Public Policy

  • April 22, 2024

    FCC Fines AT&T, Internet Co. For Discussing Auction Bids

    AT&T Services Inc. and AMG Technology Investment Group LLC have not been able to convince the Federal Communications Commission to kibosh a combined $175,000 in fines for talking to each other during the bidding process for an auction of funds to subsidize infrastructure build-out.

  • April 22, 2024

    Ecuadorian Voters Reject Investor-State Arbitration

    Voters in Ecuador on Sunday decisively rejected a government proposal to recognize international arbitration to resolve investment disputes, nearly a year after the country's Constitutional Court found that the dispute resolution mechanism violates Ecuadorian law.

  • April 22, 2024

    FCC Eyes Rule Changes For Independent Video Programmers

    The Federal Communications Commission plans to explore how federal rules can better help independent video programmers thrive in a competitive media landscape and may prohibit a pair of provisions that affect their contracts with distributors.

  • April 22, 2024

    Seattle Property Owners Can't Use COVID To Stop $160M Tax

    A Washington appeals court said on Monday that Seattle can keep a $160 million property tax to pay for waterfront improvements, in an opinion that rejected an argument that diminished property values after COVID-19 should force the city to recalculate the tax.

  • April 22, 2024

    Texas, Mo. Seek Full Vacatur Of DHS Border Wall Plan

    Texas and Missouri on Monday urged a Texas federal court to fully vacate the Biden administration's plans to redirect border wall construction funds, saying the plan adopted an overarching policy the court had declared was unlawful.

  • April 22, 2024

    Jury Begins Deliberating In Ex-Ecuador Official's Bribery Trial

    Jurors began deliberating Monday afternoon in Florida federal court on the fate of the former comptroller of Ecuador, who prosecutors say took millions of dollars in bribes and directed his son, a banker in Miami, to launder the money.

  • April 22, 2024

    Trade Court Faults Feds For Ignored Russian Curbs In Probe

    The U.S. Court of International Trade faulted trade commissioners for failing to properly consider how U.S. sanctions on Russia affected oil and gas tube trade, ordering them to redo their ruling that tube imports harmed U.S. businesses.

  • April 22, 2024

    NC Justice Dept. Seeks Early Win In Promotion Bias Suit

    The North Carolina Department of Justice urged a federal court to take its side in an attorney's lawsuit alleging she faced discrimination at the agency for being a Black woman, arguing that the white man who got the job for which she'd interviewed was the most qualified candidate.

  • April 22, 2024

    Group Backs Net Neutrality, But Not Fees On Broadband

    Despite supporting a planned net neutrality regime, media advocacy group Free Press has argued against using the new rules to impose fees on the broadband industry to support telecommunications subsidies, saying the idea would only harm consumers.

  • April 22, 2024

    Appeals Court OKs Texas Income Pilot On Eve Of First Checks

    The Texas attorney general's office lost its bid Monday to block a Harris County guaranteed income program aimed at helping low-income neighborhoods, with a state appeals court refusing to halt the pilot two days before the first of 18 monthly payments are set to go out.

  • April 22, 2024

    NC Chemical Biz Wants Help Covering $5M Site Cleanup

    A chemical company asked a North Carolina federal court on Monday to force other chemical makers, including a Koch Industries subsidiary, to contribute to the roughly $5 million cleanup of a contaminated site, contending the other companies owned or operated parts of the site for years.

  • April 22, 2024

    Ohio AG Slams Halt Of Transgender Care, Youth Sports Limits

    Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost argued Monday in an emergency motion with the Ohio Supreme Court that the lower-court judge overstepped his authority when halting a bill, in its entirety, that would limit transgender care and participation in youth sports in the state.

  • April 22, 2024

    Congress Urged To Fund Attys For Immigrants In Removal

    A coalition of more than 100 immigrant rights groups and several local governments urged congressional appropriators on Monday to allocate funds next fiscal year to increase legal representation for individuals in removal proceedings to protect their due process rights.

  • April 22, 2024

    Conn. Lawmaker Wants To Allow Suits For AI Discrimination

    Connecticut citizens should be able to bring private lawsuits if an artificial intelligence system discriminates against them, a key lawmaker said Monday as the state's judiciary committee voted to advance a bill regulating the use of AI programs that can make significant decisions for consumers in the state.

