Commercial Contracts

  • April 19, 2024

    Mich. Panel Backs GM's Win In Supplier Pricing Spat

    A Michigan appellate panel has refused to reinstate a supplier's lawsuit claiming General Motors underpaid for five years' worth of deliveries, saying Semco Inc. didn't have the written evidence needed to hold GM to a promise to rectify the alleged shortfalls.

  • April 19, 2024

    Up Next At High Court: Abortions & Presidential Immunity

    The U.S. Supreme Court will return Monday for the term's final week of oral arguments, during which it will consider several high-stakes disputes, including whether a federal healthcare law can preempt state abortion bans and whether former President Donald Trump is entitled to immunity from criminal charges related to official acts.

  • April 19, 2024

    Student Housing Co. Founder Claims She Was Pushed Out

    A co-founder of a global company formed to provide booking for student housing sued her former colleague in Delaware's Court of Chancery on Friday, alleging a scheme by insiders to push her out of the business and then line up a sale to avoid a judgment after the move's reversal.

  • April 19, 2024

    Madonna Sued, This Time In D.C., Over Late Concert Start

    Madonna is facing another proposed class action alleging the pop star kept fans waiting hours for her concert to begin, this time from show attendees in Washington, D.C., who claim that Madonna and Live Nation are "a consumer's worst nightmare."

  • April 19, 2024

    Candy Crush Developer Gets Sweet Win In Fraud Suit

    A Virginia woman has been ordered to arbitrate her proposed class action accusing the Maltese developer of Candy Crush, the popular smartphone puzzle game, of fraudulently inducing her to drop more than $3,000 on a tournament by misrepresenting her chances of winning thousands of dollars and a trip to London.

  • April 19, 2024

    Fla. Solar Panel CEO Can Be Sued In Mich., Judge Says

    A Michigan federal judge ruled Thursday that a Florida resident and former CEO of a solar panel company must face racketeering claims in Michigan alongside the company for allegedly scamming customers because he used to own property in the state and lived there during the alleged scheme.

  • April 19, 2024

    Del. Justices Revive Margolis Edelstein Malpractice Suit

    Delaware's Supreme Court has reversed a lower-court decision that let Margolis Edelstein off the hook on claims that its incompetence caused GMG Insurance Agency to have to settle a case for $1.2 million, saying more consideration is needed to determine whether the firm was negligent.

  • April 19, 2024

    Lawyer Too Late To Collect Fees From Aretha Franklin Estate

    Michigan appellate judges have upheld the denial of a bid for attorney fees for a lawyer who complained he was not properly paid for work he did for Aretha Franklin, with judges determining the claims were time-barred.

  • April 19, 2024

    Sills Cummis Aims To Sink Atty Depo In Rock Musician Suit

    Sills Cummis & Gross PC fought back against a move to force the deposition of one of its partners in a malpractice suit this week, arguing the plaintiff, the former manager of musician Nile Rodgers, has "manufactured" the dispute by refusing to hold up his end of a deal to be deposed first.

  • April 19, 2024

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

    This past week in London has seen U.K. holiday resort chain Butlins target Aviva and a huddle of insurers, Meta and WhatsApp tackle a patents claim by telecommunications company Semitel, an ongoing construction dispute between Essex County Council and Balfour Beatty, and Formycon AG hit a pharmaceutical company for infringing medical products. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

  • April 18, 2024

    Citi Can Arbitrate Anti-Armenian Bias Suit, Judge Rules

    Citibank has won its bid to arbitrate proposed class claims that it discriminated against customers with Armenian surnames, as a Los Angeles federal judge found Wednesday that the plaintiff agreed to arbitrate allegations like these when she became a party to her Citibank card agreement.

  • April 18, 2024

    Lebanese Bank To Face Victims' Hezbollah Terrorism Suit

    New York's highest court ruled Thursday that an entity that acquires another entity's liabilities and assets inherits its status for purposes of personal jurisdiction even if there is no merger, greenlighting litigation targeting a Lebanese bank over its predecessor's alleged assistance to Hezbollah.

  • April 18, 2024

    Mich. High Court Takes Up Insurer Garnishment Dispute

    The Michigan Supreme Court agreed Thursday to consider whether an insurer's supposed bad faith refusal to settle a claim can be litigated in a garnishment action in The Burlington Insurance Co.'s appeal of an injured worker's attempt to collect the unsatisfied portion of a $13.7 million judgment.

