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Public Policy
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August 20, 2024
Split SEC Adopts PCAOB Rules On Auditor Liability
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved Tuesday to hold accountants to a higher standard when auditing public companies, which the majority said provided a necessary and long-awaited update to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's rules while detractors argued it could dissuade people from working in the industry.
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August 20, 2024
Power Plant Rule Stay Is Unwarranted, EPA Tells Justices
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar called on the U.S. Supreme Court to reject industry groups' and Republican-led states' attempts to block the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's rule curbing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, saying the agency did not exceed its statutory authority.
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August 20, 2024
Local Chamber Can't Keep CFPB Case In Texas, Agency Says
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau told a Texas federal judge that the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce has, at most, a flimsy connection to a challenge to a new $8 credit card late fee rule, renewing its call to dismiss the local chamber and transfer the case in its latest brief.
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August 20, 2024
Feds Can't Delay Justice In Reservation Shooting, Family Says
The family of a Tohono O'odham Nation man who was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents says the federal government's efforts to quell requests for those officers' names is a move to delay justice, arguing that without early discovery the court could find them unaccountable for the incident.
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August 20, 2024
DOD Tells DC Circ. It Can Set Criteria For Soldier Citizenship
The U.S. Department of Defense is urging the D.C. Circuit to reverse a district court injunction permanently blocking the agency from setting service duration requirements for noncitizen soldiers to become citizens, saying Congress authorized it to do so.
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August 20, 2024
Cannabis Entrepreneur Can't Sue County Over Seized Property
A Puget Sound-area cannabis entrepreneur cannot pursue claims that local law enforcement damaged company property seized during an arrest on felony charges that were ultimately dropped, a Seattle federal judge has ruled, saying the businessman signed away his right to litigation.
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August 20, 2024
FCC Can't Subsidize Off-Campus Wi-Fi, Think Tank Argues
A free-market group criticized the Federal Communications Commission's new program to subsidize Wi-Fi service for schools and libraries, saying it is not just a dubious policy choice but breaks with the statutory limits that Congress set for the E-Rate program.
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August 20, 2024
At Nutter, Old Guard Meets New In Expanded Gov't Practice
Twenty-five years after they first met at Boston's Suffolk University Law School as professor and student, Bill Kennedy and Dan Mulhern are teaming up to lead an expanded government affairs and public policy practice at Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP.
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August 20, 2024
EPA Finalizes Herbicide Strategy To Protect Listed Species
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday released a final strategy to protect nearly 1,000 threatened and endangered species and crucial habitat from herbicides, outlining measures to reduce their exposures to the chemicals.
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August 20, 2024
FTC Endorses Push For Broader Access To Biosimilar Drugs
The Federal Trade Commission is backing a proposal that would make it easier for drugmakers to show biosimilar medicines are safe substitutes for their more expensive counterparts, a move the agency says would boost competition and reduce confusion.
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August 20, 2024
Pathology Trade Group 2nd To Sue FDA Over Lab-Test Rule
A molecular pathology trade group has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, challenging a recent final rule to regulate laboratory-developed tests as medical devices and arguing the agency has abused its power — the second such case filed in recent months.
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August 20, 2024
States, Coal Cos. Seek High Court Block Of EPA Mercury Rule
A group of red states and coal companies have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the D.C. Circuit's decision allowing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to implement a mercury air pollution rule while their legal challenges play out.
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August 20, 2024
Honigman Boosts Regulatory Team In DC With Ex-NHTSA Atty
Honigman LLP announced that a former senior attorney with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has joined the firm as senior counsel in Washington, D.C.
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August 20, 2024
'Full Steam Ahead' For Pandemic IG Despite Sunset Fear
A pandemic watchdog office is poised to shutter in seven months — its pleas for an extension have gone unheeded. But in the meantime, its remaining employees, some working away in their nondescript Alexandria, Virginia, office, others from their homes, are hustling to recover millions of dollars from COVID-19 fraudsters.
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August 20, 2024
Mass. AG Can't Enforce Housing Act, State's Top Court Told
Massachusetts' attorney general lacks the authority to force compliance with a law requiring communities to create multifamily housing zoning districts because lawmakers have already included the loss of some types of state aid as a penalty, but no other enforcement powers, lawyers for the town of Milton have told the state's highest court.
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August 20, 2024
A Deep Dive Into Law360 Pulse's 2024 Women In Law Report
The legal industry continues to see incremental gains for female lawyers in private practice in the U.S., according to a Law360 Pulse analysis, with women now representing 40.6% of all attorneys and 51% of all associates.
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August 20, 2024
These Firms Have The Most Women In Equity Partnerships
The legal industry still has a long way to go before it can achieve gender parity at its upper levels. But these law firms are performing better than others in breaking the proverbial glass ceiling that prevents women from attaining leadership roles.
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August 20, 2024
Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court
A nearly record-breaking attorney fee got the nod in Delaware last week, along with Chancery Court settlements involving an international private jet service and a chain of trampoline parks. New disputes involved a famous burger restaurant chain, a computer-chip maker, a now-defunct genomic science company, and a historic manor house in west London.
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August 20, 2024
Mich. County Will Pause Court Closures Opposed By Judges
A Michigan county has agreed to pause plans to consolidate seven court locations into one courthouse in Flint and get judges' buy-in on the future of the court facilities, resolving a lawsuit filed by the judges.
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August 20, 2024
Menendez, Co-Defendants Seek Acquittal After Guilty Verdicts
Convicted U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and two of his co-defendants want their guilty verdicts thrown out, telling a New York federal judge the government failed to offer any evidence of how the senator used his office's power to benefit any of the alleged bribe givers.
