Telecommunications

  • July 12, 2024

    Loper Bright Is Shaking Up Dozens Of Regulatory Fights

    In the two weeks since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Chevron deference, the landmark decision has emerged as a live issue in dozens of administrative challenges, with federal courts already pausing agency regulations expanding LGBTQ+ rights in education and healthcare and with a wave of parties seeking to use the new decision to win their cases.

  • July 12, 2024

    GoDaddy Accused Of Kicking Tech Co. Off Platform

    The world's largest domain registrar, GoDaddy, is facing a lawsuit accusing it of blackballing a tech company from its platform so that it could force customers to use its own, worse version of the rival's tool for connecting third-party applications to their domains.

  • July 12, 2024

    FCC Says Rural Areas Get New Funds After Charter Defaults

    Charter is going to be dropping some of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund census blocks it took responsibility for and taking the fines that come with doing so, according to the FCC, which says the good news is that those blocks are now open for more federal funding for another provider.

  • July 12, 2024

    9th Circ. Brings Back Boot-Up Pay Claims For 2nd Time

    The Ninth Circuit revived and sent back to lower court a suit seeking pay from a call center for minutes that workers spent booting up their computers before their shifts, ruling it is still disputed whether the preshift work was too brief and administratively difficult to track.

  • July 12, 2024

    DC Circ. Upholds FCC Approval Of SpaceX Satellite Plan

    A D.C. Circuit panel Friday affirmed a Federal Communications Commission license authorizing SpaceX to deploy thousands of its Starlink satellites, rejecting challenges from satellite TV provider Dish Network LLC and advocacy group DarkSky International.

  • July 12, 2024

    Valve Says Too Much Game Publisher Variety For Class Cert.

    Online gaming giant Valve is fighting certification of a class of some 32,000 gaming publishers that distributed their titles through the company's Steam platform, arguing those publishers have nothing in common to assert any commonality in the alleged creation of a pricing floor that helped sustain Valve's 30% commissions.

  • July 12, 2024

    FCC Warns NY Landowners To Shut Down Pirate Radio

    The Federal Communications Commission has warned more than a dozen landowners in metro New York to shut down pirate radio broadcasting from their properties or face fines up to nearly $2.4 million.

  • July 12, 2024

    Republican Presses Tai For Info On E-Commerce Shift

    Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., pressed the Biden administration's top trade official for more information on why the president withdrew from digital trade talks at the World Trade Organization, threatening "compulsory action" if she failed to provide meaningful answers.

  • July 12, 2024

    6th Circ. Delays FCC's Net Neutrality Effective Date

    The Sixth Circuit on Friday delayed the effective date of the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules by two weeks to give the court more time to consider an indefinite hold on the regulations during a legal challenge.

  • July 12, 2024

    T-Mobile Wins Time To Defend Arb. Award In 'SIM Swap' Suit

    T-Mobile USA has won more time to defend an arbitration award it won after a customer claimed that lax security measures caused him to lose nearly $240,000 in cryptocurrency, according to a Florida federal court order.

  • July 12, 2024

    Pennsylvania Telecom Co. Will Pay $6.5M To Settle FCA Case

    A Western Pennsylvania telecommunications company has agreed to pay $6.5 million to settle claims that it violated federal law by inflating its costs in order to receive greater federal subsidies under the Federal Communication Commission's High-Cost Program, the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.

  • July 12, 2024

    Altice Says Conn. AG's 'Enhancement Fee' Suit Needs Details

    Altice USA is asking for a more specific complaint in the state of Connecticut's illegal-fee lawsuit against the cable company, telling a state judge that the initial nine-page complaint is too vague to understand or respond to.

  • July 12, 2024

    AT&T Reveals Breach Of 'Nearly All' Users' Wireless Records

    AT&T disclosed Friday that hackers had downloaded phone call and text message records belonging to "nearly all" the telecom giant's wireless customers at various times between May 2022 and early last year, although the company stressed that the breached data did not include the contents of these communications or appear to be publicly available.

  • July 12, 2024

    Taxation With Representation: Ropes & Gray, Cravath, Latham

    In this Week's Taxation with Representation, Paramount Global merges with Skydance Media, Devon Energy acquires Grayson Mill Energy's Williston Basin oil and gas business, Ryan acquires Altus Group Ltd.'s property tax business, and Bain Capital buys Envestnet Inc.

  • July 12, 2024

    UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

    This past week in London has seen the owner of the Lambretta scooter brand Innocenti SA embroiled in a trademark dispute with a property developer, a clash between two art dealers over a collection of tapestries, Telecom Italia pursue a debt claim against a competing telecommunications company, and performing arts trade union Equity hit a casting directory for charging unfair subscription fees on actors. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

  • July 11, 2024

    Sens. Say AI Fuels Need For Data Privacy Law But Fail To Act

    Members of a key U.S. Senate committee Thursday largely agreed that companies' growing efforts to amass private information to fuel artificial intelligence technologies are accelerating the need for a federal data privacy framework, but they failed to make progress on a bipartisan proposal opposed by the committee's top Republican.

