Public Policy

  • December 09, 2024

    Judge Eyes Far Less Trial Time In Meta Case Than FTC Wants

    The Federal Trade Commission likely has to cram much more trial in much less time than it had planned after a D.C. federal judge suggested Monday that the agency's social media monopolization case against Meta Platforms Inc. can't go much past the first week of June 2025.

  • December 09, 2024

    LendingTree Pushes FCC Again To Rework Lead Consent Rule

    Loan marketer LendingTree is making one more effort to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to trim the scope of its lead generation consent rule in hopes of seeing changes before the regulations take effect in January.

  • December 09, 2024

    Amazon Says FTC Lacks Authority To Bring Antitrust Case

    Amazon has told a Washington federal court that the Federal Trade Commission is overstepping its authority by bringing its antitrust case directly in court without pursuing an in-house case targeting the e-commerce giant's treatment of sellers on its platform.

  • December 09, 2024

    2nd Circ. Mulls If DirecTV Has Standing In Retransmission Fight

    The Second Circuit is set to decide whether DirecTV's refusal to ink retransmission deals with two companies that it says were illegally collaborating with Nexstar Media Group means that it doesn't have injury to bring an antitrust suit accusing the companies of trying to fix prices.

  • December 09, 2024

    DC Circ. Unsure Of Wading Into FERC Grid Plan Fight

    D.C. Circuit judges appeared reluctant on Monday to entertain the legality of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's 2023 rejection of a grid operator's plan to manage certain transmission project costs, given that the agency later approved related projects in May.

  • December 09, 2024

    Colo. Litigants Can Use Open Records Law, Justices Rule

    The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday decided that litigants suing government entities are entitled to use the state's public records law to obtain documents, siding with serial pro se public records attorney Matt Roane in his bid to obtain documents connected to his 2020 lawsuit against a county over alleged open meetings violations.

  • December 09, 2024

    Congress Set To Let FCC Borrow $3B For 'Rip And Replace'

    Lawmakers are considering funding a $3.08 billion shortfall in the program to rid U.S. networks of Chinese-made equipment by letting the Federal Communications Commission borrow the money from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, repaid with spectrum auctions.

  • December 09, 2024

    EPA Finalizes Bans On Two Carcinogenic Chemicals

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a pair of final rules on Monday banning all uses of trichloroethylene and all consumer uses of perchloroethylene, which are cancer-causing chemical solvents used in brake cleaner and adhesive products.

  • December 09, 2024

    Pressure Growing For Biden To Pardon Native Activist

    As President Joe Biden nears the end of his term, calls to pardon a Native American activist serving a life sentence in the 1975 slayings of two FBI agents are again ramping up, with the chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs asking Biden to "right a historic wrong."

  • December 09, 2024

    Ill. Congresswoman Denies Undue Influence From Madigan

    U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski was called to the witness stand Monday in the racketeering trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, where she testified that while she received multiple job recommendations from Madigan as a former senior aide to Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, those candidates were only hired if they were qualified.

  • December 09, 2024

    16 EU Members Call For Revamped Tobacco Taxation

    The European Commission needs to prioritize an overhaul of the bloc's tobacco taxation rules in the upcoming term, a group of 16 member countries said Monday, arguing that major changes in the industry since the rules last updated have left countries to fend for themselves, fragmenting the tax regime.

  • December 09, 2024

    SEC's Trading And Markets Director Zhu To Leave Agency

    Haoxiang Zhu is stepping down as head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's Division of Trading and Markets, the agency announced Monday, leaving the group that oversees orderliness of U.S. markets as leadership continues to change at regulatory bodies following President-elect Donald Trump's election victory.

  • December 09, 2024

    Auto Parts Co., EEOC Strike Deal In Sex Harassment Suit

    An auto parts company will pay $35,000 to end a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission suit alleging it ignored a female worker's claims that she was sexually assaulted at a plant and eventually fired her, the agency said Monday.

  • December 09, 2024

    3rd Circ. Judge Unsure Child Care Needs Can Halt Deportation

    The Third Circuit on Monday pondered how it should analyze the effect a Trinidad and Tobago national's deportation would have on his U.S. citizen child, with one judge suggesting that the boy's medical issues may not rise to the level of canceling removal.

