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Public Policy
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May 21, 2025
CFTC Member Says Enforcement Needs More Transparency
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's Christy Goldsmith Romero on Wednesday called on the agency to be more transparent about its enforcement decisions, while laying out the factors she weighs in crediting firms for self-reporting and cooperation.
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May 21, 2025
Wyden Urges Sens. To Switch Carriers Over Privacy Risks
AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile failed to put in place systems notifying senators about government surveillance requests, despite being contractually required to, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., told his colleagues Wednesday, urging them in a letter to "seriously consider" switching mobile carriers for personal and campaign phones.
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May 21, 2025
House Panel Advances Bills Easing Securities, Banking Regs
The U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee this week approved 25 bills largely aimed at reducing capital markets and banking regulations, moving the deregulatory proposals forward for consideration by the full House.
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May 21, 2025
Squires Talks Fortress, PTAB Invalidations In Senate Hearing
The Trump administration's nominee for U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director had his moment before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, where he downplayed his controversial connections to litigation finance giant Fortress Investment Group and raised concerns that too many bad patents were being issued.
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May 21, 2025
Verizon Looks To Break Free Of TracFone Unlocking Condition
Verizon is once again asking the Federal Communications Commission to let it out of a condition from its takeover of TracFone requiring the carrier to unlock its mobile phones after 60 days.
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May 21, 2025
SC Judge Restores Frozen Federal Grant Funding
A South Carolina federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore 32 grants funded by the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act after the government said it wasn't contesting the merits of the grant recipients' claims.
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May 21, 2025
Judge Mulls National Scope Of Bid To Restore COVID Grants
A Washington, D.C., federal judge Wednesday mulled whether it would be appropriate to issue a nationwide injunction blocking the termination of $11 billion public health grants set aside under COVID-era laws in a lawsuit brought by four local governments and a public sector union.
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May 21, 2025
News Orgs Not Entitled To Abrego Garcia Files, Feds Say
The U.S. Department of Justice told a Maryland federal judge that more than a dozen news organizations looking to unseal records in litigation challenging the removal of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador have no right to access sensitive discovery materials.
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May 21, 2025
Ex-Con's Gun Case Can't Overcome Immunity, Feds Say
The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives cannot be the targets of a lawsuit filed by a man who claims he was wrongly denied a firearm purchase despite his four-decades-old marijuana felony being expunged, the government argued, telling a Kansas federal court that both agencies have sovereign immunity on the matter.
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May 21, 2025
Gold Mine Risks Alaska Preserve And Whales, Tribe Claims
An Alaskan tribe and environmental groups have filed suit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers seeking to stop a mining company from expanding gold operations, activity that would contaminate the waterways near a national park and harm the endangered beluga whale population.
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May 21, 2025
Title Insurance Co. Fights Treasury All-Cash Resi Deals Rule
A title insurance company and a subsidiary have filed suit in Florida federal court challenging new reporting requirements for all-cash real estate closings, saying the rule exceeds the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's authority.
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May 21, 2025
Okla. Judge Reaffirms Block Of State Immigration Law
An Oklahoma federal judge entered a two-week block on an Oklahoma law that makes it a crime for unauthorized immigrants to live in the state, reaffirming a prior ruling that the state law was likely unconstitutional.
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May 21, 2025
GOP FTC Renews Calls For Orange Book Patent Delistings
The now-Republican controlled Federal Trade Commission again called on Teva, Novartis, Mylan and other drugmakers to remove patents from a key federal database that partially insulates their drugs from generic competition, arguing Wednesday the patents cover "devices," not drugs, and thus don't warrant such protection.
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May 21, 2025
Wash. Gov. Signs Budget With New And Higher Taxes
Washington's governor signed a two-year $78 billion state budget that closed a $16 billion shortfall in part by raising and increasing taxes, ending weeks of speculation over whether he'd agree with his fellow Democrats in the state Legislature that a tax package was needed.