  • April 22, 2024

    Estate Rep, Not Trustee, Ruled Proper Defendant In Death Suit

    A Minnesota appeals panel has thrown out a wrongful death suit filed by the daughter of a passenger killed in a car-motorcycle crash, saying that under state law she needed to file the suit against the personal representative of the driver's estate, not its trustee.

  • April 22, 2024

    Chamber Planning Prompt Challenge Of FTC Noncompete Ban

    U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials vowed Monday to immediately challenge an impending Federal Trade Commission rule that would ban essentially all noncompete agreements that employers impose on their workers, raising concerns focused principally on opening a "Pandora's box" of rulemaking they say is beyond FTC authority.

  • April 22, 2024

    Ayahuasca Church Settles Religious Freedom Suit With Feds

    A Phoenix-based church that uses the psychedelic ayahuasca as a sacrament announced Monday that it had reached a legal settlement in Arizona federal court with a slew of federal agencies to ensure its religious right to access the federally controlled substance.

  • April 22, 2024

    Colo. Sales Tax Can't Touch Netflix Subscriptions, Judge Says

    A Colorado judge has sided with Netflix Inc. in a fight with the state over whether its streaming service subscriptions are subject to sales tax, finding that because the subscriptions can't be physically touched, they don't fit the law's definition of "tangible" property.

  • April 22, 2024

    New Atlanta-Area City Beats Constitutional Challenge

    A Georgia state court judge Friday tossed a lawsuit challenging the legitimacy of a newly incorporated city in suburban Atlanta, ruling that a provision of the cityhood referendum allowing it to create a special tax district wasn't a violation of the state constitution.

  • April 22, 2024

    NY Becomes First State In US To Mandate Paid Prenatal Leave

    With its budget passage Saturday, New York became the first state in the U.S. to implement paid leave for pregnant employees to attend doctors' appointments, expanding its paid sick time requirements to create a new bank of up to 20 hours for this purpose.

  • April 22, 2024

    Congress Can Enact Corp. Transparency, Orgs Tell 11th Circ.

    Congress is empowered to require American companies to report their beneficial owners to the federal government because there is ample evidence they've previously been used to fund hostile foreign actors, evade sanctions and traffic drugs, two think tanks told the Eleventh Circuit in an amici brief.

  • April 22, 2024

    US Tile Cos. Say India Is Impeding Recovery From China Imports

    Nine U.S. tile makers called on the federal government to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on ceramic tiles from India, saying a surge of India-origin tiles thwarts their ability to recover from unfairly priced Chinese imports already hit with duties.

  • April 22, 2024

    With Power Rules On Deck, EPA Awards $7B In Solar Grants

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Monday said it awarded $7 billion in grants to boost residential solar energy development in low-income communities, kicking off a climate change-focused week in which the agency is expected to release pollution control rules for the power sector.

  • April 22, 2024

    As DA Aims High, Trump Defense Gets 'Down And Dirty'

    Donald Trump lifted the curtain Monday on his strategy to win over jurors in his New York criminal hush-money trial, as a lawyer for the former president hammered the state's "liar" star witness and rejected the prosecution's quixotic framing of the case, experts observed.

  • April 22, 2024

    DEA Tells 9th Circ. 'Right To Try' Doesn't Rewrite CSA

    The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is urging the Ninth Circuit to reject an appeal by a doctor who seeks to administer psilocybin to terminal cancer patients to treat depression, saying the Right to Try Act doesn't waive the Controlled Substances Act's prohibitions or authorize the DEA to do so.

Expert Analysis

  • Cos. Should Prepare For Foreign Data Transfer Regulations

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    A new regulatory regime designed to protect U.S. sensitive data from countries of concern may complicate an already intricate geopolitical landscape and affect even companies beyond the data industry, but with careful preparation, such companies can endeavor to minimize the effect on their business operations and ensure compliance, say David Plotinsky and Jiazhen Guo at Morgan Lewis.

  • Series

    Playing Hockey Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Nearly a lifetime of playing hockey taught me the importance of avoiding burnout in all aspects of life, and the game ultimately ended up providing me with the balance I needed to maintain success in my legal career, says John Riccione at Taft.

