clarify federal law regarding whether district courts can certify class actions when some members of the proposed class may lack a cognizable injury in fact.

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Lutnick Settles Chancery Suit Ahead Of Commerce Hearing

By Jeff Montgomery

Billionaire Howard L. Lutnick, President Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of commerce, has settled a Delaware Court of Chancery derivative suit accusing the Newmark Inc. principal executive officer of "blowing smoke" around his part in a $500 million stock-value gain in order to receive a $50 million bonus.

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Wells Fargo Gets Another Win In Lifetrade Investor Suit

By Sydney Price

A New York federal judge determined that investors of Lifetrade Fund BV cannot prove Wells Fargo aided or abetted an alleged massive fraud orchestrated by Lifetrade's managers, saying the investors presented only contradictory information regarding the value of the Lifetrade portfolio.

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Musk Can't Yet Appeal Twitter Investors' Cert., 9th Circ. Says

By Lauren Berg

The Ninth Circuit on Friday rebuffed Elon Musk's request to immediately appeal a California federal judge's decision to certify a class of thousands of Twitter investors over claims the billionaire businessman fraudulently tweeted about the social media company's alleged bot problem to get out of his $44 billion acquisition.

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J&J Escapes Part Of Worker's Drug Benefits Suit, For Now

By Grace Elletson

A suit alleging Johnson & Johnson overcharged employees through a prescription drug benefits program was partially tossed Friday, with a New Jersey federal judge ruling the suing worker failed to show the court could provide any remedies on her claims that plan members overpaid for medicine.

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Fifth Third, United Accused Of Using Prepaid Cards For Wages

By Irene Spezzamonte

Fifth Third Bank and a slew of other companies, including United Airlines, compensated employees through prepaid cards that required workers to pay fees to get their wages, a worker said in a proposed class action filed in California state court.

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Circle K Fails To Pay For Travel Costs, Manager Says

By Emmy Freedman

Convenience store chain Circle K requires store managers to make trips to other locations to pick up out-of-stock items but doesn't reimburse them for the costs associated with this travel, a proposed class action filed in Illinois state court said.

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Campbell's Unit Accused Of Failing To Pay For Off-Clock Work

By Emmy Freedman

A Campbell's subsidiary fails to compensate hourly paid packing employees for the several minutes they spend each day performing certain tasks before and after their shifts, a proposed collective action filed in North Carolina federal court said.

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Employer Groups Back Tossing Pension Annuity Suit In NY

By Kellie Mejdrich

Three employer trade groups are backing Bristol-Myers Squibb and investment manager State Street as they fight claims brought by retirees of the pharmaceutical giant that the companies violated federal benefits law by converting workers' pension benefits into annuity insurance contracts.

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Brief

Delivery Co. Flouted FLSA, Amazon Driver Claims

By Rachel Riley

An independent freight carrier that allegedly contracts with Amazon has been hit with a proposed class action in New York federal court claiming its delivery drivers are deprived of meal breaks, overtime pay and other wages.

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Patient Can't Sue Over Clinic's 'Data Incident,' Ill. Justices Say

By Lauraann Wood

A medical clinic patient who received a letter stating a "data incident" may have compromised her personal information but appeared not to have led to the information's misuse does not have standing to pursue proposed class claims for damages, the Illinois Supreme Court said Friday.

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Capital One Named In Action Over Early-Year Service Outage

By Emilie Ruscoe

Capital One has been hit with a proposed class action in Virginia federal court focused on a January service disruption that allegedly left consumers locked out of its systems.

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Deel Blasts Racketeering Suit Over Alleged Money Laundering

By Gina Kim

Deel Inc. asked a Florida federal judge to permanently end a putative class action alleging it enabled money laundering and facilitated illegal transfers for Surge Capital, which allegedly scammed investors out of $35 million, arguing the plaintiff is trying to pursue liability of "an innocent party for the wrongdoing of another."

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Ga. Judge Gives Tentative OK To $1M PFAS Deal

By Chart Riggall

A federal judge gave preliminary approval to a $1 million settlement in a sprawling class action over forever chemicals allegedly released from a north Georgia textile plant, potentially ending the involvement of one of the half-dozen chemical companies in the suit.

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US Steel Will Pay $6.1M To End Suit Over Pa. Plant's Dust

By Matthew Santoni

U.S. Steel will invest $4.6 million in efforts to reduce dust pollution from its Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock, Pennsylvania, and will pay another $1.5 million to be split among residents of six neighboring communities, under a class action settlement that a state judge gave his preliminary approval.

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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: Nov. And Dec. Lessons

In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses five federal court decisions and identifies practice tips from cases involving takings clause violations, breach of contract with banks, life insurance policies, employment and automobile defects.

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Mentorship Resolutions For The New Year

Attorneys tend to focus on personal achievements or career milestones when they set yearly goals, but one important area often gets overlooked in this process — mentoring relationships, which are some of the most effective tools for professional growth, say Kelly Galligan at Rutan & Tucker and Andra Greene at Phillips ADR.

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Analysis

Companies Risk White House Wrath By Keeping DEI Programs

By Sarah Jarvis

For companies pushing forward with their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives amid a torrent of attacks from President Donald Trump and his allies, there are myriad potential risks ahead — and murky questions about the legal parameters of Trump's anti-DEI agenda.

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Law Students Scramble As Federal Gov't Yanks Job Offers

By Alison Knezevich

Law students across the country are scrambling to figure out their next steps after a range of federal agencies yanked job and internship offers this week because of the new hiring freeze imposed by the Trump administration.

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Mass Tort Atty Files Ch. 11 Owing $202M To Litigation Funders

By Hilary Russ

A Houston plaintiffs attorney has filed for personal Chapter 11 protection with more than $202 million of litigation funding liabilities, according to his petition in the Southern District of Texas.

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Feud Heats Up Over Estate Of Wife Killed By Ex-BigLaw Atty

By Emily Johnson

The godson of a Georgia woman killed by her husband, former Fisher Phillips partner Claud "Tex" McIver, has said her cousins shouldn't get proceeds from a settlement of an underlying wrongful death suit, calling them "strangers" to her and claiming "the redistributive windfall" they're asking for "has no place in Georgia law."

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Boston Firm Says IT Vendor Holding Computers 'Hostage'

By Julie Manganis

Boston-based law firm Melick & Porter LLP says a company it hired to manage its information technology is now holding its computer network and data "hostage" by refusing to cooperate with the transition to a new vendor unless Melick pays it $380,000.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Phillips Black Inc., Ridley McGreevy & Winocur PC and King & Spalding LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court revived claims from a woman on death row in Oklahoma that prosecutors unfairly sex-shamed her and relied on gender-based stereotypes to convince a jury that she had killed her estranged husband for insurance money.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

A new Law360 Pulse survey shows that more than 90% of in-house counsel have no regrets about their decisions to join companies. In litigation stemming from Purdue Pharma's sales of OxyContin that fueled the opioid crisis, the Sackler family would lose control of Purdue and pay $6.5 billion in the latest proposed settlement. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen Axa Insurance and Admiral face a claim from a former lawyer recently exposed for personal injury fraud, the owner of Reading Football Club sue a prospective buyer and mobile network Lycamobile tackle action by Spanish network Yogio. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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