Contentious Del. Corporate Law Changes Sail Through Senate

By Jeff Montgomery

After triggering rare public dissent, a multipart Delaware General Corporation Law amendment that would let boards cede some governance rights to big stockholders whisked through the state's Senate on Thursday without debate or an opposing vote, with a House vote expected as early as next week.

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Supreme Court Tightens NLRB Injunction Test

By Braden Campbell

The U.S. Supreme Court made it tougher for the National Labor Relations Board to win injunctions against employers Thursday in a case involving Starbucks, directing courts to strictly apply a four-factor test when the board sues to stem alleged unfair labor practices.

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Tesla Shareholders Approve Musk's Compensation Package

By Sarah Jarvis

Tesla's shareholders voted to approve a multibillion-dollar compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk, the company's top lawyer announced Thursday during a meeting in which investors also approved moving the company's incorporation from Delaware to Texas.

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Apple Workers' Suit Says Women Are Paid Less For Same Work

By Hailey Konnath

A pair of Apple workers lodged a proposed class action in California state court Thursday claiming that the company has systematically paid thousands of women less than their male counterparts for substantially similar work for years.

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Visa, Mastercard Fee Deal Not 'Likely' To Get Court Approval

By Hailey Konnath

A New York federal judge said at a hearing Thursday that she will "likely not approve" Mastercard and Visa's proposed settlement in long-running litigation over merchant transaction fees, according to the case docket.

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Goldman Exec's 'Mind Entirely Blown' By Fake Ozy Media Call

By Stewart Bishop

A former Goldman Sachs executive who was looking into taking a stake in Carlos Watson's Ozy Media testified on Thursday that she was floored during a due diligence call when it became clear that someone was impersonating a YouTube executive in an apparent effort to persuade the bank to invest in Watson's startup.

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Tesla Investors Sue Over Musk's Extracurricular xAI Diversion

By Lauren Berg

A union pension fund and two individual investors hit Elon Musk and Tesla's board of directors with a derivative suit Thursday in Delaware Chancery Court over the CEO's breakaway effort to develop a new artificial intelligence venture, xAI, by diverting talent and resources from Tesla's own AI initiative.

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Canadian Businessman Cops To Stealing Tesla Trade Secrets

By Lauren Berg

A Canadian businessman residing in China pled guilty in New York federal court to scheming to sell secret battery manufacturing technology that belongs to Tesla, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.

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Analysis

How 3 Firms Cleared 2 Ex-Autonomy Execs In HP Fraud Case

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal jury's rejection last week of fraud charges against the founder and former finance vice president of British software company Autonomy validated an approach by the defendants' three law firms — Steptoe, Clifford Chance and Bird Marella — to form a "seamless" collaboration throughout the trial, from jury selection to closing arguments.

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SEC's Gensler Rethinking AI Advising, Crypto Custody Regs

By Jessica Corso

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler told senators Thursday that the agency could rewrite a pair of proposals governing broker-dealers' use of artificial intelligence and the handling of customers' cryptocurrency assets in the wake of "robust" feedback from both supporters and naysayers.

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GOP Lawmakers Want China Patent Data Amid Tech Pact Talks

By Dorothy Atkins

Republican lawmakers are urging the U.S. Commerce Department to provide a full accounting of whether the U.S. government has funded research that resulted in Chinese patents, arguing they need the data to assess potential national security risks as the Biden administration negotiates a new science and technology agreement with China.

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Chinese Officials Promise Response On EV Tariffs

By Jennifer Doherty

A Chinese Foreign Ministry official told reporters on Thursday that Beijing "will take all measures necessary" to combat planned European Union tariffs on its electric-vehicle exports, after Brussels announced preliminary countervailing duty rates of up to 38.1%.

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FTC's Ferguson Says He's A Law Enforcer, Not A Policymaker

By Matthew Perlman

Recently minted Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Ferguson said Thursday that he views his new role as a law enforcer and not a policymaker and said the biggest issue for antitrust law right now is dealing with Big Tech.

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FTC Urged To Get Moving On Stalled Privacy Rulemaking

By Allison Grande

Nearly three dozen consumer advocacy groups are calling on the Federal Trade Commission to stop dragging its feet on efforts announced almost two years ago to craft sweeping data privacy and security rules, arguing that time is running out for the agency to clamp down on companies' "historic" drive to amass personal information and track consumers online. 

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Justices Say 'Trump Too Small' TM Denial No Speech Violation

By Ivan Moreno

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday concluded "Trump Too Small" cannot be a registered trademark because it would violate a federal prohibition on using a living person's name without their consent, ruling against a California attorney who said using the phrase should be considered protected political speech.

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Analysis

'Trump Too Small' Opinion Leaves Some Justices, Attys Vexed

By Ivan Moreno

In denying a bid to register "Trump Too Small" as a trademark for apparel, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously concluded Thursday there was no free speech violation. But Justice Clarence Thomas' opinion leaning on tradition to justify prohibiting names as marks without an individual's consent left some justices and attorneys dissatisfied.

