GM, LG Ink $150M Deal To End Chevy Bolt Battery Defect Suit

By Mike Curley

A proposed class of Chevrolet Bolt owners asked a Michigan federal court on Thursday to give the go-ahead for a $150 million deal to end claims against General Motors LLC and LG units over alleged battery defects they say make the cars prone to overheating and fires.

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Delta, Flight Attendants Ink $16M Deal To End Wage Suit

By Abby Wargo

Delta Air Lines flight attendants reached a nearly $16 million settlement with the company in an almost decadelong suit accusing the airline of wage statement violations, they told a California federal judge, saying the "extremely favorable" deal should be approved because it would give class members close to full reimbursement.

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Judge Irked By 'Smart' Attys And 'Silly' Doc Retention Policies

By Jennifer Doherty

The chief judge of the U.S. Court of International Trade scolded Chinese tire companies on Thursday for complaining about having to provide information the federal government requested to reassess antidumping duties after the companies won an order for that reassessment.

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Justices Say Courts Must Stay Suits Sent To Arbitration

By Caroline Simson

The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously concluded Thursday that federal courts do not have discretion to toss a case once it's decided that the claims belong in arbitration, ruling in a wage and overtime suit brought by delivery drivers against their employer.

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Windels Marx Accused Of Double-Dealing In NYC Taxi Deal

By Jake Maher

Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf LLP was sued in Minnesota federal court Thursday over claims that, while representing both the buyer and the seller in a transaction of New York City taxi medallions, it repeatedly lied to the seller and helped the buyer evade paying $390,000 it owed.

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Treasury Provides Extra Relief For Bonus Energy Tax Credits

By Kat Lucero

The U.S. Treasury Department provided additional safe harbors Thursday that clean energy project developers can use to qualify for bonus tax credits for domestically sourcing their steel and aluminum parts in response to the Biden administration's new trade restrictions on solar products from China.

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BNSF Judge Vows To Avoid Extremes In Trespass Payout

By Greg Lamm

A federal judge said Thursday that BNSF Railway Co. will likely have to fork over profits from its entire 1,500-mile oil shipment route to compensate a Washington tribe for nearly a decade of train trespassings across a less-than-mile-long easement, but the judge said the disgorgement won't be the hundreds of millions the tribe is seeking.

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Flight Attendant Fights United's Bid To Exit Disability Bias Suit

By Carolina Bolado

A former United Airlines flight attendant fought against the airline's bid to end her suit accusing it of firing her for not recovering from COVID-19 fast enough, arguing that the reason given for her termination — that she misused an employee travel benefit to travel to Florida while on sick leave — is not a legitimate ground to fire her.

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Nantucket Accused Of Biased Car-Rental Licensing

By Elliot Weld

A Nantucket couple has sued the island town's government in Massachusetts federal court, alleging it enforced an illegal and racially biased bylaw enacted 27 years ago to shut down their car rental business.

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Disinfectant Maker To Pay $1.2M To Exit Abandoned-Product Suit

By Jonathan Capriel

The peddler of a disinfectant that stands accused of working with Walmart to abandon millions of units of product made from unregistered chemicals, which is illegal to sell and difficult to dispose of, on two unwitting warehouse companies has reached a settlement to end a $30 million lawsuit.

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Prosecutors Say Fake Fortune 500 Workers Funded N. Korea

By Alyssa Aquino

The Biden administration alleged that North Korea may have raised $6.8 million to develop nuclear weapons by installing remote information technology workers at Fortune 500 businesses, announcing charges Thursday against two individuals accused of helping agents pose as U.S. employees.

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DC Circ. Mulls Rolling Back Pipeline Safety Regs Over Cost

By Nadia Dreid

The industry group challenging a handful of pipeline safety standards told a D.C. Circuit panel on Thursday that there will be "no fight" between it and the government on one of the regulations if the court simply rules that two terms that the agency maintains have the same definition do mean the same thing.

