Telecommunications

  • July 26, 2024

    Telecom Worker Data Breach Deal Gets Final Approval

    A North Carolina federal judge gave his final sign-off on a class action settlement between telecommunications provider CommScope and its current and former employees who said it failed to protect their personal information and then took months to tell them about a data breach.

  • July 26, 2024

    Illinois Cases To Watch In 2024: Midyear Report

    Illinois attorneys say they are considering the path forward for Springfield corruption prosecutions following a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, as well as paying attention to what comes next in Motorola Solutions' trade secret contempt fight and potential new guidelines for music copyright cases. Here are the cases to watch in Illinois for the rest of 2024.

  • July 25, 2024

    Meta, Snap Can't Ignore Murder Case Subpoenas, Court Says

    Social media companies' ability to access and use their customers' information means they fall outside the scope of the Stored Communications Act, a California appellate court has ruled, rejecting Meta Platforms Inc. and Snap Inc.'s argument that the SCA's disclosure limitations mean they can't comply with subpoenas in a murder case.

  • July 25, 2024

    Google Wants To Keep 'Monopolistic Status Quo,' Epic Says

    Epic Games assailed Google on Wednesday for overcomplicating and overpricing changes to the Play Store required by the gaming giant's antitrust jury win, arguing that what Google says are needed security and maintenance protocols are just the latest effort to relitigate the case and "weaken the remedy."

  • July 25, 2024

    Feds Unseal Indictment Against Fla. IT Worker in Spying Case

    The U.S. Department of Justice has unsealed an indictment charging a Chinese-born American citizen with conspiring to act as an agent of the People's Republic of China, saying the PRC used the Florida information technology worker as a "cooperative contact" to support its intelligence goals.

  • July 25, 2024

    FCC Keeps Chin Up, But Chevron Woes Won't Soon Fade

    After the U.S. Supreme Court term stampeded over long-established elements of administrative law this summer, the future of several major Federal Communications Commission initiatives was cast into doubt, but the agency says it's still optimistic it can navigate the new challenges.

  • July 25, 2024

    Cable Group Says Funds May Cover Less Under BEAD Rules

    The funds the Biden administration has put into the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program should be enough to get most eligible locations connected if the National Telecommunications and Information Administration doesn't set any mandates on how much that service will cost after it's there, a cable trade group says.

  • July 25, 2024

    Advocacy Group Pushes FCC For Hearing On Fox TV License

    An advocacy group accusing a Philadelphia Fox television station of knowingly airing harmful conspiracy theories following the 2020 election has told the Federal Communications Commission the group has collected more than 25,000 signatures from people saying the agency should grant a hearing on the subject of yanking the station's license.

  • July 25, 2024

    ​​​​​​​Justices Urged To Revisit FCC Fund After 5th Circ. Ruling

    Free-market groups asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to take another look at their challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's low-income and rural subsidy programs after the Fifth Circuit ruled the system was unconstitutional.

  • July 25, 2024

    Samsung Might Not Control Face App Data, Ill. Judge Rules

    An Illinois federal judge on Wednesday threw out a putative class action alleging facial-recognition technology in an application on Samsung smartphones and tablets violates the state's privacy law, saying while the company controls the app and its technology, there's no claim it receives the app's data or even has access to it.

  • July 25, 2024

    Divided FCC Floats AI Disclosure Rule For Political Ads

    The Federal Communications Commission is moving forward with a proposal to require that radio and television broadcasters disclose when political advertising uses artificial intelligence.

  • July 25, 2024

    Ex-Pharma Exec's Counsel Accused Of Reading Stolen Emails

    A New Jersey pharmaceutical startup wants to disqualify the "tainted" attorneys of a former executive who was allegedly caught spying on the CEO, claiming the attorneys should have immediately shielded their eyes when they realized their client was using stolen, privileged emails to carry out an "attempted shakedown."

  • July 24, 2024

    11th Circ. Says Nokia Unit Immune From Worker's Negligence Suit

    The Eleventh Circuit on Wednesday declined to revive a suit against Nokia subsidiary SAC Wireless LLC by a worker who was electrocuted and seriously injured while helping remove a crane from a cell tower site in Georgia, ruling that the worker was an employee of a subcontractor, not SAC Wireless.

  • July 24, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Rejects Challenges To PTAB's Network IP Decisions

    The Federal Circuit rejected an internet router-maker's bid to restore testimony that could have flipped two decisions at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, ruling Wednesday that the court won't revive ideas developed decades ago by a since-bankrupt tech company.

