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California
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May 23, 2025
Staffing Co. Owner Gets 8 Years For $60M Payroll Tax Fraud
The owner of California staffing companies who admitted to a long-running payroll tax fraud that caused roughly $60 million in tax losses was sentenced to eight years in prison and ordered to pay $38 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service, prosecutors said.
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May 23, 2025
9th Circ. Urged To Force ERISA 401(k) Suit Arbitration
A Los Angeles-based investment management company urged the Ninth Circuit to force individual arbitration of an ex-worker's proposed class action alleging 401(k) mismanagement, arguing a lower court incorrectly concluded an arbitration provision in employees' retirement plan wasn't enforceable because it waived statutory rights under federal benefits law.
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May 23, 2025
Musk Doubles Down After OpenAI Drops For-Profit Transition
OpenAI's decision to abandon its transition into a for-profit enterprise was not enough to appease Elon Musk, who doubled down Thursday with an amended California federal court complaint continuing to allege the ChatGPT maker tricked him into contributing nearly $45 million with false promises of remaining a nonprofit.
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May 23, 2025
Foley & Lardner Adds DLA Piper, McDermott Corporate Pros
Foley & Lardner LLP has hired two seasoned attorneys in California who previously practiced at DLA Piper and McDermott to bolster its innovative technology sector and transactions practice group.
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May 23, 2025
2 Firms Tapped To Lead Visa Derivative Suits Over DOJ Claims
A California federal judge has combined lawsuits accusing Visa's executives and directors of allowing the company to understate the regulatory risk it faced by engaging in anticompetitive actions currently at the center of a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice last year, and appointed two law firms to lead the litigation.
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May 23, 2025
GAO Dismisses Protest To Forest Service Fire Retardant Buy
A Missouri company that supplies the U.S. Forest Service with fire retardants and support services had no basis to protest a sole-source award for the agency to buy 900,000 gallons of another company's product for testing, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said.
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May 23, 2025
Off The Bench: Tennis Officials, NCAA Stay On The Defensive
In this week's Off The Bench, tennis players face pushback from the governing bodies they are accusing of antitrust violations, college basketball players claiming the NCAA exploited them want their class action revived, and a baseball player seeking one last year to play in college hits another legal roadblock.
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May 23, 2025
Taxation With Representation: Troutman, A&O Shearman
In this week's Taxation With Representation, Blackstone acquires TXNM Energy, OpenAI buys io Products, Lumen Technologies sells its Mass Markets fiber-to-the-home business in 11 states to AT&T, and AMD sells its data center infrastructure manufacturing business to Sanmina.
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May 23, 2025
FTC Finally Drops Challenge To Microsoft-Activision Deal
The Federal Trade Commission has dropped its in-house case seeking to block Microsoft's $68.7 billion purchase of video game developer Activision Blizzard, after its Ninth Circuit loss earlier this month, ending a lingering challenge to a deal that closed in late 2023.
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May 22, 2025
Nonprofits Seek To Block Trump's DEI, LGBTQ+ Orders
A group of nonprofits urged a California federal judge Thursday to block President Donald Trump's executive orders targeting diversity and inclusion policies and programs serving the LGBTQ+ community, arguing the unconstitutionally "vague" orders have upended lifesaving services and illegally treat transgender individuals as if they don't exist.
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May 22, 2025
Training LLMs Is OK, Pirating Isn't: Anthropic Judge Tips Hand
A California federal judge considering writers' copyright suit against Anthropic indicated Thursday that he thinks training its LLM with copyrighted works is fair use, but said plaintiffs can likely pursue claims that the AI startup infringed by obtaining those training materials from pirating websites instead of buying them.
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May 22, 2025
EV Carmaker Lucid Gets Inflated Biz Suit Trimmed, Again
A California federal judge on Thursday again trimmed a proposed investor class action that alleges electric carmaker Lucid made misleading production forecasts, finding that the latest complaint still doesn't adequately allege the defendants knew some of the challenged statements were false when they were issued.
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May 22, 2025
Chegg Investors Get Final OK In $55M Student Cheating Deal
A California federal judge on Wednesday gave his blessing to a $55 million settlement resolving investor claims that educational technology company Chegg Inc. falsely attributed its "dramatic growth" during the COVID-19 pandemic to its sustainable business model, rather than to students using the platform to cheat.
