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Public Policy
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August 20, 2024
Amgen's Drug Price Suit An Issue For Legislature, Judge Told
A Colorado nonprofit that advocates for the poor told a federal judge Tuesday that Amgen's lawsuit over the state's drug price cap system is little more than a disagreement with lawmakers' policy choices disguised as a constitutional issue.
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August 20, 2024
Wash. Judges Won't Upend Tobacco Payout Ruling
A Washington appellate court on Monday rejected attempts by Philip Morris and other tobacco companies to pay the state less under a 1998 master settlement agreement, upholding an arbitrator's determination that the state was enforcing a law covering payment.
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August 20, 2024
FCC Says No To 8 Nonprofit Stations In Texas
The Federal Communications Commission says it is not approving eight applications for new low power FM stations because the Christian entities that applied for them appear to actually all be part of the same organization, which does not qualify as an educational nonprofit.
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August 20, 2024
Utah Tells Justices Feds Must Relinquish Land In State
The federal government is unconstitutionally hoarding and profiting from public lands in Utah, and the state is missing out on economic and development opportunities that are rightfully its own, it told the U.S. Supreme Court in a proposed lawsuit filed Tuesday.
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August 20, 2024
Credit Union, 'Dreamers' Get Final OK To Settle Loan Bias Suit
A California federal judge gave the final stamp of approval to a class settlement offering cash to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients and other immigrants who alleged a Chicago-based credit union denied them loans due to their immigration status.
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August 20, 2024
US Sanctions Ex-Haitian President Over Drug Trafficking
The Biden administration on Tuesday sanctioned a former president of Haiti, claiming he abused his position to facilitate drug trafficking.
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August 20, 2024
EPA Urges DC Circ. To Uphold Particulate Matter Rule
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is defending its decision to ratchet down a fine particulate matter air pollution standard, telling the D.C. Circuit that states and industry groups challenging it aren't seriously questioning the scientific support for the change and misread the Clean Air Act to argue that the agency overstepped.
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August 20, 2024
DOI Issues 1st Floating Offshore Wind Energy Lease
The U.S. Department of the Interior on Monday announced its first-ever floating offshore wind energy research lease, which will allow for up to 12 floating wind turbines off the coast of Maine.
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August 20, 2024
UN Dives Into Murky Waters Of Taxing Digital Services
The United Nations has its sights set on cross-border services in the digital economy as its framework convention on tax takes shape, but it remains unclear how countries will define that broad and hotly contested topic as they work toward a treaty.
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August 20, 2024
IRS Fee Hikes Threaten Tax Justice For Small Businesses
The Internal Revenue Service is expected to continue raising the cost for private letter rulings that clarify tax matters and provide taxpayer certainty, prompting concerns among tax professionals that economic justice may become unattainable for small businesses unable to bear these escalating costs.
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August 20, 2024
Colorado County Says Aetna Owes $1.1M In Rebates
Aetna Life Insurance Co. is withholding more than $1 million in pharmacy rebates from a Colorado county under an inapplicable early termination clause after local leaders switched to United Healthcare for health insurance services in 2023, according to a federal lawsuit.
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August 20, 2024
Anthropic Hit With Another Copyright Suit Over LLM Training
Anthropic PBC was hit with a proposed class action Monday in California federal court from a group of journalists and authors alleging the artificial intelligence giant is exploiting their copyrighted materials to train its large language model, Claude, without permission or a license, and has become enormously successful at their expense.
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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. 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.
Expert Analysis
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Opinion
Trump Immunity Ruling Upends Our Constitutional Scheme
The U.S. Supreme Court’s Trump v. U.S. decision elevates the president to imperial status and paves the way for nearly absolute presidential immunity from potential criminal prosecutions — with no constitutional textual support, says Paul Berman at the George Washington University Law School.
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High Court Paves Middle Ground For Proceedings Obstruction
The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Fischer sensibly leaves the door open for prosecutors to make more nuanced assessments as to whether defendants' actions directly or tangentially impair the availability or integrity of anything used in an official proceeding, without criminalizing acts such as peaceful demonstrations, say attorneys at Perry Law.
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How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve Board effectively gives new entities their own personal statute of limitations to challenge rules and regulations, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh's concurrence may portend the court's view that those entities do not need to be directly regulated, say attorneys at Snell & Wilmer.
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Series
Florida Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q2
The second quarter of 2024 brought two notable bills that will affect Florida's banking and finance community across many issues, including virtual currency abandonment, cancellation of financial services on the basis of political opinions, and the exemption amount of motor vehicles, say Joshua Prever and Andrew Balthazor at Holland & Knight.
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Series
After Chevron: FTC's 'Unfair Competition' Actions In Jeopardy
While the U.S. Supreme Court's decision ending Chevron deference will have limited effect on the Federal Trade Commission's merger guidelines, administrative enforcement actions and commission decisions on appeal, it could restrict the agency's expansive take on its rulemaking authority and threaten the noncompete ban, say attorneys at Baker Botts.
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How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts
As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.
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Series
After Chevron: Opportunities For Change In FHFA Practices
The U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of the Chevron doctrine should lead to better cooperation between the Federal Housing Finance Agency and Congress, and may give the FHFA a chance to embrace transparency and innovation and promote sustainable housing practices, says Mehdi Sinaki at Michelman & Robinson.
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Constitutional Protections For Cannabis Companies Are Hazy
Cannabis businesses are subject to federal enforcement and tax, but often without the benefit of constitutional protections — and the entanglement of state and federal law and conflicting judicial opinions are creating confusion in the space, says Amber Lengacher at Purple Circle.
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Supreme Court's ALJ Ruling Carries Implications Beyond SEC
In its recent Jarkesy opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the types of cases that can be tried before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's in-house administrative law judges, setting the stage for challenges to the constitutionality of ALJs across other agencies, say Robert Robertson and Kimberley Church at Dechert.
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Opinion
A Tale Of 2 Trump Cases: The Rule Of Law Is A Live Issue
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week in Trump v. U.S., holding that former President Donald Trump has broad immunity from prosecution, undercuts the rule of law, while the former president’s New York hush money conviction vindicates it in eight key ways, says David Postel at Henein Hutchison.
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USPTO Disclaimer Rule Would Complicate Patent Prosecution
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's proposed changes to terminal disclaimer practice could lead to a patent owner being unable to enforce a valid patent simply because it is indirectly tied to a patent in which a single claim is found anticipated or obvious in view of the prior art, say attorneys at Sterne Kessler.
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2nd Circ. ERISA Ruling May Help Fight Unfair Arb. Clauses
The Second Circuit recently held that a plaintiff seeking planwide relief under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act cannot be compelled to individual arbitration, a decision that opens the door to new applications of the effective vindication doctrine to defeat onerous and one-sided arbitration clauses, say Raphael Janove and Liana Vitale at Janove.
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Series
After Chevron: Various Paths For Labor And Employment Law
Labor and employment law leans heavily on federal agency guidance, so the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to toss out Chevron deference will ripple through this area, with future workplace policies possibly taking shape through strategic litigation, informal guidance, state-level regulation and more, says Alexander MacDonald at Littler.
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Series
Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.
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What NYC's Green Fast Track Means For Affordable Housing
New York City's Green Fast Track for Housing initiative, which went into effect last month, aims to speed up the environmental review process for modest residential developments and could potentially pave the way for similar initiatives in other cities, say Vivien Krieger and Rachel Scall at Cozen O'Connor.