  • July 24, 2024

    DOJ Says NY Judge Muffed Standing In DirecTV Price-Fix Case

    Paying inflated prices isn't the only way someone can be injured by price-fixing, and a New York federal court was wrong to rule that it was in a case brought by DirecTV over retransmission fees, the U.S. Department of Justice has told the Second Circuit.

  • July 24, 2024

    Intelsat Insider Trading Claims Don't Connect, 9th Circ. Rules

    The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday affirmed a lower court's dismissal of claims accusing satellite company Intelsat stakeholders of insider trading, saying the suing hedge funds did not properly plead that the shareholders possessed material nonpublic information at the time of their trades.

  • July 24, 2024

    IPhone Users Push For Apple Docs On Korea, EU App Stores

    Plaintiffs in the ongoing App Store antitrust suit are accusing Apple of stonewalling their effort to obtain documents detailing procompetitive changes the company made to the online marketplace in South Korea and Europe, saying the tech giant won't turn over the information because it'd undermine Apple's core defense.

  • July 24, 2024

    Senate Dems Demand Scrutiny Of T-Mobile, UScellular Deal

    T-Mobile's plan to buy the wireless operations of yet another mobile network operator — this time, United States Cellular Corp. — several years after it was allowed to merge with Sprint to become the third biggest carrier in the country is a bad idea, a handful of Democratic senators have told the U.S. Department of Justice and FCC.

  • July 24, 2024

    Ex-AT&T Exec Wants Madigan Bribery Charges Dropped

    A former AT&T executive who's accused of scheming to illegally influence former Illinois House speaker Michael Madigan's policy decisions argued that the U.S. Supreme Court's recent bribery ruling warrants chopping a conspiracy and bribery charge from his case.

  • July 24, 2024

    5th Circ. Strikes Down FCC's Universal Service Fund

    The full Fifth Circuit struck down the Federal Communications Commission's system for subsidizing telecommunications service for rural and low-income users as unconstitutional Wednesday, reversing a panel decision and triggering a circuit split with three other appeals courts that upheld the fee regime.

  • July 24, 2024

    T-Mobile Plugs $4.9B Into JV With KKR To Buy Metronet

    T-Mobile announced Wednesday that it has partnered up with private equity giant KKR to acquire pure-play fiber company Metronet in a joint venture that sees T-Mobile investing roughly $4.9 billion at deal close, in a transaction built by eight law firms.

  • July 23, 2024

    Knives Out For Another Pro-Agency Landmark After Chevron

    Only weeks after U.S. Supreme Court conservatives took a hatchet to the judicial deference shown to federal agencies, right-leaning lawyers are imploring the justices to rock the administrative law realm again by gutting a New Deal-era precedent at the heart of the modern regulatory system.

  • July 23, 2024

    ​​​​​​​Nigeria Fines Meta $220M Over WhatsApp Privacy Policy

    Nigerian regulators have hit Meta with a $220 million fine over alleged privacy and antitrust violations and ordered the company to stop sharing WhatsApp users' data with advertisers without express permission, the culmination of a nearly three-year-long investigative process.

  • July 23, 2024

    Microsoft Calls FTC Price Hike Claims 'Misleading' At 9th Circ

    Microsoft pushed back against the Federal Trade Commission's contention that an increase in the company's gaming subscription pricing is evidence of the anticompetitive effects of the software giant's $68.7 billion acquisition of game developer Activision Blizzard Inc., calling the commission out for trying to "reinvent" its case against the merger on appeal to the Ninth Circuit.

  • July 23, 2024

    US, UK, EU Antitrust Enforcers Outline AI Principles

    The top antitrust officials from the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, the European Commission and the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority presented a unified international commitment Tuesday to closely monitor artificial intelligence technology and the companies that they warned could wield AI anticompetitively.

Expert Analysis

  • Big Business May Come To Rue The Post-Administrative State

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    Many have framed the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions overturning Chevron deference and extending the window to challenge regulations as big wins for big business, but sand in the gears of agency rulemaking may be a double-edged sword, creating prolonged uncertainty that impedes businesses’ ability to plan for the future, says Todd Baker at Columbia University.

  • A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates

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    Hourly rates for partners, associates and support staff continued to rise in the first half of this year, and this growth shows no signs of slowing for the rest of 2024 and into next year, driven in part by the return of mergers and acquisitions and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, says Chuck Chandler at Valeo Partners.

  • 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.

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