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Textualism Still Dominates Justices' Arbitration Decisions

By Caroline Simson

The U.S. Supreme Court's approach to arbitration issues this past term has helped to exemplify a growing trend by the justices in favor of textualism and away from a less nuanced pro-arbitration mindset that had been favored in previous decades, experts say.

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Chamber Asks DC Circ. To Reject EPA's PFAS Designation

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

Three business groups, spearheaded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have gone to the D.C. Circuit to challenge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's recent decision to declare two "forever chemicals" to be hazardous materials under federal law.

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9th Circ. Doubts SPAC Investors Can Sue Lucid Over Merger

By Dorothy Atkins

A Ninth Circuit panel appeared skeptical Thursday of investors' bid to revive a proposed class action alleging that Lucid duped them into buying stock in a special-purpose acquisition company ahead of the electric-vehicle maker's $11.75 billion merger, with two of three judges doubting that the SPAC investors have standing to sue.

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Zoom's $150M Investor Deal Nears OK, But $50K Award Iffy

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge indicated Thursday that he'll preliminarily approve Zoom's $150 million deal to end claims it misled investors by stating that it offered end-to-end encryption on its videoconferencing software, but told the plaintiffs' lawyers, "You're going to have to persuade me" to award the lead plaintiff $50,000.

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Clearview AI Makes 'Unique' BIPA Deal Tied To Future Value

By Lauraann Wood

Plaintiffs in multidistrict litigation targeting Clearview AI's allegedly unlawful practice of "scraping" internet photos to collect biometric facial data told an Illinois federal judge on Wednesday they have struck a "unique" deal giving the class a stake in the company's future growth.

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Chegg Directors, Auditor Beat Academic Cheating Lawsuit

By Jeff Montgomery

Delaware's Court of Chancery has issued a failing grade to a stockholder of online book and study aid giant Chegg Inc. who accused the company of operating as a cheating service for students, dismissing the case for lack of supporting facts.

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Starbucks Must Share Hot-Drink Training Info In Burn Suit

By Danielle Ferguson

Starbucks must turn over information on how it trains employees to handle hot drinks at drive-throughs and on recent complaints received in the Detroit area, a Michigan federal judge said Thursday after finding the information is relevant to a customer's suit alleging she was severely burned when a lid popped off her hot tea cup.

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DirecTV's 'NFL Tax' Gouged Sunday Ticket Buyers, Jury Told

By Craig Clough

DirecTV gouged its Sunday Ticket subscribers by charging 24.6% above the "optimal price" it should have charged if the company was looking to maximize its profits instead of instituting an "NFL tax," an economist told a California federal jury considering multibillion-dollar antitrust claims against the league on Thursday.

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Pryor Cashman Aided Developer Fraud, Owes $5.7M, Cos. Say

By Emma Cueto

New York-based law firm Pryor Cashman LLP has been hit with a $5.7 million lawsuit in state court accusing it of aiding and abetting fraud while representing a real estate developer by allegedly providing false information to another party in a transaction involving a Manhattan property.

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Apple Fights To Ax 'Speculative' IPhone App Antitrust Suit

By Bonnie Eslinger

Apple urged a California federal judge Thursday to toss a proposed antitrust class action alleging the company illegally prevents iPhones from running web-based apps that don't need to be downloaded, arguing consumers don't have standing to bring the "speculative" litigation since they're not directly injured by Apple's agreements with developers.

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Subway Can't Nix Arb. Award To Family Of Murdered Worker

By Gina Kim

A Texas appellate panel on Wednesday declined to vacate an arbitration award to the family of a woman killed while working at Subway after rejecting Subway's argument the neutral arbitrator's Facebook posts complaining about State Farm and its attorneys are evidence of bias, finding neither are involved in the underlying case in any way.

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Fintech Remitly Hires Ex-Google Compliance Chief

By Sarah Jarvis

Remitly has hired Google's former chief compliance officer to run global compliance and enterprise risk programs at the remittance service, bringing his experience that includes risk leadership positions at TD Ameritrade, Vanguard and Goldman Sachs.

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Longtime Dentons Atty Rejoins Firm After In-House Stint

By Adrian Cruz

Dentons announced that an attorney who previously spent over 25 years at the firm and its preceding organization rejoined its Los Angeles office as a partner in the capital markets practice, following several years of working as general counsel for lending companies.

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Manatt Picks Up Crypto Co. DCG's Legal Head As New Partner

By Emily Sawicki

The former top lawyer for Digital Currency Group has departed the cryptocurrency company to join professional services firm Manatt as a financial services partner based in New York, focusing on blockchain, emerging companies and venture capital, the firm announced Thursday.

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New State Judge, UT Austin Prof Headed To Biz Court

By Catherine Marfin

In his latest round of business court appointments, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced Thursday that a recently appointed state court judge and the owner of Sharp Appellate PLLC are his two picks for the new venue's San Antonio-area seats.

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Where Anti-Discrimination Law Stands 4 Years After Bostock

On the fourth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Bostock ruling, Evan Parness and Abby Rickeman at Covington take stock of how the decision, which held that Title VII protects employees from discrimination because of their sexual orientation and gender identity, has affected anti-discrimination law at the state and federal levels.

