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Top News
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September 20, 2012
Courts Struggle To Lay Out Social Media Discovery Limits
A California judge's recent rejection of Home Depot Inc.'s bid for broad access to social networking posts made by a former employee bringing a discrimination lawsuit shows that courts are still grappling with where to draw the line on discovery from social media sites, attorneys say.
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September 20, 2012
Regulators OK Shell Preparatory Drilling In Beaufort Sea
Offshore regulators told Royal Dutch Shell PLC on Thursday that it could begin the first stages of drilling for oil in Alaska's Beaufort Sea, allowing the company to prepare wells that could begin producing next year.
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September 20, 2012
Calif. Atty Sued Over Spycams In Coffee Bean Restrooms
A California attorney was hit with a proposed class action Thursday by a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf customer claiming the Stone Dolginer & Wenzel partner had planted "spycam" recording devices in the coffee shop's restrooms and that the shop's management had attempted to conceal the incidents.
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September 20, 2012
FTC Sets Sights On High Court Pay-For-Delay Fight
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz said Thursday that the agency will likely ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Eleventh Circuit's recent ruling reiterating that pay-for-delay pharmaceutical patent settlements are generally legal.
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September 20, 2012
Sen. Committee Approves Decades-Old Int'l Patent Treaties
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation Thursday that would implement two long-stalled treaties designed to help American inventors secure patent protection overseas, sending the Clinton-era pacts to the full Senate.
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September 20, 2012
SEC Faces FOIA Suit Over High-Frequency Trading Docs
A company alleging it has evidence of a high-frequency trading firm's securities fraud scheme sued the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Wisconsin federal court Wednesday after the agency denied its Freedom of Information Act requests for information on the firm.
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September 20, 2012
2nd Circ. Pulls Plug On KeySpan Price Inflation Antitrust Suit
The Second Circuit refused Thursday to breathe new life into a consumer's putative antitrust class action alleging KeySpan Corp. used a complex financial transaction to gouge New York City electricity buyers, saying regulators approved the price even though it was set at auction.
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September 20, 2012
Fast And Furious Report Lands DOJ's Breuer In Hot Seat
House Republicans pushed Lanny Breuer, the head of the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division, to resign on Thursday, claiming he failed to properly supervise prosecutors and federal agents who botched the gun-trafficking investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious.
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September 20, 2012
House Approves Ban On Contaminated Chinese Drywall
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a bill banning the sale of contaminated drywall imported from China and urging Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to work with the Chinese government to help gain restitution for people who already have used the product.
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September 20, 2012
Dewey's $70M Ex-Partner Clawback Deal On Hold
Dewey & LeBoeuf LLP, its former partners and creditors will have to sweat it out for another day before gaining approval of the firm's proposed $70 million clawback deal with former partners, after a New York bankruptcy judge on Thursday pushed back a ruling on the deal.
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September 20, 2012
JPMorgan May Have Misled Regulators, FERC Claims
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said Thursday that a JPMorgan Chase & Co. energy unit submitted misleading or incomplete materials to the commission in a dispute with California’s regional transmission organization.
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September 20, 2012
Pot Law Doesn't Protect Fired Wal-Mart Worker, 6th Circ. Says
The Sixth Circuit on Wednesday said Michigan's medical marijuana law doesn't apply restrictions to private businesses in a decision upholding the dismissal of a former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employee who has an inoperable brain tumor and was fired after failing a drug test.
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September 20, 2012
Microsoft's German IP Win Opens Door For Motorola Sales Ban
A German court has found that Google Inc.'s Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. infringed a Microsoft Corp. patent for technology used in touch-screen devices, giving Microsoft an opening to pursue a ban on sales of infringing Motorola products, Microsoft said Thursday.
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September 20, 2012
House Bypasses SEC To Define Muni Bond Advisers
Frustrated with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's delays in defining who qualifies as a municipal bond adviser and proposals that experts have called overbroad and onerous, House lawmakers moved Wednesday to sidestep the agency by passing their own, narrower definition.
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September 20, 2012
Samsung To Rope IPhone 5 Into Apple Smartphone Patent War
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. told a California federal court on Wednesday that it planned to add the iPhone 5 to a list of allegedly patent-infringing Apple Inc. products in an ongoing intellectual property dispute between the technology companies.
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September 20, 2012
Actress Can't Make Google Pull Anti-Islam Film From YouTube
An actress suing Google Inc. and others for defamation over “The Innocence of Muslims,” an anti-Islam film that set off recent violence in the Middle East, lost her bid Thursday for an emergency order forcing the search giant to remove the film from YouTube.
