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Public Policy
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August 20, 2024
LOT Polish Airlines Objects To DOJ-Boeing 737 Max Plea Deal
LOT Polish Airlines has urged a Texas federal judge to reject Boeing's plea agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, saying the deal deprives restitution to airline customers that incurred millions in losses because Boeing defrauded regulators about the 737 Max 8's development.
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August 20, 2024
Ga. Power Says Factory Redo Can't Free Nestle From Service
Georgia's largest electricity provider tried to convince the state's high court Tuesday that a pet food manufacturer can't use its factory renovations to skirt a nearly 50-year-old state law requiring large electricity consumers to be wedded to a single provider in perpetuity.
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August 20, 2024
Pa. Justices Say No Public Benefit To Railroad Land Grab
The general public needed to be the primary beneficiary for a railroad to use eminent domain to take over part of a property and reactivate a siding, and that standard was harder to meet now compared with when a century-old precedent was set, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled Tuesday.
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August 20, 2024
Texas Judge Blocks FTC's Impending Ban On Noncompetes
A Texas federal judge on Tuesday permanently blocked the Federal Trade Commission's looming ban on noncompete agreements in employment contracts, setting aside the regulation with a conclusion that it's beyond the agency's authority.
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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. Preloger 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.
Expert Analysis
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How Gov't AI Protections May Affect Contractors' Data Rights
The U.S. Senate’s proposed National Defense Authorization Act for 2025, which includes provisions to maintain the government's data rights when contracting for artificial intelligence, should prompt contractors to examine how to protect their own rights when the current data rights framework is applied to AI, say Tyler Evans and Caitlin Conroy at Steptoe.
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Jarkesy May Thwart Consumer Agencies' Civil Penalty Power
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy not only implicates future SEC administrative adjudications, but those of other agencies that operate similarly — and may stymie regulators' efforts to levy civil monetary penalties in a range of consumer protection enforcement actions, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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Trump's Best Hush Money Appeal Options Still Likely To Fail
The two strongest potential arguments former President Donald Trump could raise in appealing his New York hush money conviction seem promising at first, but precedent strongly suggests they will still ultimately fail — though, of course, Trump's unique position could lead to surprising results, says former New York Supreme Court Justice Ethan Greenberg, now at Anderson Kill.
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Tips For Tax Equity-Tax Credit Transfers That Pass IRS Muster
Although the Internal Revenue Service has increased its scrutiny of complex partnership structures, which must demonstrate their economic substance and business purpose, recent cases and IRS guidance together provide a reliable road map for creating legitimate tax equity structures, say Ian Boccaccio and Michael Messina at Ryan Tax.
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How Cos. With Chinese Suppliers Should Prep For Biotech Bill
A proposed bill to prohibit government-affiliated life sciences companies from contracting with Chinese biotech companies of concern may necessitate switching to other sources for research and supplies, meaning they should begin evaluating supply chains now due to the long lead times of drug development, say John O'Loughlin and Christina Carone at Weil Gotshal.
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Opinion
Texas Judges Ignored ERISA's Core To Stall Fiduciary Rule
Two recent rulings from Texas federal courts, which rely on a plainly wrong reading of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to effectively strike a forthcoming rule that would impose functional fiduciary duties onto sellers of investment services, may expose financially unsophisticated 401(k) participants to peddlers of misleading advice, says Mark DeBofsky at DeBofsky Law.
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Inside OCC's Retail Nondeposit Investment Products Refresh
In addition to clarifying safe and sound risk management practices generally, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's revised booklet on retail nondeposit investment products updates its guidance around certain sales practices in light of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's adoption of Regulation Best Interest, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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5 Defense Lessons From Prosecutors' Recent Evidence Flubs
The recent dismissal of Alec Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter charges, and the filing of an ethics complaint against a former D.C. prosecutor, both provide takeaways for white collar defense counsel who suspect that prosecutors may be withholding or misrepresenting evidence, say Anden Chow at MoloLamken and Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.
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Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Is My Counterclaim Bound To Fall?
A Pennsylvania federal court’s recent dismissal of the defendants’ counterclaims in Morgan v. Noss should remind attorneys to avoid the temptation to repackage a claim’s facts and law into a mirror-image counterclaim, as this approach will often result in a waste of time and resources, says Matthew Selmasska at Kaufman Dolowich.
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Loper Fuels Debate Over Merchant Cash Advances As Credit
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent rejection of the Chevron doctrine in Loper Bright may escalate a Florida federal court dispute between the Revenue Based Finance Coalition and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over whether merchant cash advances should be considered credit under the Dodd-Frank Act, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.
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Bank M&A Continues To Lag Amid Regulatory Ambiguity
Bank M&A activity in the first half of 2024 continued to be lower than in prior years, as the industry is recovering from the 2023 bank failures, and regulatory and macroeconomic conditions have not otherwise been prime for deals, say Robert Azarow and Amber Hay at Arnold & Porter.
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FTC's Drug Middlemen Probe Highlights Ongoing Scrutiny
The Federal Trade Commission's interim staff report on its inquiry into pharmacy benefit managers suggests that the industry will remain under an enforcement microscope for the foreseeable future due to concerns about how PBMs affect drug costs and accessibility, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.
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How High Court Ruling Is Shaping Homelessness Policies
The U.S. Supreme Court’s June decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson to allow enforcement of local ordinances against overnight camping is already spurring new policies to manage homelessness, but the court's ruling does not grant jurisdictions unfettered power, say Kathryn Kafka and Alex Merritt at Sheppard Mullin.
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DOJ Paths To Limit FARA Fallout From Wynn's DC Circ. Win
After the D.C. Circuit’s recent Attorney General v. Wynn ruling, holding that the government cannot compel retroactive registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the U.S. Department of Justice has a few options to limit the decision’s impact on enforcement, say attorneys at MoFo.
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Series
Playing Dungeons & Dragons Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Playing Dungeons & Dragons – a tabletop role-playing game – helped pave the way for my legal career by providing me with foundational skills such as persuasion and team building, says Derrick Carman at Robins Kaplan.