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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10 AGs Target Major Banks Over DEI, ESG Initiatives

By Irene Spezzamonte

Major financial institutions in the United States, including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, could have made business decisions to follow political agendas, attorneys general from 10 states said, urging them to tackle a series of questions about their diversity and inclusion policies.

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Pfizer To Pay $59M Over Unit's Migraine Drug Kickbacks

By Lauren Berg

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday that Pfizer has agreed in New York federal court to pay $59.7 million to resolve allegations that one of its subsidiaries caused false Medicare claims by paying kickbacks to physicians to induce prescriptions of migraine drug Nurtec ODT.

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Chopra Says Banks May Not Get CFPB 'Lapdog' Under Trump

By Jon Hill

As President Donald Trump faces pressure from allies to fire Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra, the agency chief on Friday accused banks of trying to fend off measures that could address Trump's concerns about so-called debanking.

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Trump Energy Order Disrupts High-Profile NEPA Cases

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

One of President Donald Trump's first energy-related executive orders is unsettling closely watched litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit regarding the executive branch's power to implement the National Environmental Policy Act.

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Brief

SEC Names New Top Enforcer, GC And Other Temp Leaders

By Jessica Corso

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's acting chair, Mark Uyeda, announced the appointment of five new department heads Friday to at least temporarily fill the vacancies left by the recent departures of several senior staff members at the agency.

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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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CFPB, NY's Updated Claims Against MoneyGram Move Ahead

By Aislinn Keely

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the New York attorney general's updated claims against payments firm MoneyGram aren't futile and can move forward despite a yearslong pause in the enforcement suit, a New York federal judge ruled Friday.

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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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SEC Gets Kraken's Major Questions Doctrine Defense Axed

By Rae Ann Varona

A California federal judge on Friday partially granted the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's bid to ax some of cryptocurrency exchange Kraken's key defenses to allegations it violated securities laws by offering crypto assets without proper registration, saying the case wasn't the type to implicate the so-called major questions doctrine defense.

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Amex GBT Faces Sept. Trial In DOJ Case Against $570M Deal

By Bryan Koenig

A New York federal judge set a September trial date Friday for the U.S. Department of Justice suit challenging American Express Global Business Travel Inc.'s planned $570 million purchase of CWT Holdings LLC, rejecting company assertions of "exigencies" necessitating a decision by June.

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EU Approves Int'l Paper's $7.2B DS Smith Deal With Fix

By Matthew Perlman

European enforcers said Friday they have approved International Paper Co.'s planned £5.8 billion ($7.2 billion) purchase of fellow packaging provider DS Smith PLC conditioned on the sale of several factories in regions where they currently overlap.

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Roundup

Real Estate Recap: Hughes Fire, EOs, Practices Of The Year

By Real Estate Authority Staff

Catch up on this past week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including more law firm displacement due to the newly ignited Hughes Fire in Los Angeles County, real estate sector speculation following a storm of executive orders, and two of Law360's picks for real estate and construction practice groups of the year.

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With DHS Flip, Remain In Mexico Suit Up In The Air

By Emilie Ruscoe

The states of Texas and Missouri and the U.S. federal government must submit joint briefing regarding what comes next for their legal dispute over the Biden-era rescission of a program requiring asylum-seekers to stay in Mexico while their immigration claims are processed, a Texas federal judge has determined a day after the program's reinstatement.

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Conn. Oil Trader Says Timing Of Money Moves Sinks Verdict

By Aaron Keller

A onetime Connecticut oil trader has asked a federal judge to erase a September 2024 conviction on charges he used a go-between to bribe an official at Brazilian oil giant Petroleo Brasileiro SA, arguing the jury verdict hinged on third-party wire transfers that occurred beyond the statute of limitations.

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DOL Ends All Contractor Bias Probes Following Trump Order

By Hailey Konnath

The U.S. Department of Labor on Friday halted all investigations and enforcement in the wake of President Donald Trump's executive order earlier this week pulling a longstanding, core legal authority used to prevent federal contractors from discriminating against workers.