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September 20, 2012
AU Optronics Fined $500M, Execs Jailed For LCD Price-Fixing
A California federal judge on Thursday hit AU Optronics Corp. with a $500 million fine and sentenced two of its executives to three years each in jail after the Taiwanese company was found guilty of fixing prices on liquid crystal display screens.
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September 19, 2012
Politics Delay Senate Vote On 6-Month Stopgap Budget
Back in Washington, D.C., after summer recess, the U.S. Senate delayed votes on a six-month continuing resolution which would fund the federal government for the short term, after the bill was held up by partisan arguments on Wednesday.
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September 19, 2012
6th Circ. Revives RICO Case Against John Hancock, Law Firm
The Sixth Circuit on Wednesday revived a putative Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act class action accusing John Hancock Life Insurance Co., Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP and others of making misrepresentations to steer companies to an abusive tax shelter.
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September 19, 2012
High Court Won't Block Texas Interim Redistricting Plan
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday ended a bid by the League of United Latin American Citizens to block the implementation of a court-ordered interim congressional redistricting plan in Texas, which will remain in effect through the November general election.
Expert Analysis
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Facebook And Job Candidates: Lessons From 'Office Space'
Employers are increasingly using social media to evaluate job candidates during the hiring process. A cautionary tale based on the 1999 movie "Office Space" provides an overview of the legal risks and potential benefits of doing so, says Natalie Hrubos of Duane Morris LLP.
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Dissecting The Supreme Court Ruling On Health Care Reform
For the business community, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is a mixed bag. While it lessens the uncertainty that hung over the entire health care industry in anticipation of the ruling, the decision to uphold the act means increased regulatory requirements and costs for employers generally and for specific sectors within the health care industry, say attorneys with Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.
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Election Year Expectations For Energy, Environment
As U.S. Congress and federal agencies consider, and possibly decide, a number of budget, funding and regulatory matters over the next few months, energy and natural resource client interests can be carefully advanced by recognizing the currents on Capitol Hill, and the recognized imperative to accomplish certain legislative and administrative goals, say Christopher Rissetto and Robert Helland of Reed Smith LLP.
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Apple's Trademark Fight In China: The Saga Continues
In its ongoing battle to secure trademark rights to the iPad trademark in China, Apple Inc. has appealed a decision of Shenzhen’s Municipal Intermediate People's Court, which ruled that Proview Technology is the owner of the iPad trademark. It appears that this fight is far from resolved, says Toni Hickey of Foley & Lardner LLP.
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Gupta And The Future Of Insider Trading Policy
There should be little doubt that the Rajat Gupta case will propel the war on insider trading forward. The verdict is likely to bolster the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s insider trading program, and may embolden the SEC’s push on the contours of what constitutes insider trading, says Thomas Gorman of Dorsey & Whitney LLP.
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An EPA Victory In Greenhouse Gas Regulation
In Coalition for Responsible Regulation v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the D.C. Circuit has affirmed the EPA's approach to regulation of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act — a sharp rebuke to industry and state petitioners who have been attempting to overturn these rules, say Kevin Poloncarz and Michael Balster of Paul Hastings LLP.
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Why FCC V. Fox Should Launch FCC Enforcement Actions
Even though the U.S. Supreme Court sidestepped the First Amendment question in its Federal Communications Commission v. Fox ruling, there is no apparent lack of support from the court majority regarding the FCC’s ability to regulate indecent speech on the pervasive airwaves of broadcast media. The FCC should now turn to vigorous enforcement of indecency law, say Morgan Bennett and Patrick Trueman of Morality In Media Inc.
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The In Re IPhone App Dismissal Order: Key Holdings
A California federal judge's recent dismissal with prejudice of most claims asserted by consumer plaintiffs in In re iPhone Application Litigation could have a far-reaching effect in limiting plaintiffs’ ability to use the Stored Communications Act and the Wiretap Act to pursue alleged harms arising out of online data collection and use, say Shel Abramson and Mali Friedman of Covington & Burling LLP.
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An Imprecise Measure Of Loss — At Best
The U.S. Sentencing Commission recently issued a proposed amendment to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for securities fraud and similar offenses in response to the Dodd-Frank Act. If the amendment is implemented, use of the calculation would lead to frequent misstatements of the actual harm that the alleged fraud caused to the public and, hence, would lead to unfair sentencing, say David Marcus, Greg Eastman and Marina Martynova of Cornerstone Research.
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Challenging Tribal Land-Into-Trust Acquisitions
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians v. Patchak has a much wider impact than on just the Gun Lake Casino. The ruling could lead to other challenges of tribal land acquisitions, which, in turn could inhibit would-be investors who might otherwise lend to tribes or invest in gaming projects, say Heidi McNeil Staudenmaier and Erin Szajna of Snell & Wilmer LLP.