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May 22, 2025
Feds Push To Nix Landmark Migrant Kids Detention Settlement
The Trump administration is urging a California federal judge to end a landmark settlement agreement governing the custody of detained immigrant children — a move advocacy groups that have long fought for it quickly vowed to fight.
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May 22, 2025
Fiber Optics Co.'s Leaders Sued Over Financial Restatements
Officers and directors of fiber optics technology company Luna Innovations Inc. are facing a shareholder derivative complaint after the company announced it would revise certain financial statements after prematurely recognizing certain revenue it hadn't actually earned yet.
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May 22, 2025
California City Cleared In Employment Discrimination Trial
A Los Angeles jury cleared the city of Baldwin Park, California, of liability on Thursday in a wrongful-termination suit by a former longtime employee who claimed that she was forced to resign after complaining about race and gender bias and misuse of federal housing funds.
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May 22, 2025
Levi Strauss Calls For Sanctions Against Boies Schiller
Levi Strauss is seeking more than $15,000 from Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and training for the firm's litigation attorneys in the proceeding over a former executive's sex discrimination claims, telling a California federal judge that Boies Schiller flouted deadlines and refused to meet with opposing counsel.
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May 22, 2025
Senators Unveil DNA Privacy Bill Amid 23andMe's Ch. 11 Sale
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Thursday introduced a bill designed to safeguard customers' genetic information in bankruptcy cases, saying 23andMe's plan to sell users' DNA data to a pharmaceutical company during its Chapter 11 raises new concerns surrounding consumer privacy.
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May 22, 2025
Calif. Docs Bring FDA Stem Cell Regulation Fight To Top Court
Two California clinics that provide stem cell treatments are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Ninth Circuit panel's finding that their treatments are "drugs" subject to Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act regulations.
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May 22, 2025
Calif. Judge Likely To Extend Block On Gov't Reorg, Job Cuts
A California federal judge indicated Thursday she'll likely convert her temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction against President Donald Trump's executive order to reduce the federal workforce, saying the law "seems clear" that presidents cannot issue large-scale agency reductions without congressional approval and "to hold otherwise" would contradict nine previous presidents and 21 congresses.
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May 22, 2025
At NY Show, The Trial Is Fake But The Entertainment Is Real
Playing at Irondale in Brooklyn, production company Fever's "The Jury Experience" seeks to capitalize on the trend of immersive, interactive entertainment by giving members of the public a chance to take part in something conventional wisdom says they'd normally try to avoid — jury duty.
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May 22, 2025
Tax Court Backs IRS In Multibillion-Dollar Facebook Clash
The U.S. Tax Court largely sided with the IRS on Thursday in a multibillion-dollar tax dispute with Facebook, upholding the agency's approach for valuing the company's intangible property but finding it applied the wrong data points in its analysis.
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May 22, 2025
As Trump Wields FCA, Whistleblowers May See 'Dollar Signs'
The Trump administration's plan to use the False Claims Act to target diversity programs and alleged civil rights fraud steers a well-worn statute into uncharted territory, and could spur significant whistleblower activity amid high-profile battles with Harvard University, BigLaw firms and other institutions, experts told Law360.
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May 22, 2025
Sutter Health's $228.5M Antitrust Deal Gets Initial OK
A California federal judge on Thursday preliminarily approved Sutter Health's $228.5 million deal settling a 13-year case over claims the hospital chain boosted costs by pushing all-or-nothing networks on insurers, saying that after a trial and a Ninth Circuit reversal, "it's nice that we didn't have to try this case twice."
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May 22, 2025
Int'l Student Visa Record Terminations Blocked Nationwide
A California federal judge barred the Trump administration on Thursday from detaining foreign students who had their electronic F-1 student visa records terminated, and from imposing any additional adverse legal consequences on affected international students across the country.
Expert Analysis
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Navigating Title IX Compliance In The NIL Era
As universities push to move more name, image and likeness activity in-house, it's unclear how the NCAA and its members will square implementation of the House settlement with Title IX requirements, say attorneys at Buchanan Ingersoll.
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National Bank Act Rulings Facilitate More Preemption Analysis
Two recent National Bank Act preemption decisions from an Illinois federal court and the Ninth Circuit provide the first applications of the U.S. Supreme Court’s May ruling in Cantero v. Bank of America, opening the potential for several circuit courts to address the issue this year, say attorneys at Moore & Van Allen.
