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Consumer Protection
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May 01, 2024
Senate Dems Reintroduce Bill To Tax And Regulate Cannabis
Senate Democrats on Wednesday reintroduced a cannabis legalization bill that would remove the drug entirely from the ambit of the Controlled Substances Act and impose a tax-and-regulate scheme akin to what is currently in place for alcohol and tobacco.
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May 01, 2024
Ex-Cybersecurity Firm CEO Settles SEC Fraud Claims
A former executive for a cybersecurity firm has agreed to settle regulators' allegations that he lied to investors about the firm's success in selling a new product and that he fabricated aspects of his background and experience, according to filings in Texas federal court.
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May 01, 2024
FCC Leaders Look To Boost Wireless Supply Chain Security
Federal Communications Commission members Wednesday unveiled a bipartisan plan to beef up wireless supply chain security by more tightly scrutinizing whether equipment labs are tied to foreign powers.
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May 01, 2024
Hotel Chains Hit With Algorithmic Pricing Collusion Suit
A group of hotel-goers has hit six major hotel chains with a proposed class action, alleging that the companies used a shared pricing algorithm to fix and raise hotel prices nationwide.
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May 01, 2024
Chipotle Granted Win in Customer Change-Shorting Row
A Pennsylvania federal judge gave Chipotle Mexican Grill an early win Wednesday in a lawsuit by customers alleging they were stiffed out of change during a coin shortage, finding that because the customers agreed to not receive coin change during their transactions, they can't reasonably argue the fast food giant did anything wrong.
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May 01, 2024
Apple Users Defend Web Apps Antitrust Case
Consumers urged a California federal court not to toss their case accusing Apple of violating antitrust law by preventing iPhones from running web-based apps that don't need to be downloaded, saying Apple used deals with Google and others to protect its dominance.
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May 01, 2024
Meta's Privacy Fight With FTC Paused For High Court Ruling
The D.C. Circuit has pressed pause on Meta's bid to block the Federal Trade Commission from pursuing modifications to the parties' $5 billion privacy settlement to await the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in a case challenging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's in-house courts.
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May 01, 2024
3rd Circ. Flags Bayer's Knowledge Of Tainted Fungal Spray
A proposed class of consumers who bought tainted Bayer antifungal sprays said they should have standing to sue because they didn't get the "benefit of the bargain" — and a Third Circuit panel questioned Wednesday if Bayer's separate suit blaming a supplier made the consumers' case for them.
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May 01, 2024
Top Groups Lobbying The FCC
The Federal Communications Commission heard from advocates well over 200 times in April as they sought to sway the FCC on net neutrality rules, junk calls and texts, bulk billing deals for broadband service in apartment buildings, and many other issues.
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May 01, 2024
Textron Aviation Must Face Questions In Conn. Death Suits
A Connecticut state court judge says a Kansas-based aircraft manufacturer must answer a series of questions about its connections to the Constitution State after being sued over a 2021 plane crash, disagreeing with most of Textron Aviation Inc.'s personal jurisdiction arguments that it need not face additional interrogatories.
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May 01, 2024
Attys Say $5M Fee In Acella Settlement A Modest Proposal
Plaintiffs' attorneys who recently reached a $46.5 million class action settlement with Acella Pharmaceuticals LLC over faulty thyroid medication asked a Georgia federal judge Tuesday to sign off on their $5 million cut of the deal as a "presumptively reasonable" proposal.
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May 01, 2024
5th Circ. Wants Texas Injunction Ruling In CFPB Late Fee Case
In a late Tuesday twist, the Fifth Circuit has sent a banking industry lawsuit over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's $8 credit card late fee rule back to Texas federal court, saying it doesn't want to be the first to decide whether the rule should be blocked from taking effect later this month.
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April 30, 2024
Chancery Tosses Meta Activist Investor Suit Over Social Ills
A Delaware vice chancellor tossed a Meta activist investor's suit seeking to prioritize wider social impact over company profits, saying Delaware's single-firm corporate model assumes directors owe fiduciary duties to their company's stockholders, and there's no case law articulating that because it's "so basic," just as "fish don't talk about water."