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Wiretap Use In Cartel Probes Likely To Remain An Exception

Although the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division has recently signaled interest in wiretaps, the use of this technology to capture evidence of antitrust conspiracies and pursue monopolization as a criminal matter has been rare historically, and is likely to remain so, say Carsten Reichel and Will Conway at DLA Piper.

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Updates To CFTC Large Trader Report Rules Leave Questions

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's updated large trader position reporting rules for futures and options is a much-needed change that modernizes a rule that had gone largely untouched since the 1980s, but the updates leave important questions unanswered, say Katherine Cooper and Maggie DePoy at BCLP.

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Series

Playing Chess Makes Me A Better Lawyer

There are many ways that chess skills translate directly into lawyer skills, but for me, the bigger career lessons go beyond the direct parallels — playing chess has shown me the value of seeing gradual improvement in and focusing deep concentration on a nonwork endeavor, says attorney Steven Fink.

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All The World's A Stage For Tony-Nominated Dechert Co-Chair

By Tracey Read

Mark Thierfelder is not only a Dechert LLP co-chair and partner; he’s also a Tony-nominated Broadway producer up for an award this June 16. Here, Law360 Pulse talks to Thierfelder on how he balances his legal work with his creative pursuits.

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Littler Aims To End Theft Suit After $1M Deal With Ex-Firm Atty

By Lynn LaRowe

Littler Mendelson PC this week moved to drop a lawsuit accusing a former associate of stealing confidential documents following a settlement in which the firm agreed to pay her nearly $1 million, though a separate, newer case in which the lawyer accuses Littler of violating that deal remains open.

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McDermott Says Financial Firm Owes $800K In Atty Fees

By Madison Arnold

McDermott Will & Emery LLP says it is owed more than $800,000 in legal fees for representing a financial firm's employee in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and a lawsuit by his former employer.

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Real Estate Broker Claims Lewis Brisbois Breached Deal

By Madison Arnold

A real estate broker who had exclusive rights to represent Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP has slammed the firm with a breach of contract suit in California state court, alleging its abrupt termination of their deal will cost him millions in commissions.

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Goetz Fitzpatrick To Merge With Platzer Swergold Next Year

By Tracey Read

Goetz Fitzpatrick LLP and Platzer Swergold Goldberg Katz & Jaslow LLP will combine forces next year to create a single New York City firm.

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Update On Ex-George Mason Prof's Suits Over Sex Allegations

By Aebra Coe

After two women came forward last August accusing former BigLaw partner, FTC commissioner and George Mason University law professor Joshua D. Wright of sexual improprieties with students and direct reports, a number of additional accusations and lawsuits followed. Here are updates on the litigation and everything else surrounding the allegations.

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Analysis

Blistering Dissents Belie Justices' Penchant For Consensus

By Katie Buehler

Thirteen days into June, the U.S. Supreme Court had recorded one of the highest rates of unanimous decisions in the past four decades. But the era of historic consensus was tarnished a bit Friday when the court issued three split decisions and two scathing dissents highlighting how much the nine justices differ.

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DOJ Declines To Prosecute AG Garland For Contempt

By Courtney Bublé

The U.S. Department of Justice is declining to prosecute Attorney General Merrick Garland after the House voted earlier this week to hold him in contempt for not turning over audio recordings of the president and his ghostwriter speaking with special counsel Robert Hur for his investigation into President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents.

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Senate Passes Bill For State, Local Judge Security

By Courtney Bublé

The U.S. Senate has passed a bill unanimously to better protect state and local judges from threats amid "unacceptable attacks" on the judiciary.

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Hunter Biden Axes Data Privacy Suit Against Giuliani, For Now

By Emily Sawicki

Hunter Biden has tentatively agreed to drop a federal computer fraud and digital privacy suit against Rudy Giuliani and various other defendants relating to alleged data theft from his infamous laptop, after the case was partially stalled due to Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings Giuliani commenced in December.

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Mistrial Declared In Florida Student Debtor Lawsuit

By David Minsky

A Florida federal judge on Friday declared a mistrial in the lawsuit against a Boca Raton-based law firm accused of falsely promising to eliminate student loan debts in exchange for a fee following testimony from a former client.

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Burford Bound To Sysco And Pilgrim's Unsigned Chicken Deal

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois federal judge on Friday rejected a Burford subsidiary's bid to block a global protein price-fixing settlement that Pilgrim's Pride and Sysco memorialized through email but never signed on paper, saying it's clear the parties reached a material agreement.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Williams & Connolly LLP and Littler Mendelson PC lead this week's edition of Law360's Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court made it tougher for the National Labor Relations Board to win injunctions against employers.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

The governor of Vermont vetoed a legislative proposal that would have given consumers not only new data privacy rights but also the rare opportunity to sue large businesses for certain violations, and a multipart Delaware General Corporation Law amendment that would let boards cede some governance rights to big stockholders sailed through the state's Senate without debate or an opposing vote. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen toy company Jellycat hit supermarket Aldi with an intellectual property claim, AIG start proceedings against firefighting foam company Angus International Safety Group, and the Solicitors Regulation Authority file a legal claim against the Post Office amid the ongoing Horizon IT scandal. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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