Analysis

Supreme Court Signals Skepticism On Staying Federal Rules

By Keith Goldberg

A recent string of refusals to block major Biden administration energy and climate change rules suggests that the U.S. Supreme Court is setting limits on its willingness to elbow aside lower courts that are considering challenges to such rules, legal experts say.

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DOL, Red States Spar Over Loper Bright Impact On ESG Rule

By Sarah Jarvis

Conservative-led states suing the U.S. Department of Labor have told a Texas federal court that the end of the Chevron doctrine boosts their bid to end a rule allowing retirement plan advisers to consider environmental, social and governance factors in investment choices, while the DOL argued that it deserves another summary judgment win.

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FTC Admits Federal Court Merger Fights Are Usually Decisive

By Bryan Koenig

Federal Trade Commission complaint counsel has admitted a reality that the agency has long resisted: While federal court preliminary injunction fights are ostensibly meant only to pause a merger while a merits case plays out through an in-house court, the federal court case usually decides the transaction's fate.

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CEO Fled Deadly Hurricane But Made Workers Stay, Suit Says

By Lauren Berg

The CEO of a Tennessee plastics company chose profits over lives when he snuck out the back door while refusing to send factory workers home, as floodwaters began sweeping through the area after Hurricane Helene made landfall, leading to the deaths of six employees, according to a wrongful death lawsuit.

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CFPB Sues Vocational School Lender Climb Credit, VC Backer

By Jon Hill

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday sued an online private student lender and its venture capital backer in New York federal court, alleging borrowers have been duped into taking out loans for coding school and other vocational programs with false claims about their educational "return-on-investment."

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Trump Media Investors Get Prison For Insider Trading

By Stewart Bishop

A New York federal judge on Thursday sentenced a Florida venture capitalist to over two years in prison for insider trading on confidential plans to take the media company behind former President Donald Trump's Truth Social network public, a scheme that netted the investor and his brother nearly $23 million.

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CFTC Says Court 'Erred At Every Turn' In Election Betting Suit

By Aislinn Keely

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission told the D.C. Circuit that the district court "erred at every turn" when it allowed trading platform KalshiEx LLC to offer event contracts based on the outcome of U.S. elections.

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SEC Fines Broker-Dealer PHX, Sues Rep Over Reg BI Claims

By Emilie Ruscoe

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has fined broker-dealer PHX Financial Inc. and sued one of its registered representatives over claims that the representative improperly advised a handful of retail clients to engage in a trading strategy that caused them massive losses but generated significant fees and commissions for the firm and the representative.

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FTX Insider Cites 'Limited' Fraud Role In Bid To Avoid Prison

By Elliot Weld

The former head of engineering at FTX asked a Manhattan federal judge to spare him prison time in light of his cooperation with prosecutors and what he said was a relatively "limited" role in the crypto exchange's billion-dollar fraud.

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Treasury Unit Says Booze Maker Violated N. Korea Sanctions

By Sydney Price

The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said Thursday that it has reached an $860,000 settlement with a Vietnam-based alcoholic beverage company over its alleged role in allowing U.S. financial institutions to process $1.1 million in payments to North Korea, violating sanctions regulations.

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Ex-Worker Says She Was Fired For Threatening EEOC Charge

By Kelcey Caulder

A logistics company was sued Wednesday in federal court by a former Georgia employee who alleges she was sexually harassed and mistreated by "aggressive and threatening" male co-workers and then fired after warning the company she would file a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission if things didn't improve.

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DC Circ. Scrutinizes New TSA Worker Screening Rule

By Jared Foretek

D.C. Circuit judges on Thursday sought an explanation from municipal airport operators challenging new federal screening rules as a costly burden that saddles them with unconstitutional liabilities, questioning them on how the new rules differ from other requirements for airports.

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Brothers Get Prison For Ga. Concrete Bid-Rigging Scheme

By Tom Lotshaw

A Georgia federal judge on Thursday sentenced brothers Gregory Hall Melton and John David Melton to serve time in prison for their roles in a scheme to fix prices and rig bids for the ready-mix concrete market in the greater Savannah area.