  • April 18, 2024

    $100M Arbitration Award Restored In Colo. Dispensary Fight

    A Colorado appellate panel on Thursday largely reinstated a roughly $100 million arbitration award in a dispute between former business partners in the cannabis dispensary chain Native Roots, finding no basis to conclude the arbitrator was biased.

  • April 18, 2024

    AGs, Google Defend $700M Play Store Deal Ripped By Judge

    A group of state attorneys general and Google defended the proposed $700 million settlement both sides brokered in the states' antitrust suit against the company in December, telling a San Francisco federal judge that the deal is consistent with Ninth Circuit precedent and releases only a limited set of claims against Google for a seven-year period.

  • April 18, 2024

    T-Mobile, Others Rip 'Hodgepodge' Forced Store Closings Suit

    T-Mobile says it doesn't belong in a suit accusing it and another company of misleading store owners by promising it would open hundreds of new stores in the wake of its $26 billion merger with Sprint in 2020 only to turn around and shut the plaintiffs down.

  • April 18, 2024

    Elevance Units Not Fiduciaries Of Union Plans, Court Told

    A lawsuit that two union healthcare funds brought against Elevance Health Inc. and several subsidiaries should be dismissed because it does not plausibly allege that fund money was overspent on medical care and administrative fees, and the defendants did not have fiduciary responsibilities, attorneys told a Connecticut federal judge on Thursday.

  • April 18, 2024

    Investors In Failed Manila Casino Deal Sue For SPAC Shares

    Shareholders in a blank-check company that failed to take a Philippines casino public have intervened in two Delaware Chancery Court lawsuits to recoup their failed investments, with one seeking to litigate damages from the busted $2.6 billion deal and the other pushing for the company's liquidation.

  • April 18, 2024

    Kimmel Atty Defends Airing 'Patently Ridiculous' Santos Clips

    A lawyer for Jimmy Kimmel told a Manhattan federal judge Thursday that the fair use doctrine of U.S. copyright law allows the late-night host to air silly videos that he tricked indicted former congressman George Santos into making on the personalized messaging platform Cameo.  

  • April 18, 2024

    No Redo For Insurers In COVID-19 Coverage Row, Tribe Says

    The Ninth Circuit should stand by its decision ordering an AIG unit and other insurers to litigate the Suquamish Tribe's COVID-19 business interruption claims in tribal court, the tribe told the appeals court, saying the insurers' request for a do-over distorts the panel's decision and controlling law.

  • April 18, 2024

    9th Circ. Affirms Rosette's Win In Tribe Representation Fight

    The Ninth Circuit has backed a federal district court ruling that found Rosette LLP is not responsible for using allegedly false advertising to induce the Quechan Tribe to drop Williams & Cochrane LLP as counsel on the verge of closing a lucrative gambling contract.

  • April 18, 2024

    Red Roof Franchise Co. Settles IP Fight With Motel Operator

    Red Roof Inn's Ohio-based location franchising company and the Toledo motel operator it accused of still using the hospitality chain's branding almost two years after its franchise agreement was terminated have agreed to settle the intellectual property dispute between them, according to a new joint notice.

  • April 17, 2024

    7th Circ. Affirms Toss Of Indy TV Network's Bias Claims

    The Seventh Circuit upheld the lower court's toss of a Black-owned broadcasting company's racial discrimination claims against DirecTV and Dish Network, agreeing that the underlying retransmission negotiation dispute was a matter of bargaining power, not bias.

  • April 17, 2024

    Ga. Jury Finds Supplier At Fault For Botched Herbicide Job

    An Atlanta federal jury on Wednesday found a company hired to thin out woods on a rural Georgia property and a subcontractor brought in to spray the property with herbicide were responsible for wrecking a developer's plans for turning the location into a quail hunting retreat. 

  • April 17, 2024

    Wash. Winemaker Wants Insurers To Cover $30M Spoiled Wine

    A Washington state winemaker has launched a lawsuit against certain Lloyd's of London underwriters in state court, seeking coverage under a pair of insurance policies for more than $30 million worth of cabernet sauvignon that became too acidic to sell while being stored by another wine producer prior to bottling.

Expert Analysis

  • Stay Interviews Are Key To Retaining Legal Talent

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    Even as the economy shifts and layoffs continue, law firms still want to retain their top attorneys, and so-called stay interviews — informal conversations with employees to identify potential issues before they lead to turnover — can be a crucial tool for improving retention and morale, say Tina Cohen Nicol and Kate Reder Sheikh at Major Lindsey.