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Biotech Co. Defends Antitrust Counterclaims Against Rival

By Jared Foretek

Biotech company Zymo Research Corp. is defending its claims that German diagnostic competitor Qiagen GmbH's infringement suit is nothing more than an attempt to discredit a competitor, saying Zymo offered to prove it wasn't ripping off Qiagen's tech, only to have Qiagen bury "its head in the sand" and file suit.

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Analysis

FTC Signals Unified Focus On Kids' Privacy With Rule Update

By Allison Grande

The Federal Trade Commission's recent unanimous move to strengthen longstanding online privacy protections for children demonstrated that the agency won't be easing up on enforcement in this space as a new Republican regime takes over, despite lingering questions over whether further changes or expansions may be on the horizon. 

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FTC Says Noncompete Ban Defense Is Its Job, Not Intervenor's

By Bryan Koenig

The Federal Trade Commission is urging the Fifth and Eleventh circuits not to permit an entrepreneurs group to intervene in support of the FTC's currently blocked noncompete ban in case the commission opts to abandon its defense, arguing Congress left it up to government agencies to defend their own regulations.

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Agri Stats Demands Details On DOJ's Info-Sharing Claims

By Matthew Perlman

Agri Stats has accused the U.S. Department of Justice of refusing to identify specific data fields in the company's reports that allegedly allowed chicken, pork and turkey producers to exchange competitively sensitive information, as it readies its defense in the agency's antitrust case.

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FDA's Premium Cigar Regulations Overturned By DC Circ.

By Ali Sullivan

A D.C. Circuit panel ruled on Friday that the Food and Drug Administration acted arbitrarily when subjecting premium, hand-rolled cigars to the same regulations as other tobacco products, saying the agency was wrong to overlook two studies about infrequent premium cigar use.

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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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Ford Fails To Block Evidence Of Other Crashes In Death Trial

By Mike Curley

A Georgia federal judge refused to block evidence of similar crashes from being presented at a trial over the deaths of a couple in a rollover wreck of their Ford Motor Co. vehicle, but he limited the number of incidents that the plaintiffs can present from the 110 that the plaintiffs proposed to 50.

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Feds' Madigan Theory 'Doesn't Line Up,' His Atty Tells Jury

By Celeste Bott

Counsel for former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan told an Illinois federal jury Friday that prosecutors attempting to convict him of racketeering have painted an "incomplete and misleading" picture of a crooked politician at trial, but have failed to meet their burden to prove he ever acted with corrupt intent or engaged in a "this for that" exchange for his official action.

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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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Enviros Want To Reopen Yellowstone Bison Suit

By Joyce Hanson

An environmental group has asked a Montana federal court to reopen a case over the management of Native American tribes' bison hunting on public land near Yellowstone National Park, saying new analysis is needed to determine whether the United States' national mammal can now roam free.

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Brief

Trump Admin Requests Justices Pause Three Energy Cases

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

The Trump administration on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to pause three cases so the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency can review Biden-era regulatory decisions that may alter the government's legal positions.

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Dentons Adds 2 Healthcare Attys From Katten In NY

By Tracey Read

Dentons announced that it has added two attorneys with extensive experience in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, regulatory compliance and False Claims Act defense as New York-based partners in its healthcare practice.

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End-Of-Year FCPA Enforcement Surge Holds Clues For 2025

The last three months of 2024 saw more Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions than any quarter in the previous four years, providing lessons for companies — even as a new administration raises doubts about whether this momentum will continue, say attorneys at Norton Rose.

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What's Next For Accounting Enforcement After SEC's Big 2024

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the Trump administration will likely continue to focus enforcement efforts on many of the same accounting and auditing issues that it pursued over the past year — but other areas, such as ESG, internal controls and cryptocurrency cases, may fall out of focus, say attorneys at Debevoise.

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FTC Report On AI Sector Illuminates Future Enforcement

The Federal Trade Commission's report on cloud service providers and their partnerships with developers of artificial intelligence's large language models suggests that the agency will move to rein in Big Tech with antitrust enforcement to protect startups, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

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10 Key Worker-Friendly California Employment Law Updates

New employment laws in California expand employee rights, transparency and enforcement mechanisms, and failing to educate department managers on these changes could put employers at risk, says Melanie Ronen at Stradley Ronon.

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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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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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