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DOJ Defends States' Right To Recoup Live Nation Overcharges

By Matthew Perlman

The federal government and 40 states are urging a New York federal court not to trim their antitrust case against Live Nation, arguing that states have the right to go after overcharges customers allegedly paid for concert tickets and also defending a tying claim based on venues and promotion services.

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Pa. AG Can't Get State Claims Restored In FTC Amazon Suit

By Matthew Santoni

A federal judge tersely denied a request from Pennsylvania's attorney general, who had sought to reinstate her state's consumer protection claims against Amazon in the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust suit.

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Consumer Groups Back DOT In Airline Fees Rule Fight

By Linda Chiem

Consumer advocates have told the Fifth Circuit that a U.S. Department of Transportation rule requiring airlines to more clearly disclose add-on fees upfront would curtail the industry's trickery in airfare marketing, foster competition and save individual travelers frustration, time and money.

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Brief

FCC OKs New Rules Mandating Georouting For 988 Calls

By Nadia Dreid

Calls that come into the 988 suicide and crisis hotline will now be routed to centers based on where the call is coming from, following the Federal Communications Commission's decision to adopt rules requiring georouting on Thursday.

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States, Industry Urge DC Circ. To Scrap Truck GHG Rule

By Tom Lotshaw

Dozens of states and industry groups are imploring the D.C. Circuit to pull the plug on a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency rule setting greenhouse gas emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles, arguing it mandates a transition to electric vehicles that the agency has no authority to push.

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EPA Settles With Car, Parts Cos. Over Clean Air Act Violations

By Mike Curley

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that it has finalized settlements with Shyft Group Inc. and Double R Diesel to resolve enforcement actions alleging they violated the Clean Air Act, with Shyft agreeing to pay a $2 million penalty.

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Brief

Groups Challenge Utah Permit For Green River Lithium Project

By Tom Lotshaw

Conservation groups hit the Utah state engineer and an Anson Resources subsidiary with a suit challenging a water permit issued last month for a lithium extraction project along the Green River, the Colorado River's largest tributary.

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Compliance Pointers For Amended Pa. Data Breach Law

Recent updates to the Pennsylvania Breach of Personal Information Notification Act include a requirement that organizations alert the state's attorney general of certain consumer data breach notifications, and several incident response and cybersecurity considerations will be necessary to ensure compliance, say Matthew Meade and Laura Decker at Eckert Seamans.

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Navigating FEMA Grant Program For Slope Fixes After Storms

In the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, it is critical for governments, businesses and individuals to understand the legal requirements of the Federal Emergency Management Agency's grant programs to obtain funding for crucial repairs — including restoration of damaged infrastructure caused by landslides and slope failures, says Charles Schexnaildre at Baker Donelson.

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Ga. Fintech Bank Charter Could Reshape Payments Industry

Georgia’s recent granting of a special banking charter to transaction processor Fiserv, allowing the fintech company to access major card payment networks without a traditional bank as intermediary, could spark a restructuring of the national payments infrastructure and open new possibilities for businesses and consumers, says Jessica Cino at Krevolin & Horst.

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Opinion

FDIC's Foray Into Index Fund Rules Risks Regulatory Chaos

A proposed Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. rule concerning control over passive index fund investments in banks is outside the agency's remit, clashes with an existing Federal Reserve process and would inhibit competition in the index fund sector, says J.W. Verret at George Mason University.

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Smith's New Trump Indictment Is Case Study In Superseding

Special counsel Jack Smith’s recently revised Jan. 6 charges against former President Donald Trump provide lessons for prosecutors on how to effectively draft superseding indictments in order to buttress or streamline their case, as necessary, says Jessica Roth at Cardozo Law School.

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How Project 2025 Could Upend Federal ESG Policies

If implemented, Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's policy playbook for a Republican presidential administration, would likely seek to deploy antitrust law to target ESG initiatives, limit pension fund managers' focus to pecuniary factors and spell doom for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate rule, say attorneys at Mintz.

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Opinion

Rental Price-Fixing Suit Against RealPage Doesn't Add Up

Recent government antitrust litigation against RealPage, alleging that the software company's algorithm for setting rental prices amounts to price-fixing, has failed to allege an actual conspiracy, and is an example of regulatory overreach that should be reined in, says Andrew Ketterer at Ketterer & Ketterer.