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May 21, 2025
Texas Bills To Watch Before The End Of The 2025 Session
With less than two weeks remaining in the Texas legislative session, lawmakers will hit several deadlines in the coming days that will seal the fate of bills surrounding legal procedure, abortion, artificial intelligence and other topics.
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May 21, 2025
Courts Can't Review Trump's Tariff Emergencies, Gov't Says
Courts can't review President Donald Trump's decision that unusual or extraordinary threats exist under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a government attorney told the U.S. Court of International Trade on Wednesday as 12 states seek to block Trump's tariffs under the law.
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May 21, 2025
Offshore Wind Farm Foes Back Trump Permitting Pause
Opponents of a New Jersey offshore wind farm on Wednesday backed the Trump administration's freeze on wind project permitting, telling a Massachusetts federal judge the moratorium is both legal and constitutional.
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May 21, 2025
Country Music Singer Urges Sens. To Pass AI Deepfakes Bill
Country music star Martina McBride urged U.S. senators Wednesday to pass legislation aimed at protecting individuals from having their voice and likeness replicated with artificial intelligence without their permission, saying "it's frightening, and it's wrong."
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May 21, 2025
American Tells United To Butt Out Of O'Hare Gate Dispute
American Airlines has urged an Illinois federal court to not allow rival carrier United to intervene in its lawsuit alleging the city of Chicago breached its contract with the airline by reassigning gate space at O'Hare International Airport, arguing its competitor has no right to wade into a case concerning "a lease to which it is not a party and which grants it no rights or benefits."
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May 21, 2025
UC Says It's Unclear Students In Bias Suit Even Plan To Apply
The University of California told a federal judge Tuesday that an organization representing a group of Asian American and white students hasn't shown they are actually "able and ready" to seek admission, arguing the court should toss a suit claiming the school racially discriminated against them.
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May 21, 2025
'Only God Knows My Name': 11th Circ. OKs Doe's Conviction
The 11th Circuit on Wednesday affirmed the conviction of a man who refused to be identified by immigration officials, saying, "Only God knows my name," ruling the lower court correctly held the criminal statute he was charged under applied to him although it couldn't prove he lawfully entered the country.
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May 21, 2025
USPTO Tackling Backlog Despite Hiring Freeze, Official Says
While the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office waits out a federal hiring freeze preventing it from bringing in more patent examiners, it's using initiatives like reassignments and rewards to "do more with less" and cut down on patent pendency, the agency's deputy commissioner for patents said Wednesday.
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May 21, 2025
EPA Chief Defends Trump Plan To Halve Agency Budget
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin on Wednesday told senators that despite President Donald Trump's proposal to cut the EPA's budget by 55% and an internal reorganization, agency scientists can handle the current workload.
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May 21, 2025
Immigrant Groups Appeal Denied Bid To Halt IRS-ICE Deal
Immigrant advocacy groups on Wednesday appealed a D.C. federal judge's order denying their bid to block the IRS from sharing taxpayer data with immigration enforcement agencies, with their counsel warning "it will be too late" once the information is shared.
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May 21, 2025
Small Texas Communities Trying To Siphon Taxes, City Says
Two Texas state court judges issued court orders Wednesday barring two small municipalities from buying up apartment buildings in the city of Rowlett, Texas, thwarting what Rowlett described as an underhanded attempt to rob the city of property tax revenue.
Expert Analysis
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Series
Improv Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Improv keeps me grounded and connected to what matters most, including in my legal career where it has helped me to maintain a balance between being analytical, precise and professional, and creative, authentic and open-minded, says Justine Gottshall at InfoLawGroup.
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TikTok Bias Suit Ruling Reflects New Landscape Under EFAA
In Puris v. Tiktok, a New York federal court found an arbitration agreement unenforceable in a former executive's bias suit, underscoring an evolving trend of broad, but inconsistent, interpretation of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, say attorneys at Williams & Connolly.
