Commercial Contracts

  • September 21, 2026

    Colo. Justices Uphold Ski Waiver Ruling Against Snowboarder

    A snowboarder released his claims against a ski resort and employee when he signed an online liability waiver to buy a season pass while his injury suit was still active, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday, handing down a decision in a closely watched case for the state's ski industry.

  • September 21, 2026

    STB Denies Bid To Halt UP-Norfolk Southern Merger Review

    The Surface Transportation Board will press ahead with its review of Union Pacific's proposed $85 billion merger with Norfolk Southern, denying requests from rival railroads and major freight rail shipping customers seeking to have the board stop the deal in its tracks.

  • September 21, 2026

    $1.35M Class Deal Reached Over Botched Calif. Bar Exam

    Takers of the February 2025 California bar exam that was marred by technical failures have agreed to settle their proposed class action against the proctor for $1.35 million, while the company also agreed to complete quality checks before proctoring future bar examinations, according to a motion seeking preliminary approval in federal court.

  • September 21, 2026

    Willkie Hires Ex-Gibson Dunn Energy Pro In Paris

    Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP has picked ex-Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP attorney Pauline Portos for an energy and infrastructure-focused partner role in its Paris office, the firm announced.

  • September 21, 2026

    NJ Firm Says Communications Off-Limits In Defamation Case

    Investigative firm Black Cube has pushed back against a gambling technology company's bid to vacate a special adjudicator's denial of discovery into certain communications between Black Cube and law firm Calcagni & Kanefsky LLP, arguing the bid doesn't satisfy the discovery standard under New Jersey's anti-SLAPP law.

  • September 21, 2026

    Insurer Beats Auto Parts Co.'s $50M COVID-19 Coverage Bid

    A North Carolina federal court permanently tossed an auto parts manufacturer's suit seeking $50 million in coverage for COVID-19 losses, saying the manufacturer failed to show that access to any of its insured facilities was limited due to the actual presence of a communicable disease.

  • September 21, 2026

    Crypto Firm, Ga. Investor Reach Deal To End Fraud Suit

    An investor has agreed to end her lawsuit accusing a Texas-based crypto investment company of letting her funds get caught up in a fraudulent scheme to funnel money to foreign countries, according to a filing in Georgia federal court.

  • September 21, 2026

    Clippers Tap BigLaw Vet To Fill In For Suspended Owner

    The Los Angeles Clippers on Monday named veteran corporate litigator John S. Gibson as the team's interim CEO and governor while team owner Steve Ballmer serves a one-year suspension for violating the NBA's salary cap rules.

  • September 21, 2026

    2nd Circ. Gives Ex-LVMH Atty A New Shot At Retaliation Case

    The Second Circuit on Monday reinstated retaliation claims brought by a former LVMH attorney who alleged that the French luxury brand fired her for reporting sexual misconduct, concluding that her refusal to engage in settlement discussions could constitute legally protected activity.

  • September 21, 2026

    Kraft Heinz Says Insurers Won't Cover Processed Food Suits

    Chubb units and Liberty Mutual are wrongfully refusing to cover Kraft Heinz's defense costs for several lawsuits blaming the food company's "ultra-processed foods" for consumers' diabetes or fatty liver disease diagnoses, costing the company millions of dollars, Kraft Heinz said in a Pennsylvania state court complaint.

  • September 18, 2026

    Lilly Left Nektar Drug 'Damaged Goods,' Jury Told At Trial End

    Eli Lilly & Co. turned Nektar Therapeutics' autoimmune-disease drug Rezpeg into "damaged goods" by breaching the companies' co-development deal and delaying the medication's development in favor of a competing drug the pharma giant subsequently acquired, Nektar's counsel told a California federal jury during closing arguments Friday in the $1 billion case.

  • September 18, 2026

    Cannabis Tech Co. Says Ex-Workers Stole IP For New Venture

    Cannabis marketing company Alpine IQ Inc. and its chief executive are countersuing two former employees, accusing them of stealing code to build a competing product and urging a federal judge not to let them avoid claims they infringed the company's copyright.

  • September 18, 2026

    Gerber Can't Trim Antitrust Claims Over Perrigo Factory Sale

    A New York federal court on Friday rejected Gerber's bid to trim a baby-formula packager's antitrust lawsuit against the Nestle-owned company, finding that the packager sufficiently alleged Gerber recently sold its infant-formula factory to Perrigo to entrench Perrigo's market power "at the expense of potential competitors."