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Exxon Pipeline In Dallas At Risk Over Excavation Co. Dumping

By Spencer Brewer

ExxonMobil and a commercial excavation company have agreed to a temporary injunction that would prevent the company from dumping cement slabs and other debris on land over a key Exxon fuel pipeline that runs under Dallas, with a state judge on Thursday indicating she would sign off on the proposal.

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Insurance Types That May Help Cos. After Key Bridge Collapse

Following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, businesses that depend on the bridge, the Port of Baltimore and related infrastructure for shipment and distribution of cargo should understand which common types of first-party insurance coverage may provide recoveries for financial losses, say Bert Wells and Richard Lewis at Reed Smith.

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Exploring An Alternative Model Of Litigation Finance

A new model of litigation finance, most aptly described as insurance-backed litigation funding, differs from traditional funding in two key ways, and the process of securing it involves three primary steps, say Bob Koneck, Christopher Le Neve Foster and Richard Butters at Atlantic Global Risk LLC.

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Analysis

Alito Flag Report Fuels Ethics Debate, But Likely No Recusal

By Katie Buehler

Responses to a report that an upside-down American flag flew outside U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's home following the 2020 presidential election broke along partisan lines Friday, with conservatives decrying it as a smear campaign and liberals calling for his recusal from pending election-related cases and for general court ethics reform.

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Analysis

Trump's Potential Witness Could Be Defense 'Dynamite'

By Phillip Bantz

As Donald Trump's hush money trial in Manhattan nears its end, experts say criminal defense attorney Robert Costello, who once advised the former president's ex-fixer and key prosecution witness Michael Cohen, has surfaced as a potentially bombshell witness for the defense.

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Menendez Bribery Trial: 5 Things To Know About Week 1

By Carla Baranauckas

Explosive opening statements, closed-door jury questioning and an FBI agent's recount of the moment he found a treasure trove of gold bars and cash highlighted the first week of trial in the government's second corruption case against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez.

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Ga. Judge In 2020 Election Cases To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones of the Northern District of Georgia, who has presided over high-profile cases involving the 2020 election, voting rights and abortion, will take senior status on Jan. 1, 2025, according to an update Friday.

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AG Garland Held In Contempt By House Committees

By Courtney Bublé

Two House committees voted late Thursday to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland 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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Ex-Baltimore State's Atty Says 20-Month Sentence Too Harsh

By Emily Sawicki

Former Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby has asked a federal judge to cut down prosecutors' requested 20-month prison sentence after she was convicted of abusing a COVID-19-era program to obtain money from a retirement fund and conning a lender to obtain a vacation home, arguing the proposal "stray[s] from the reality of this case."

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'We Feel It': NJ Ranks 2nd In Ch. 11 Cases, Chief Judge Says

By George Woolston

New Jersey federal courts saw the second most Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings in the nation over the last year, Chief U.S. District Judge Renée Marie Bumb of the District of New Jersey said on Friday.

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NJ Courts Chief Warns Plan To Pick Appeals Bench A 'Mistake'

By George Woolston

Chief Justice Stuart Rabner of the New Jersey Supreme Court on Friday defended how the state judiciary assigns appeals court judges, criticizing a proposal to move the power to appoint appellate judges from the chief justice to the state Senate and the governor's office.

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1st Circ. Rejects Ex-Immigration Judges' Bid For Asylum Redo

By Elliot Weld

The First Circuit's full bench refused to reopen a Salvadoran woman's case seeking asylum, despite former immigration judges weighing in to say that the judge who denied her asylum didn't follow a legal requirement to ensure her record was complete.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Haynes and Boone LLP and Lubin & Enoch PC lead this week's edition of Law360's Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously determined that federal courts do not have discretion to toss a case once it's decided that the claims belong in arbitration.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

The SEC adopted cybersecurity rules to require investment advisers and broker-dealers to put procedures in place for detecting data breaches and for notifying customers when their personal information may have been compromised, and lawyers said SPACs won't get sought-after relief from a new 1% tax on stock buybacks under a recent Treasury Department proposal. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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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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