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Use The Right Kind Of Feedback To Help Gen Z Attorneys

Generation Z associates bring unique perspectives and expectations to the workplace, so it’s imperative that supervising attorneys adapt their feedback approach in order to help young lawyers learn and grow — which is good for law firms, too, says Rachael Bosch at Fringe Professional Development.

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High Court Bar's Future: Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar

By Katie Buehler

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar is a once-in-a-generation talent who uses her seemingly endless knowledge of case facts and related law — along with her quick wit — to routinely spar with an often antithetical U.S. Supreme Court over some of the most consequential issues in a given term, experts and court watchers say.

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Jan. 6 Witness Said Trump Speech May Have Been 'Political'

By Cara Salvatore

Donald Trump's speech at a rally before the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol may have been "political" rather than in his official capacity as president, witness testimony unsealed Friday in his D.C. election interference case said.

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Feds Defend Bribery Charge Against NYC Mayor Adams

By Frank G. Runyeon

Federal prosecutors pushed back Friday on New York City Mayor Eric Adams' attempt to erase a bribery charge from his indictment, arguing that while Adams claims his acts were "routine" and allowed under a recent U.S. Supreme Court precedent, a jury could still find his alleged favor trading illegal.

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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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Ted Kennedy Jr. On Disability Inclusion In The Legal Industry

By Tracey Read

Ted Kennedy Jr., a healthcare regulatory attorney at Epstein Becker Green and a pediatric bone cancer survivor who has an amputation, has made it his life’s work to advocate for people with disabilities. Here, Kennedy talks with Law360 Pulse about why legal employers should be more inclusive.

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

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen Professor Cat Jarman, Earl Spencer's new girlfriend, sue his ex-wife, Bitcoin fraudster Craig Wright file a £911 billion ($1.18 trillion) claim against BTC Core, journalist Oliver Kamm hit novelist Ros Barber with a defamation claim, and a barrister at Cloisters face a claim from a former client. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Aebra Coe

Fenwick & West LLP and the Dacus Firm PC kick off this week's list of Law360 legal lions with a winning jury verdict for Amazon finding the e-commerce giant didn't infringe certain claims in a trio of wireless network patents.

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AG Taps DOJ Veteran To Lead Executive Office Of US Attys

By Lynn LaRowe

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland has chosen a longtime government lawyer to serve as director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, which serves as liaison between the U.S. Department of Justice and the country's 93 U.S. attorneys.

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Skadden Closing In Shanghai, 'Rescaling' Corporate Practice

By Tracey Read

Sixteen years after opening in China's largest city, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP will close its Shanghai office, the firm said Friday.

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LinkSquares Sued For Denying OT To Legal Tech Sales Reps

By Matt Perez

A former sales employee has filed an overtime class action alleging his former employer, Boston-based legal tech company LinkSquares Inc., misclassified inside sales staff as exempt from overtime pay in violation of federal and state wage laws.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

General counsel have 180 days to get their online companies to comply with a new federal law that says customers must be able to simply click to cancel their subscriptions. And a federal judge in Florida, citing the First Amendment, has told the state to stop threatening broadcast stations over running an abortion rights ad — threats that led the state's Department of Health general counsel to resign. 

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LA County DA Defends Progressive Policies In Reelection Bid

By Rachel Scharf

George Gascón, the progressive Los Angeles County district attorney who's survived two recall efforts during his first term as top prosecutor, is standing by his reformist policies, which aim to curb mass incarceration and police misconduct, as he fights to keep his seat in November.

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It's Not Too Late For Attys To Help Safeguard Election

By Cara Bayles

With the presidential election mere weeks away, a small army of lawyers will deploy throughout the country in a nonpartisan effort to ensure the process is fair, smooth and safe.

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Paramount-Skydance Merger Triggers Class Atty Fight In Del.

By Jeff Montgomery

A five-firm stockholder attorney team investigating the proposed $7 billion Paramount Global-Skydance Media LLC merger has urged Delaware's Court of Chancery to put the brakes on another firm's motion for co-lead plaintiff appointment for a deal challenge, arguing that the move would reward a rush to the courthouse.

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