  • December 09, 2024

    TikTok Seeks Halt On Sale-Or-Ban Law For High Court Appeal

    TikTok Inc. and its users are pressing the D.C. Circuit to put on hold the implementation of a law that is set to bar the platform from the U.S. market next month while they appeal a ruling backing the measure to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

  • December 09, 2024

    Dems Say GOP Can't Purge Votes Amid Close NC Justice Race

    The North Carolina Democratic Party is looking to prevent Republican candidates who lost their races from invalidating more than 60,000 ballots amid an extremely tight state Supreme Court race, arguing the election protests run afoul of federal law safeguarding citizens' right to vote.

  • December 09, 2024

    Feds Seek 2-Year Sentence In Landmark Crypto Tax Case

    The first person ever criminally charged for failing to report gains from the sale of cryptocurrency by filing false returns should be sentenced to more than two years in prison after he admitted underreporting $4 million in bitcoin proceeds, prosecutors told a Texas federal court.

  • December 09, 2024

    Nadine Menendez Trial Date Set After Jan. 6 Delay Bid Nixed

    The trial of Nadine Menendez on corruption charges is set to start in January, a Manhattan federal judge said Monday, after hearing that a potential defense scheduling conflict over a U.S. Capitol insurrection-related case will likely "evaporate" when Donald Trump takes office.

  • December 09, 2024

    Beveridge & Diamond Picks Up Longtime DOJ Enviro Litigator

    Beveridge & Diamond PC has hired the former chief of the law and policy section at the U.S. Department of Justice's Environment and Natural Resources Division, who is bringing his more-than 26-year government experience in environmental law to the D.C. team, the firm announced Friday.

  • December 09, 2024

    1st Circ. Lets Rhode Island Reinstate Truck Tolls

    Rhode Island may reinstate a toll on tractor-trailers using highways and bridges in the Ocean State, but not a $40-per-day cap, the First Circuit has ruled.

  • December 09, 2024

    Menendez Verdict Wasn't Tainted By Evidence Error, Feds Say

    Prosecutors told a Manhattan federal judge that evidence that was mistakenly loaded onto a laptop given to the jury that convicted former Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., of bribery charges most likely wasn't seen by the jurors and didn't impact their verdict in a way that would merit a new trial.

  • December 09, 2024

    NC Hemp Store Owners Say Raids Targeted Their Race

    North Carolina sheriff's deputies allegedly "ransacked" and robbed two hemp stores and harassed their Middle Eastern owners in an effort to run them out of their community despite the businesses being legal, according to a new complaint filed in federal court.

  • December 09, 2024

    Asylum Limits Suit May Remain On Ice Past Inauguration

    The Biden administration and attorneys for a group of asylum-seekers challenging a rule restricting asylum on the southern border told a D.C. federal judge that settlement talks are ongoing but may not conclude before President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month.

  • December 09, 2024

    NYC Council Sues Mayor For Not Enforcing Jail Abuse Ban

    The New York City Council sued Mayor Eric Adams on Monday for failing to end the use of solitary confinement in city jails after the lawmaking body passed a bill banning the practice earlier this year, arguing that his "emergency" order violated the separation of powers.

  • December 09, 2024

    Skipping Diversity Suits Lets Error 'Metastasize,' Alito Says

    The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to review Boston's allegedly discriminatory COVID-19 pandemic-era admissions policy for three elite public schools, turning away the second case to challenge the use of race-neutral diversity initiatives in a decision Justice Samuel Alito claims ignores a "glaring constitutional error" and undermines the court's affirmative action decision.

Expert Analysis

  • Use The Right Kind Of Feedback To Help Gen Z Attorneys

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    Generation Z associates bring unique perspectives and expectations to the workplace, so it’s imperative that supervising attorneys adapt their feedback approach in order to help young lawyers learn and grow — which is good for law firms, too, says Rachael Bosch at Fringe Professional Development.