  • A Closer Look At Antitrust Agencies' Chat Platforms Guidance

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    Following the U.S. antitrust agencies' clarification that companies' preservation obligations extend through applications that automatically delete communications, firms should look at new compliance measures, including keeping control over retention settings, say John Ingrassia and Tim Burroughs at Proskauer.

  • Expect CFPB Enforcement To Continue Ramping Up

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    From hiring and structural changes to continuous external pressure from a variety of sources, all signs indicate that the recent rise of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's public enforcement activity will continue throughout the rest of the year, despite ongoing litigation that could upend everything, say attorneys at Paul Hastings.

  • ESG Challenges In Focus After Sierra Club Opposes SEC Rule

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    The Sierra Club's recent objection to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related disclosures for investors presents an unusual — pro-disclosure — legal challenge and an opportunity to take a close look at the varying critiques of ESG regulations, say Colin Pohlman, and Jane Luxton and Paul Kisslinger at Lewis Brisbois.

  • Opinion

    Why Supreme Court Should Allow Repatriation Tax To Stand

    If the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't reject the taxpayers' misguided claims in Moore v. U.S. that the mandatory repatriation tax is unconstitutional, it could wreak havoc on our system of taxation and result in a catastrophic loss of revenue for the government, say Christina Mason and Theresa Balducci at Herrick Feinstein.

  • For Lawyers, Pessimism Should Be A Job Skill, Not A Life Skill

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    A pessimistic mindset allows attorneys to be effective advocates for their clients, but it can come with serious costs for their personal well-being, so it’s crucial to exercise strategies that produce flexible optimism and connect lawyers with their core values, says Krista Larson at Stinson.

  • High Court's Jan. 6 Rioter Case May Have Wide Ripple Effects

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    The U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear oral arguments in Fischer v. United States, a case that will determine whether a law enacted after the Enron scandal can be used to prosecute Jan. 6 rioters, and could affect the government’s ability to charge those who impede a range of official proceedings, say Brook Dooley and Sara Fitzpatrick at Keker Van Nest.

  • How Export Controls Are Evolving To Address Tech Security

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    Recently proposed export control regulations from the U.S. Department of Commerce are an opportunity for stakeholders to help pioneer compliance for the increasing reliance on the use of outsourced technology service providers, say attorneys at Benesch.

  • HHS Opioid Rule Generally Benefits Providers And Patients

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    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' newly effective rule, the first substantial change to opioid treatment programs and delivery standards in over 20 years, significantly expands access and reduces stigma around certain medications, though the rule is narrow in scope and does have some limitations, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

  • 5th Circ. Clarifies What Is And Isn't A 'New Use' Of PFAS

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    The Fifth Circuit's March 21 decision in Inhance Technologies v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, preventing the EPA from regulating existing uses of PFAS under "significant new use" provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act, provides industry with much-needed clarity, say Joseph Schaeffer and Sloane Wildman at Babst Calland.

  • Handling Customer Complaints In Bank-Fintech Partnerships

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    As regulators mine consumer complaint databases for their next investigative targets, it is critical that fintech and bank partners adopt a well-defined and monitored process for ensuring proper complaint handling, including by demonstrating proficiency and following interagency guidance, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.

  • Trump's NY Civil Fraud Trial Spotlights Long-Criticized Law

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    A New York court’s recent decision holding former President Donald Trump liable for fraud brought old criticisms of the state law used against him back into the limelight — including its strikingly broad scope and its major departures from the traditional elements of common law fraud, say Mark Kelley and Lois Ahn at MoloLamken.

  • Opinion

    New Mexico Fire Victims Deserve Justice From Federal Gov't

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    Two years after the largest fire in New Mexico's history — a disaster caused by the U.S. government's mismanagement of prescribed burns — the Federal Emergency Management Agency must remedy its grossly inadequate relief efforts and flawed legal interpretations that have left victims of the fire still waiting for justice, says former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas.

  • Opinion

    $175M Bond Refiled By Trump Is Still Substantively Flawed

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    The corrected $175 million bond posted by former President Donald Trump on Thursday to stave off enforcement of the New York attorney general's fraud judgment against him remains substantively and procedurally flawed, as well as inadequately secured, says Adam Pollock of Pollock Cohen.

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