Public Policy

  • June 25, 2024

    Judge Says Sales Discount Doesn't Justify Redoing Steel Duty

    The U.S. Court of International Trade refused to force the U.S. Department of Commerce to raise antidumping duties on Australian hot-rolled steel to account for a discount that an Australian producer offered its importer, saying the importer paid the duty when it took the steel from the producer.

  • June 25, 2024

    No Need To Ship Net Neutrality Appeals To DC, 6th Circ. Told

    The Sixth Circuit should stand up to the "concerted effort" to push administrative law matters out of other appellate courts and into the D.C. Circuit by refusing to transfer a bundled set of challenges to the FCC's new net neutrality rules, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has said.

  • June 25, 2024

    Indiana U Settles Ricin-Carrying Fruit Fly Export Violations

    Indiana University has escaped fines, but it must instead educate the broader academic community at large on export controls under a settlement with the U.S. Department of Commerce after the institution sent unlicensed shipments overseas, of fruit flies carrying a subunit of ricin.

  • June 25, 2024

    FCC Says Anti-Redlining Rule 'Dutifully' Carries Out Law

    The Federal Communications Commission has urged the Eighth Circuit to toss multiple industry challenges to its rules against discrimination in broadband deployment, saying its use of a wide-reaching standard for prohibited bias fits the law's requirements.

  • June 25, 2024

    Dems Seek 'Honest Evaluation' Of New ICBM Program

    Thirteen Democrats, including the co-chairs of the Congressional Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, are calling for an "honest evaluation" of the U.S. Air Force's new intercontinental ballistic missile program due to cost overruns.

  • June 25, 2024

    $3M Broker Commission Deal Stayed To Await NAR Settlement

    A Massachusetts federal court will not consider a $3 million settlement reached between home sellers and a multiple listing service over broker commission rules until after a decision on a much larger settlement in the separate sprawling case against the National Association of Realtors.

  • June 25, 2024

    NC Development Bill Violates UN Declaration, Tribe Says

    A North Carolina tribe is fighting state legislation that it says does not assure protections over one of the most significant archaeological Native American discoveries in recent years, arguing its language violates international law and centuries-old treaties.

  • June 25, 2024

    Russian Ferrosilicon Gets Preliminary Duties Topping 748%

    The U.S. Department of Commerce handed down preliminary duties of 283.27% and 748.58% in its anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigations, respectively, into Russian producers of ferrosilicon, a key input in steelmaking.

  • June 25, 2024

    Ariz. Lawmakers Say State Has No Interest In Monument Fight

    The Arizona State Legislature says Gov. Katie Hobbs and Attorney General Kris Mayes can't show that they have an interest in lawsuits against President Joe Biden's proclamation designating an Indigenous site in the Grand Canyon region a national monument and they shouldn't be allowed to intervene in the litigation.

  • June 25, 2024

    Medical Marijuana Bill Sent To NC House After Senate Sign-Off

    The North Carolina Senate has approved a bill that would legalize medical marijuana statewide as part of larger legislation boosting hemp regulations and outlawing the use of three other drugs in the Tar Heel state.

  • June 25, 2024

    Texas' Challenge To Biden Admin. Asylum Rule Survives

    A Texas federal judge ruled Tuesday that he got it right when he declined the federal government's attempt to end the state's suit challenging a Biden administration rule that broadens immigration officers' power over the asylum system, saying Texas did enough to withstand a motion to dismiss.

  • June 25, 2024

    Trump Atty Argues Feds Lied To Get Mar-A-Lago Warrant

    An attorney representing Donald Trump in his criminal case over retaining classified documents after leaving the White House urged a Florida federal judge Tuesday to toss evidence seized during the raid on Mar-a-Lago, arguing the government put false information on the warrant application to search the former president's estate.

  • June 25, 2024

    DC Council OKs Tax Hikes On High-End Property, Payroll

    Washington, D.C., would impose a special tax rate on high-end residential properties, boost the premium for the district's paid leave program and make other tax and spending changes under legislation passed Tuesday by the district council.