  • September 18, 2026

    Gaming Record Label Sues Rival Over YouTube Takedowns

    Video-game music record label GameChops launched a lawsuit in Washington federal court Friday accusing a Washington-based competitor of a campaign to force it to accept "unjustified and unreasonable demands," primarily by flagging its YouTube videos for takedown based on fabricated copyright concerns.

  • September 18, 2026

    McGraw-Hill Can't Exit Authors' Textbook Royalty Suit

    A Manhattan federal judge has refused to grant publisher McGraw-Hill a win in litigation brought by textbook authors over book royalties, ruling that a reasonable jury could conclude there was a breach of a section of their publishing agreements.

  • September 18, 2026

    Texas Oil Exec Asks 5th Circ. To Ax 'Lopsided' $210M Verdict

    Exxon-acquired company InterOil's founder has urged the Fifth Circuit to reverse his $210 million loss in a lengthy Texas battle with a Swiss financier, arguing it resulted from a "lopsided" trial with sleeping and distracted jurors and a "cascading series of prejudicial errors" that wrongly allowed his ex-lawyer to testify.

  • September 18, 2026

    Ex-Animal Rescue Dir. Owes $975K In TM Feud, Judge Says

    A Pennsylvania federal judge has awarded animal shelter and rescue Last Chance Ranch a $975,000 judgment against its former director, saying the cyberpiracy and trademark infringement merited damages and attorney fees.

  • September 18, 2026

    Kalshi Loses Bid To Lift Wash. Event Contracts Ban

    Kalshi can't lift an injunction currently barring its operations in Washington, a King County Superior Court judge ruled, denying the prediction market's request to reconsider an August order blocking the company from offering most event contracts to state residents.

  • September 18, 2026

    Oppenheimer Customers Win Final Approval For $70M Deal

    A New York federal judge on Friday granted final approval to a $70 million settlement between Oppenheimer & Co. and a class of customers that resolves claims that the investment bank pocketed hefty fees from its cash sweep account program while paying customers "unreasonable, below-market interest rates."

  • September 18, 2026

    Insurers Seek To Toss $6M Mill Coverage Fight

    Insurers urged a Colorado state judge to toss a flour processor's claims over coverage for equipment destroyed in a Texas mill explosion, saying a roughly $6 million coverage fight does not support bad faith claims after insurers paid nearly $44 million toward the loss.

  • September 18, 2026

    Fla. Panel Upholds $1.19M Auto Crash Verdict Against Insurer

    A Florida state appellate court on Friday issued a split opinion upholding a $1.19 million noneconomic damages verdict for a woman injured by an uninsured motorist, but reversed a $230,000 award for future medical expenses after finding most of that amount was based on speculation. 

  • September 18, 2026

    OpenAI Can't See SpaceXAI, Apple Antitrust Settlement Terms

    OpenAI cannot access a confidential settlement between Elon Musk's SpaceXAI and Apple Inc. over SpaceXAI's antitrust lawsuit challenging Apple's integration of OpenAI's ChatGPT into its devices, a Texas federal court has ruled, finding the settlement isn't relevant to the case against OpenAI.

  • September 18, 2026

    Transpo Tracker: Amazon Crash Suits, Md. Bridge Claims Trimmed

    In our latest Law360 Transportation Tracker, a deadly runway crash of an Amazon cargo plane has sparked a series of negligence and wrongful death lawsuits, while California scored two injunctions blocking the Trump administration's efforts to wipe out the state's Clean Air Act waivers. 

  • September 18, 2026

    NJ Justices Say No To Mass Tort For No Surprises Act Suits

    The New Jersey Supreme Court has rejected an application from five health insurers to designate 160 pending cases seeking the enforcement of alleged independent dispute resolution payment determinations issued under the federal No Surprises Act as multicounty litigation.

  • September 18, 2026

    Universal, Sony Expand IP Battle With AI Music Startup

    Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group launched a new suit against artificial intelligence company Suno Inc. on Friday after they discovered "millions" of copyrighted songs in the training data for an AI song generator, but were not permitted by a judge to add the works to an existing lawsuit.

Expert Analysis

  • How The High Court Expanded Freight Broker Liability

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    After the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II that freight brokers may be liable for selecting unsafe motor carriers, the key question will be whether brokers used reasonable care in selecting a given motor carrier, with the concurring opinion offering some clues as to what reasonable care might look like, says Marc Blubaugh at Benesch.