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Avoiding Pitfalls Around New Calif. Commercial Lease Law
A California law that became effective this year requires commercial landlords to extend certain protections previously afforded to residential tenancies, and a few key provisions of the law especially warrant reexamination of leasing and operational processes, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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How BigLaw Executive Orders May Affect Smaller Firms
Because of the types of cases they take on, solo practitioners, small law firms and public interest attorneys may find themselves more dramatically affected by the collective impact of recent government action involving the legal industry than even the BigLaw firms named in the executive orders, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Filial Consortium Claims' Future After Conn. High Court Ruling
While the Connecticut Supreme Court recently ruled for defendants in rejecting parents’ attempt to recover loss of companionship damages in a severe child injury case, there is still potential for the plaintiffs bar to lobby for a law that would allow filial consortium claims, Glenn Coffin at Gordon Rees.
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5 Tools To Help Existing Gov't Contracts Manage Tariff Costs
Five pointers can help government contractors scrutinize their existing contracts for protections like equitable adjustment and duty-free entry clauses, which may help insulate them from tariff-related cost increases, say attorneys at Covington.
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4th Circ. Health Data Ruling Opens Door To State Law Claims
In Real Time Medical v. PointClickCare, the Fourth Circuit recently clarified that state law claims can rest in part on violations of a federal law that prohibits electronic health information blocking, expanding legal risks for health IT companies and potentially creating exposure to a range of competitive implications, say attorneys at BCLP.
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Opinion
Lawsuits Shouldn't Be Shadow Assets For Foreign Capital
Third-party litigation financing amplifies inefficiencies from litigation and facilitates national exposure to foreign influence in the U.S. justice system, so full disclosure of financing arrangements should be required as a matter of institutional integrity, says Roland Eisenhuth at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.
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2 Del. Rulings Reinforce Proof Needed For Records Demands
Two recent Delaware Court of Chancery decisions involving Amazon and Paramount Global illustrate the significance of the credible basis standard on books and records requests, underscoring that stockholders seeking to investigate wrongdoing must come forward with actual evidence of misconduct — not mere allegations, say attorneys at Cleary.
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How To Accelerate Your Post-Attorney Career Transition
Professionals seeking to transition to nonattorney careers may encounter skepticism as nontraditional candidates, but there are opportunities for thought leadership and to leverage speaking and writing to accelerate a post-attorney career transition, say Janet Falk at Falk Communications and Evgeny Efremkin at Toronto Metropolitan University.
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Key Takeaways From The 2025 Spring Antitrust Meeting
Leadership changes, shifting priorities and evolving enforcement tools dominated the conversation at the recent American Bar Association Spring Antitrust Meeting, as panelists explored competition policy under a second Trump administration, agency discretion under the 2023 merger guidelines and new frontiers in conduct enforcement, say attorneys at Freshfields.
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3 Action Items For Innovators Amid Fintech Regulatory Pivot
As the federal banking agencies seek to smooth the way for banks to engage in crypto-related activities, banks and technology companies should take note of this new chapter in payments services, especially as leadership in digital financial technology becomes a national priority, says Jess Cheng at Wilson Sonsini.
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What PFAS-Treated Clothing Tariff Bill Would Mean For Cos.
In keeping with a nationwide trend of greater restrictions on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, legislation pending in the U.S. House of Representatives would remove tariff advantages for PFAS-treated clothing — so businesses would be wise to proactively adapt their supply chains and review contracts to mitigate liability, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.
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How Tariffs May Affect Proxy Contests This Season
While global tariffs imposed by the Trump administration will certainly chill at least some activity this proxy season, and make defending contests significantly easier, there will likely be many new activist investments once there is more economic certainty, meaning more proxy fights this fall, say attorneys at Sidley.
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Running A Compliant DEI Program After EEOC, DOJ Guidance
Following recent guidance from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice that operationalized the Trump administration's focus on ending so-called illegal DEI, employers don't need to eliminate DEI programs, but they must ensure that protected characteristics are not considered in employment decisions, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.