  • June 25, 2024

    Pot Cos. Push Back On Calif. City's Bid To Toss $5.4M Fee Suit

    Six cannabis companies are fighting the California city of Cudahy's bid to dismiss a suit alleging that the city reneged on a promise to waive $5.4 million in fees accrued during the COVID-19 shutdowns, saying the motion largely disputes allegations that the court has to accept as true under a motion to dismiss.

  • June 25, 2024

    Fintech Exec Gets 3 Yrs In Crypto Market Manipulation Plot

    The former head of financial engineering at fintech company Hydrogen Technology Corp. was sentenced Tuesday to nearly three years in prison for conspiring to manipulate the market for Hydrogen's digital assets.

  • June 25, 2024

    Drilling Permit Challenge Should Stay Dead, DOI Tells DC Circ.

    The U.S. Department of the Interior told the D.C. Circuit a federal judge correctly ruled environmental groups cannot challenge the federal approval of thousands of drilling permits in New Mexico and Wyoming because they failed to establish any particularized injury.

  • June 25, 2024

    Calif. Pot Co. Accused Of 'Lab Shopping' To Skirt Safety Rules

    A California marijuana cultivator has been accused of selling cannabis products with unacceptable levels of contaminants, getting around state requirements by seeking out laboratories that turned a "blind eye" to its crops' impurities, according to a proposed class action.

  • June 25, 2024

    Gov't Asks Ala. Fed. Court To Stay Gender Care Case

    The Biden administration has asked an Alabama federal court to stay a suit challenging a state law criminalizing gender-affirming care for transgender youth, which has drawn attention because of judge-shopping allegations leveled against plaintiff's counsel, as the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a separate but potentially precedential suit.

  • June 25, 2024

    Ex-Trump Atty Seeks Discovery Stay In Dominion Voting Suit

    A former One America News reporter and Trump attorney is urging a D.C. federal judge to grant her a discovery pause in civil defamation litigation brought by Dominion Voting Systems, arguing that responding to requests now could put her defense at risk in a criminal case in Arizona.

  • June 25, 2024

    House GOP Looks To Hold Biden Ghostwriter In Contempt

    The House Judiciary Committee will consider a resolution on Thursday on whether to hold President Biden's ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer in contempt for refusing to turn over materials related to special counsel Robert Hur's investigation of the president's handling of classified documents.

  • June 25, 2024

    Atlanta City Council To Consider $2M Settlement In Taser Case

    Atlanta's City Council is set to consider a $2 million settlement next week in a case in which two college students allege they were pulled from their car and Tasers used on them by police in 2020 during protests related to the police killing of George Floyd.

  • June 25, 2024

    EU Opens Microsoft Case, Unappeased By Teams Unbundling

    European Union antitrust authorities opened a formal complaint against Microsoft on Tuesday over the company's bundling of its Teams communications program with its Office 365 suites, calling out as insufficient the disconnection of the services Microsoft initiated last year to appease enforcers.

  • June 25, 2024

    Kennedy's Bid For President Violates NJ Law, Suit Says

    An election lawyer Tuesday launched a bid in New Jersey state court to kick presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. off Garden State ballots in November's general election, arguing Kennedy's independent candidacy is barred by state law.

  • June 25, 2024

    Int'l Paper Gets US Clearance On $7.2B DS Smith Buy

    International Paper Co. and its U.K. competitor DS Smith PLC said Tuesday that the waiting period for U.S. antitrust authorities to try and block their planned roughly $7.2 billion merger has expired. 

  • June 25, 2024

    House Republicans Look To Cut Justice Department Funding

    House Republicans are looking to slash funding for the U.S. Department of Justice for fiscal 2025, a move that comes as Republicans have been attacking the department for what they deem unfair prosecutions of former President Donald Trump.

Expert Analysis

  • Does Expert Testimony Aid Preliminary IPR Responses?

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    Dechert attorneys analyze six years of patent owners' preliminary responses to inter partes review petitions to determine whether the elimination of the presumption favoring the petitioner as to preinstitution testimonial evidence affected the usefulness of expert testimony in responses.

  • Fostering Employee Retention Amid Shaky DEI Landscape

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    Ongoing challenges to the legality of corporate diversity, equity and inclusion programs are complicating efforts to use DEI as an employee retention tool, but with the right strategic approach employers can continue to recruit and retain diverse talent — even after the FTC’s ban on noncompetes, says Ally Coll at the Purple Method.