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August 20, 2024
EU OKs CMS-Led Aareal Bank To Sell Unit To TPG For €3.9B
The European Union approved on Tuesday the sale for approximately €3.9 billion ($4.3 billion) by German lender Aareal Bank AG and investment company Advent International of a property management and maintenance software company to U.S. private equity firm TPG and Canada's CDPQ.
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August 19, 2024
TPG Dumped Opioid Co. On 'Unsuspecting' Endo, Suit Says
After pushing Par Pharmaceutical to grow its market share in generic opioids and disregard federal requirements to report suspicious orders, TPG Capital saw other opioid manufacturers being inundated with litigation and sold Par to "an unsuspecting" Endo International PLC, according to a lawsuit filed in New York bankruptcy court.
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August 19, 2024
Parents Not Bound By Schools' Arbitration Pact, FTC Argues
The Federal Trade Commission has stepped into a proposed class action accusing education technology company IXL Learning of unlawfully collecting and selling children's personal information, telling a California federal court that the company's agreement with schools to arbitrate disputes doesn't extend to the parents pressing the data privacy suit.
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August 19, 2024
Ariz. Sheriff Can't Ax Racial Profiling Injunction, 9th Circ. Says
The Ninth Circuit on Monday kept in place a permanent injunction in a class action alleging the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office in Arizona racially profiled Latinos for traffic stops under the guise of immigration enforcement, saying the district court was within its powers to assign an independent monitor.
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August 19, 2024
Kroger Flips Script, Challenges FTC's Constitutionality
Kroger went on the offensive Monday, a week before Oregon federal court proceedings kick off in the Federal Trade Commission's challenge to its purchase of Albertsons, in a lawsuit going after the constitutionality of the agency's in-house court, also set to contest the merger.
Expert Analysis
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Reading Between The Lines Of Justices' Moore Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent Moore v. U.S. decision, that the Internal Revenue Code Section 965 did not violate the 16th Amendment, was narrowly tailored to minimally disrupt existing tax regimes, but the justices' various opinions leave the door open to future tax challenges and provide clues for what the battles may look like, say Caroline Ngo and Le Chen at McDermott.
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Series
After Chevron: A Sea Change For Maritime Sector
The shipping industry has often looked to the courts for key agency decisions affecting maritime interests, but after the U.S. Supreme Court's Loper Bright ruling, stakeholders may revisit important industry questions and coordinate to bring appropriate challenges and shape rulemaking, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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Opinion
Post-Chevron, Good Riddance To The Sentencing Guidelines
The U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of the Chevron doctrine may signal the end of the U.S. sentencing guidelines, which is good news given that they have accomplished the opposite of Congress’ original intent to bring certainty, proportionality and uniformity to sentencing, say attorneys Mark Allenbaugh, Doug Passon and Alan Ellis.
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Opinion
Proposed Terminal Disclaimers Rule Harms Colleges, Startups
Universities and startups are ill-suited to follow the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s recently proposed rule on terminal disclaimers due to their necessity of filing patent applications early prior to contacting outside entities for funds and resources, say attorneys at Sterne Kessler.
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Series
After Chevron: Impact On CFPB May Be Limited
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo is likely to have a limited impact on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's regulatory activities, and for those who value due process, consistency and predictability in consumer financial services regulation, this may be a good thing, says John Coleman at Orrick.
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A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates
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.
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Series
After Chevron: 7 FERC Takeaways From Loper Bright
Following the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of the Chevron doctrine, it's likely that the majority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's orders will not be affected, but the commission has nonetheless lost an important fallback argument and will have to approach rulemaking more cautiously, says Norman Bay at Willkie Farr.
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Opinion
Discount Window Reform Needed To Curb Modern Bank Runs
We learned during the spring 2023 failures that bank runs can happen extraordinarily fast in light of modern technology, especially when banks have a greater concentration of large deposits, demonstrating that the antiquated but effective discount window needs to be overhauled before the next crisis, says Cris Cicala at Stinson.
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Opinion
Cell Tech Patent Holdup Is Stalling Automaker Innovation
Courts and Congress should seek to stem anticompetitive harm caused by standard-essential patent holders squeezing automakers with unfairly high royalties for cellular connectivity technology, says Charles Haake at Alliance for Automotive Innovation.
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Series
After Chevron: USDA Rules May Be Up In The Air
The Supreme Court's end of Chevron deference may cause more lawsuits against U.S. Department of Agriculture regulations, like the one redefining "unfair trade practices" under the Packers and Stockyards Act, or a new policy classifying salmonella as an adulterant in certain poultry products, says Bob Hibbert at Wiley.
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Mitigating Risks Amid 10-Year Sanctions Enforcement Window
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.
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Series
After Chevron: Creating New Hurdles For ESG Rulemaking
The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision, limiting court deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, could have significant impacts on the future of ESG regulation, creating new hurdles for agency rulemaking around these emerging issues, and calling into question current administrative actions, says Leah Malone at Simpson Thacher.
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A Timeline Of Antisemitism Legislation And What It Means
What began as hearings in the House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce has expanded to a House-wide effort to combat antisemitism and related issues, with wide-ranging implications for education, finance and nonprofit entities, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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California Adds A Novel Twist To State Suits Against Big Oil
California’s suit against Exxon Mobil Corp., one of several state suits that seek to hold oil and gas companies accountable for climate-related harms, is unique both in the magnitude of the alleged claims and its use of a consumer protection statute to seek disgorgement of industry profits, says Julia Stein at UCLA School of Law.
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Criminal Enforcement Considerations For Gov't Contractors
Government contractors increasingly exposed to criminal liability risks should establish programs that enable detection and remediation of employee misconduct, consider voluntary disclosure, and be aware of the potentially disastrous consequences of failing to make a mandatory disclosure where the government concludes it was required, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.