  • July 11, 2024

    Apple Ducks iPhone Web App Antitrust Suit, For Now

    Consumers will have to rejigger their proposed antitrust class action alleging Apple anticompetitively prevents iPhones from running web-based apps that don't need to be downloaded, after a California federal judge said Thursday that they've failed to show a conspiracy or connect the dots from company rules to customer injury.

  • July 11, 2024

    Feds Seek Input On 37 GHz Sharing Plans

    Federal regulators intend to ask for the public's input in August about a possible revamp of the lower 37 gigahertz airwaves, the U.S. Department of Commerce said.

  • July 11, 2024

    ISP Group Says FCC Remote Learning Plan On Shaky Ground

    Internet service providers say the Federal Communications Commision needs to revisit a proposal to fund Wi-Fi hot spots for students after the U.S. Supreme Court recently overturned the Chevron doctrine, which gave wide judicial deference to agencies.

  • July 11, 2024

    Media Matters Fights Texas AG's Bid To Revive X Probe

    Media Matters for America is urging the D.C. Circuit to keep intact a court order prohibiting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton from investigating the media watchdog over its reporting about the social media platform X, asserting that the D.C. courts are the correct place to litigate the "retaliatory" probe.

  • July 11, 2024

    Bally Sports Parent Axes TV Deal With NHL's Dallas Stars

    A Texas bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved a request by Bally Sports parent company Diamond Sports Group to reject a broadcast agreement with the NHL's Dallas Stars, the latest professional team to part ways with DSG.

  • July 11, 2024

    Deals Rumor Mill: Saudi Aramco, Paramount Global, Carlyle

    The Carlyle Group is considering acquiring Baxter International's kidney-care spinoff Vantive for about $4 billion, Aramco attracted more than $31 billion in orders for its $6 billion bond sale, and Paramount Global plans to cut more jobs before its merger with Skydance Media closes. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other notable deal rumors from the past week.

  • July 11, 2024

    Communications Co. Says Death Suit Skirted Probate Court

    Frontier Communications of America Inc. told a Connecticut state court that it must dismiss a wrongful death case brought against it after an elderly woman fell in her basement and could not call 911 because her phone lines were down, arguing her estate skipped a vital step before filing suit.

  • July 10, 2024

    FCC Says Nearly Half 'Rip And Replace' Providers Can't Finish

    The Federal Communications Commission said the agency is going to need another $3 billion if it's to keep its promise to reimburse all the companies who agreed to rip out and replace their Chinese-made technology to alleviate security concerns.

  • July 10, 2024

    Major Cable Group Opposes FirstNet Bid For 4.9 GHz Manager

    Cable trade group NCTA is urging the Federal Communications Commission to listen to the chorus of public safety groups who have been pushing hard against the idea of making AT&T's FirstNet the national manager of the 4.9 gigahertz public safety band.

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    Cell Tech Patent Holdup Is Stalling Automaker Innovation

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    Courts and Congress should seek to stem anticompetitive harm caused by standard-essential patent holders squeezing automakers with unfairly high royalties for cellular connectivity technology, says Charles Haake at Alliance for Automotive Innovation.

  • Mitigating Risks Amid 10-Year Sanctions Enforcement Window

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    In response to recent legislation, which doubles the statute of limitations for actions related to certain U.S. sanctions and provides regulators greater opportunity to investigate possible violations, companies should take specific steps to account for the increased civil and criminal enforcement risk, say attorneys at Freshfields.

  • Opinion

    States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions

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    Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.

  • Series

    Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.

  • Series

    After Chevron: FCC And Industry Must Prepare For Change

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    The Chevron doctrine was especially significant in the communications sector because of the indeterminacy of federal communications statutes, so the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of the doctrine could have big implications for those regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, bringing both opportunities and risks for companies, say Thomas Johnson and Michael Showalter at Wiley.

  • Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice

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    The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.

  • Why High Court Social Media Ruling Will Be Hotly Debated

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    In deciding the NetChoice cases that challenged Florida and Texas content moderation laws, what the U.S. Supreme Court justices said about social media platforms — and the First Amendment — will have implications and raise questions for nearly all online operators, say Jacob Canter and Joanna Rosen Forster at Crowell & Moring.

  • In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State

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    On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.

  • Series

    After Chevron: Expect Limited Changes In USPTO Rulemaking

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling overturning Chevron deference will have limited consequences for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office given the USPTO's unique statutory features, but it is still an important decision for matters of statutory interpretation, especially those involving provisions of the America Invents Act, say Andrei Iancu and Cooper Godfrey at Sullivan & Cromwell.

  • How High Court Approached Time Limit On Reg Challenges

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    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.

  • How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts

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    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.

  • Series

    Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    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.

  • Opinion

    Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper decision will shape the contours of industry self-regulation in the years to come, providing opportunities for this often-misunderstood practice, says Eric Reicin at BBB National Programs.

  • 3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court clearly thinks it has done something big in overturning the Chevron precedent that had given deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, but regulated parties have to consider how agencies retain significant power to shape the law and its meaning, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • Series

    After Chevron: Expect Few Changes In ITC Rulemaking

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's opinion overruling the Chevron doctrine will have less impact on the U.S. International Trade Commission than other agencies administering trade statutes, given that the commission exercises its congressionally granted authority in a manner that allows for consistent decision making at both agency and judicial levels, say attorneys at Polsinelli.

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