  • Are Concessions In FDA's Lab-Developed Tests Rule Enough?

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    Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's new policy for laboratory-developed tests included major strategic concessions to help balance patient safety, access and diagnostic innovation, the new rule may well face significant legal challenges in court, say Dominick DiSabatino and Audrey Mercer at Sheppard Mullin.

  • 5 Climate Change Regulatory Issues Insurers Should Follow

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    The climate change landscape for insurers has changed dramatically recently — and not just because of the controversy over the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related risk disclosure rules, says Thomas Dawson at McDermott.

  • How New Rule Would Change CFIUS Enforcement Powers

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    Before the May 15 comment deadline, companies may want to weigh in on proposed regulatory changes to enforcement and mitigation tools at the disposal of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, including broadened subpoena powers, difficult new mitigation timelines and higher maximum penalties, say attorneys at Venable.

  • What's Extraordinary About Challenges To SEC Climate Rule

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    A set of ideologically diverse legal challenges to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate disclosure rule have been consolidated in the Eighth Circuit via a seldom-used lottery system, and the unpredictability of this process may drive agencies toward a more cautious future approach to rulemaking, say attorneys at Thompson Coburn.

  • 8 Questions To Ask Before Final CISA Breach Reporting Rule

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    The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s recently proposed cyber incident reporting requirements for critical infrastructure entities represent the overall approach CISA will take in its final rule, so companies should be asking key compliance questions now and preparing for a more complicated reporting regime, say Arianna Evers and Shannon Mercer at WilmerHale.

  • Series

    Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Years of participation in swimming events, especially in the open water, have proven to be ideal preparation for appellate arguments in court — just as you must put your trust in the ocean when competing in a swim event, you must do the same with the judicial process, says John Kulewicz at Vorys.

  • Key Priorities In FDIC Report On Resolving Big Bank Failures

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    The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s report last month on the resolvability of large financial institutions contains little new information, but it does reiterate key policy priorities, including the agency's desire to enhance loss-absorbing capacity through long-term debt requirements and preference for single-point-of-entry resolution strategies, say attorneys at Freshfields.

  • Best Practices For Space Security In Our Connected World

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    NASA's recently published space security guide is another indication that cyber-resilience has become a global theme for the space and satellite sector, as well as a useful reference for companies and organizations reviewing their cybersecurity frameworks or looking to partner with the U.S. agency, says Hayley Blyth at Bird & Bird.

  • Opinion

    SEC Doesn't Have Legal Authority For Climate Disclosure Rule

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    Instead of making the required legal argument to establish its authority, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related disclosure rule hides behind more than 1,000 references to materiality to give the appearance that its rule is legally defensible, says Bernard Sharfman at RealClearFoundation.

  • What 100 Federal Cases Suggest About Changes To Chevron

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    With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to overturn or narrow its 40-year-old doctrine of Chevron deference, a review of 100 recent federal district court decisions confirm that changes to the Chevron framework will have broad ramifications — but the magnitude of the impact will depend on the details of the high court's ruling, say Kali Schellenberg and Jon Cochran at LeVan Stapleton.

  • FTC Noncompete Rule May Still Face Historical Hurdles

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    The Federal Trade Commission's final rule banning noncompetes might face challenges that could have been avoided with more cautious consideration of the commission's long history of failed lawsuits that went beyond the agency's statutory authority, as well as the mountain of judicial precedent justifying noncompete agreements in employment contracts, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.

  • A Look At Subchapter V As Debt Limit Expiration Looms

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    If proposed legislation to extend Subchapter V’s debt eligibility ceiling sunset date in June is passed, bankruptcy professionals can seek ways to work with their local jurisdictions to advocate for code changes and guidance that bring more efficiencies and clarity to the process, say Matthew Brash at Newpoint Advisors and Melinda Bennett at Stretto.

  • Opinion

    SEC Should Be Allowed To Equip Investors With Climate Info

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's new rule to require more climate-related disclosures will provide investors with much-needed clarity, despite opponents' attempts to challenge the rule with misused legal arguments, say Sarah Goetz at Democracy Forward and Cynthia Hanawalt at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change.

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