  • Opinion

    Congress Can And Must Enact A Supreme Court Ethics Code

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    As public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court dips to historic lows following reports raising conflict of interest concerns, Congress must exercise its constitutional power to enact a mandatory and enforceable code of ethics for the high court, says Muhammad Faridi, president of the New York City Bar Association.

  • What To Make Of Dueling Corporate Transparency Act Rulings

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    Although challenges to the Corporate Transparency Act abound — as highlighted by recent federal court decisions from Alabama and Oregon taking opposite positions on its constitutionality — the act is still law, so companies should comply with their filing requirements or face the potential consequences, say attorneys at Lowenstein Sandler.

  • Series

    The Pop Culture Docket: Justice Lebovits On Gilbert And Sullivan

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    Characters in the 19th century comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan break the rules of good lawyering by shamelessly throwing responsible critical thought to the wind, providing hilarious lessons for lawyers and judges on how to avoid a surfeit of traps and tribulations, say acting New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits and law student Tara Scown.

  • California's AI Safety Bill Veto: The Path Forward

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    California Gov. Gavin Newsom's veto of a bill that sought to impose stringent regulations on advanced artificial intelligence model development has sparked a renewed debate on how best to balance innovation with safety in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, say Bobby Malhotra and Carson Swope at Winston & Strawn.

  • Staying Off The CFPB's Financial Services Offender Registry

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    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's soon-to-launch registry of financial services companies that have faced public enforcement orders is designed to ratchet up long-term scrutiny of entities that could become repeat offenders, so companies should take their new compliance and filing requirements seriously, say Andrea Mitchell and Chris Napier at Mitchell Sandler.

  • New TCPA Rule Faces Uncertain Future Post-Loper Bright

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    The Federal Communications Commission's new rule aiming to eliminate lead generators' use of unlawful robocalls is now in doubt with the U.S. Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision, and the Eleventh Circuit's Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC is poised to be a test case of the agency's ability to enforce the Telephone Consumer Protection Act post-Chevron, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

  • A Look At Calif.'s New AI Law For Health Insurers

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    A newly enacted California law prohibits artificial intelligence tools from making medical necessity determinations for healthcare service plans or disability insurers, addressing core questions that have arisen around AI's role in coverage decisions, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

  • New HHS Research Misconduct Rules Bring Seismic Changes

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    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' new rule regarding research misconduct investigations brings significant changes that focus on remediation, appeals and confidentiality, while other changes could result in institutions causing undue harm to scientists accused of such misconduct, say attorneys at Cohen Seglias.

  • To Report Or Not To Report Others' Export Control Violations

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    A recent Bureau of Industry and Security enforcement policy change grants cooperation credit to those that report violations of the Export Administration Regulations committed by others, but the benefits of doing so must be weighed against significant drawbacks, including the costs of preparing and submitting a report, says Megan Lew at Cravath.

  • Earned Wage Access Laws Form A Prickly Policy Patchwork

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    Conflicting earned wage access laws across the country, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recently issued rule, mean providers must adopt a proactive compliance approach and adjust business models where needed, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.

  • What FDIC Expansion Of Change In Bank Control Could Mean

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    A recent Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. proposal pertaining to the Change in Bank Control Act has the potential to create uncertainty around investments by mutual fund complexes in banking organizations, which represent a stable source of capital for the banking industry, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.

  • HSR Amendments Intensify Merger Filing Burdens, Data Risk

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    The antitrust agencies' long-awaited changes to premerger notification rules under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act stand to significantly increase the time and cost involved in preparing an initial HSR notification, and will require more proactive attention to data issues, says Andrew Szwez at FTI Technology.

  • Deadline Extension Highlights PFAS Reporting Complexities

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    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's recent extension of reporting and recordkeeping timelines for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances under the Toxic Substances Control Act offers relief to the regulated community, but the unprecedented volume of data required means that businesses must remain diligent in their data collection efforts, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

  • Can SEC's Consolidated Audit Trail Survive Post-Chevron?

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is currently in a showdown at the Eleventh Circuit over its authority to maintain a national market system and require that the industry spend billions to maintain its consolidated audit trail, a case that is further complicated by the Loper Bright decision, says Daniel Hawke at Arnold & Porter.

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