  • Independent Regulator Could Chip Away At FIFA Autonomy

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    After the U.K.'s recent proposal for an independent football regulator, FIFA's commitment to safeguarding football association autonomy remains unwavering, despite a history of complexities arising from controversies in the bidding and hosting of major tournaments, say Yasin Patel at Church Court Chambers and Caitlin Haberlin-Chambers at SLAM Global.

  • Series

    Spray Painting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My experiences as an abstract spray paint artist have made me a better litigator, demonstrating — in more ways than one — how fluidity and flexibility are necessary parts of a successful legal practice, says Erick Sandlin at Bracewell.

  • Examining The Arbitration Clause Landscape Amid Risks

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    Amid a new wave of mass arbitrations, recent developments in the courts and from the American Arbitration Association suggest that companies should improve arbitration clause drafting to protect themselves against big-ticket settlements and avoid major potential liability, say attorneys at Benesch.

  • 10 Areas To Watch In Aerospace And Defense Contracting Law

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    The near future holds a number of key areas to watch in aerospace and defense contracting law, ranging from dramatic developments in the space industry to recent National Defense Authorization Act updates, which are focused on U.S. leadership in emerging technologies, say Joseph Berger and Chip Purcell at Thompson Hine.

  • Meta Data Scraping Case Has Lessons For Platforms, AI Cos.

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    The California federal court ruling that artificial intelligence company Bright Data's scraping of public data from Meta social media sites does not constitute a breach of contract signals that platforms should review their terms of service and AI companies could face broad implications for their training of algorithms, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Opinion

    Judicial Independence Is Imperative This Election Year

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    As the next election nears, the judges involved in the upcoming trials against former President Donald Trump increasingly face political pressures and threats of violence — revealing the urgent need to safeguard judicial independence and uphold the rule of law, says Benes Aldana at the National Judicial College.

  • Series

    Riding My Peloton Bike Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Using the Peloton platform for cycling, running, rowing and more taught me that fostering a mind-body connection will not only benefit you physically and emotionally, but also inspire stamina, focus, discipline and empathy in your legal career, says Christopher Ward at Polsinelli.

  • Spartan Arbitration Tactics Against Well-Funded Opponents

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    Like the ancient Spartans who held off a numerically superior Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae, trial attorneys and clients faced with arbitration against an opponent with a bigger war chest can take a strategic approach to create a pass to victory, say Kostas Katsiris and Benjamin Argyle at Venable.

  • What 2 Years Of Ukraine-Russia Conflict Can Teach Cos.

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    A few key legal lessons for the global business community since Russia's invasion of Ukraine could help protect global commerce in times of future conflict, including how to respond to disparate trade restrictions and sanctions, navigate war-related contract disputes, and protect against heightened cybersecurity risks, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Assessing 2 Years Of High Court's Arbitration Waiver Ruling

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    In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Morgan v. Sundance, clarifying that no special rules apply to waiver of arbitration provisions, the ruling has had immediate ramifications in federal courts, but it may take some time for the effects to be felt on other federal issues and in state courts, say attorneys at Norton Rose.

  • What Recent Study Shows About AI's Promise For Legal Tasks

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    Amid both skepticism and excitement about the promise of generative artificial intelligence in legal contexts, the first randomized controlled trial studying its impact on basic lawyering tasks shows mixed but promising results, and underscores the need for attorneys to proactively engage with AI, says Daniel Schwarcz at University of Minnesota Law School.

  • The Epic Antitrust Cases And Challenges Of Injunctive Relief

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    The Epic cases against Apple and Google offer a window into the courts' considerable challenges in Big Tech litigation and establishing injunctive relief that enhances competition and benefits consumers, say Kelly Lear Nordby and Jon Tomlin at Ankura Consulting.

  • UMG-TikTok IP Rift Highlights Effective Rights Control Issues

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    Despite Universal Music Group's recent withdrawal of TikTok's licensing rights to its music catalog, the platform struggles to control uploads and reproductions of copyrighted material, highlighting the inherent tension between creative freedom and effective rights control in the age of social media, says Simon Goodbody at Bray & Krais.

  • Fintech 'Prenups': Planning For A Card Program Breakup

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    After a year of economic downturns, some banks and their fintech partners are realizing they may have rushed to the altar without a good prenup, but planning ahead can curb both foreseeable and unexpected issues in the event of a termination of a bank-fintech card-issuing agreement, say Andrew Grant at Ketsal and Richard Malish at Community Federal Savings Bank.

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