  • DOJ Activity Indicates Rising Antitrust Risk For Hospitals

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    Two civil actions filed by the U.S. Department of Justice against New York-Presbyterian Hospital and OhioHealth, both alleging that the hospital systems used their market power to stifle competition, highlight the government's growing scrutiny of barriers to lower-cost insurance options, say attorneys at Freshfields.

  • Series

    NY Times Word Puzzles Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Every morning I let The New York Times humble me with word games, which offer a chance to recalibrate my brain before the day's chaos arrives and remind me that a solution — whether to a puzzle or employment law issue — almost always exists once I find the right angle, says Amy Epstein Gluck at Pierson Ferdinand.

  • Tracking Tech Suit Is A Risk Management Reminder For Cos.

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    The Fifth Circuit recently heard oral argument in Rand v. Eyemart Express — an appeal that could reshape the legal landscape for businesses that deploy tracking tech on their websites — underscoring the importance of proactive risk management for companies across multiple industries, say attorneys at Blank Rome.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lesson: Diagnose Before Arguing

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    Law school often skips over explicitly teaching students how to determine what kind of problem a case presents before they commit to a particular doctrinal path, which risks building arguments that are internally coherent but externally misaligned, says Melanie Oxhorn at Kobre & Kim.

  • Becoming The Biz-Savvy GC That Portfolio Companies Need

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    Candidates for general counsel roles at private equity-backed portfolio companies should prioritize proving their sector-specific experience, commercial judgment and ease with uncertainty — and attorneys hoping to be candidates in five to 10 years should start working on those skills now, says Dimitri Mastrocola at Major Lindsey.

  • Nielsen Appeal Tests Antitrust Limits Of Pricing And Bundling

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    In Cumulus v. Nielsen, the Second Circuit is considering a structural pattern in which a monopolist exploits upstream market power to foreclose downstream competition, which could potentially offer broad insight into how courts will assess exclusionary bundling and pricing defenses under antitrust law, says Luke Hasskamp at Bona Law.

  • Series

    Judges On AI: How Courts Can Survive The Tech Revolution

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    Colorado Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter and Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Lino Lipinsky de Orlov discuss how artificial intelligence has already fundamentally altered the legal system and offer tips for courts navigating deepfakes, hallucinations and a gap in access to AI tools.

  • 3 AI Adoption Mistakes GCs Should Avoid

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    The pressure in-house legal teams face to quickly adopt artificial intelligence tools, combined with budget constraints and the need to evaluate a crowded market of options, sets the stage for implementation mistakes that are often difficult to undo, says former 23andMe general counsel Guy Chayoun.

  • Series

    Playing Basketball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My grandfather used to say "I wear your jersey" as shorthand for wholly committing to support someone with loyalty and integrity — ideals that have shaped my life on the basketball court and in legal practice, says Tracy Schimelfenig at Schimelfenig Legal.

  • Salt-N-Pepa Suit May Shake Up Music Copyright Issue

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    James v. UMG Recordings is a copyright termination rights case that provides an opportunity for the Second Circuit to make concrete choices about grant language, authorship, work-for-hire status and survival of derivative works, says attorney Abdul Abdullahi.

  • Series

    The Biz Court Digest: Georgia Court Has Business On Its Mind

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    Thanks to recent legislation, the Georgia State-wide Business Court will soon offer business litigants greater access to the court than ever before, further enhancing the court's emphasis on efficiency, predictability and accessibility for sophisticated commercial disputes, says former GSBC judge Walt Davis at Jones Day.

  • 4 Emerging Approaches To AI Protective Order Language

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    Over the last year, at least five federal district courts have issued or analyzed specific protective order provisions restricting the use of generative artificial intelligence platforms with protected materials, establishing that proactive AI-specific provisions are now standard practice and demonstrating that no single model works for every case, says Joel Bush at Kilpatrick.

  • Assessing Material Adverse Event Clauses Amid Iran Conflict

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    As deals signed before the current Middle East conflict come under pressure, determinations over material adverse effect clauses are arising in real time, and whether an MAE has been wrongfully invoked may be as consequential as whether it was validly established in the first place, say Amran Nawaz and Ralph Stobwasser at Secretariat.

  • Navigating Insurance And Contract Risks Amid Hormuz Crisis

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    The Strait of Hormuz has become a legal choke point where contractual obligations, insurance coverage and international law intersect, underscoring for maritime lawyers the importance of proactive contract drafting, rigorous policy review and close engagement with clients, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

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