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Series
Collecting Rare Books Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My collection of rare books includes several written or owned by prominent lawyers from early U.S. history, and immersing myself in their stories helps me feel a deeper connection to my legal practice and its purpose, says Douglas Brown at Manatt Health.
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It Starts With Training: Anti-Harassment After 'It Ends With Us'
Actress Blake Lively's recent sexual harassment and retaliation allegations against her "It Ends With Us" co-star, director and producer, Justin Baldoni, should remind employers of their legal obligations to implement trainings, policies and other measures to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, say attorneys at Morrison Cohen.
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Complying With Calif. Price-Gouging Law After LA Fires
The recent tragic Los Angeles fires have brought attention to the state's sometimes controversial price-gouging protections, and every California business should keep the law's requirements in mind, despite the debate over whether these statutes help consumers, say attorneys at Cooley.
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Opinion
Judge Should Not Have Been Reprimanded For Alito Essay
Senior U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor's New York Times essay critiquing Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito for potential ethical violations absolutely cannot be construed as conduct prejudicial to the administration of the business of the courts, says Ashley London at the Thomas R. Kline School of Law of Duquesne University.
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How Cos. Can Use Data Clean Rooms To Address Privacy
Implementing comprehensive administrative controls, security processes and vendor management systems are vital steps for businesses leveraging data clean rooms for privacy compliance, especially given the Federal Trade Commission's warnings of complicated user privacy implications, say attorneys at Troutman.
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Lights, Camera, Ethics? TV Lawyers Tend To Set Bad Example
Though fictional movies and television shows portraying lawyers are fun to watch, Hollywood’s inaccurate depictions of legal ethics can desensitize attorneys to ethics violations and lead real-life clients to believe that good lawyers take a scorched-earth approach, says Nancy Rapoport at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
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SEC Motion Response Could Reveal New Crypto Approach
Cumberland DRW recently filed to dismiss the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement action against it for the unlawful purchase and sale of digital asset securities, and the agency's response should unveil whether, and to what extent, the Trump administration will relax the federal government’s stance on digital asset regulation, say attorneys at O'Melveny.
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What Calif. Bill Could Mean For Battery Energy Storage
A newly proposed bill in the California Legislature would place major restrictions on the development of battery energy storage system projects in the state — but with Gov. Gavin Newsom's strong support for clean energy technology, the legislation will likely face significant obstacles, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.
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3 Ways Trump Can Nix SEC's Climate Disclosure Rules
Given President Donald Trump's campaign statements and agency appointments, it's likely that his administration will try to annul the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate disclosure rules, but his options for doing so present unique opportunities and challenges, with varying levels of permanence and impact, say attorneys at DLA Piper.
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Perspectives
Accountant-Owned Law Firms Could Blur Ethical Lines
KPMG’s recent application to open a legal practice in Arizona represents the first overture by an accounting firm to take advantage of the state’s relaxed law firm ownership rules, but enforcing and supervising the practice of law by nonattorneys could prove particularly challenging, says Seth Laver at Goldberg Segalla.
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Zuckerberg's Remarks Pose Legal Risk For Meta Amid Layoffs
Within days of announcing that Meta Platforms will cut 5% of its lowest-performing employees, Mark Zuckerberg remarked that corporations are becoming "culturally neutered" and need to bring back "masculine energy," exposing the company to potential claims under California employment law, says Andi Mazingo at Lumen Law Center.
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Perspectives
DC Circ. Cellphone Ruling Upends Law Enforcement Protocol
The D.C. Circuit’s recent U.S. v. Brown decision, holding that forcibly requiring a defendant to unlock his cellphone with his fingerprint violated the Fifth Amendment, has significant implications for law enforcement, and may provide an opportunity for defense lawyers to suppress electronic evidence, says Sarah Sulkowski at Gelber & Santillo.
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Reg Waiver Eases Calif. Rebuilding, But Proceed With Care
California Gov. Gavin Newsom's executive order suspending some environmental review and permitting requirements for the reconstruction of homes and businesses damaged by recent wildfires may streamline rebuilding efforts, but will require careful navigation of the evolving regulatory landscape, says Gregory Berlin at Alston & Bird.