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April 30, 2024
SEC Fines Adviser Firm For Splitting Legal Fees With Client
A Puerto Rico-based investment adviser will pay more than $500,000 to settle the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's claims it entered into an improper joint legal fee arrangement with a mutual fund that was also its client.
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April 30, 2024
OpenAI Tries To Throw Out Another Copyright Case
OpenAI is seeking to dismiss a suit in New York federal court from two alternative news websites asserting copyright infringement allegations against the Microsoft Corp.-backed artificial intelligence developer, saying they haven't shown they've been harmed.
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April 30, 2024
Pfizer Can't Slip COVID-19 Vax Suit, Texas Tells Court
The Texas attorney general told a federal judge not to let Pfizer Inc. out of its suit accusing the pharmaceutical company of misleading the public about its COVID-19 vaccine, arguing the suit was properly pled under state law in a brief filed Monday.
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April 30, 2024
Drug Company Can't Escape Texas Counties' Opioid MDL
A Texas appeals court on Tuesday declined to cut loose a New Jersey-based pharmaceutical manufacturer from Texas multidistrict litigation over opioid addiction in the state, finding that the counties of Dallas and Bexar have demonstrated that it's made deliberate moves toward the Texas market.
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April 30, 2024
Split 9th Circ. Finds San Jose Nuisance Laws Constitutional
A split Ninth Circuit panel held Tuesday that San Jose, California, did not violate the First Amendment rights of a nightclub operator by suspending its license following a shooting, affirming that the public nuisance provisions and licensing scheme for entertainment venues used by the city are not unlawful prior restraints.
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April 30, 2024
3rd Circ. Preview: Kavanaugh Classmate Takes On HuffPost
The Third Circuit's May lineup will find the court weighing HuffPost's battle with an allegedly libeled former classmate of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and claims by consumers alleging they bought defective Bayer antifungal medicine.
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April 30, 2024
Dust Spray Maker Hit With $7.75M Verdict Over Fatal DUI
The maker of aerosol dust remover has been ordered by a Minnesota federal jury to pay $7.75 million to the husband of a woman who was killed in a car accident by a truck driver who huffed the spray before getting behind the wheel.
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April 30, 2024
FTC To Help FCC Enforce 'Net Neutrality' Rules
The Federal Communications Commission has called on a sister agency, the Federal Trade Commission, to cooperate on enforcing the FCC's restored "net neutrality" rules to require the free flow of network traffic.
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April 30, 2024
Kroger, Albertsons Say FTC Distorts Markets In Merger Case
Kroger and Albertsons told an Oregon federal court to reject a pending merger challenge by the Federal Trade Commission and a group of states, saying it distorts the competitive landscape for the grocery and labor markets.
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April 30, 2024
FTC Continues To Target 'Junk' Drug Patents
Federal trade officials told a series of pharmaceutical companies — including the makers of the controversial diabetes and weight loss drug Ozempic — that they may have listed faulty patents in a key register of a federal drug database.
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April 30, 2024
Patients Sue NC Plasma Donation Co. Over Data Breach
A plasma collection company has been hit in North Carolina federal court with at least two proposed class actions as of Monday claiming it failed to safeguard patient data, resulting in a breach in which names, Social Security numbers, addresses and treatment information were allegedly exposed by hackers.
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April 30, 2024
Customers Can't Get Ill. ComEd Bribery Suit Restored
An Illinois state appellate panel refused Monday to reinstate a putative class action accusing Commonwealth Edison of fraud in the wake of the utility's admission that it bribed the former Illinois House speaker to secure his support for favorable energy policy, saying the passage of the relevant legislation wasn't directly related to the bribes.
Expert Analysis
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Managing Competing Priorities In Witness Preparation
There’s often a divide between what attorneys and witnesses want out of the deposition process, but litigation teams can use several strategies to resolve this tension and help witnesses be more comfortable with the difficult conditions of testifying, say Ava Hernández and Steve Wood at Courtroom Sciences.
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Reimagining Law Firm Culture To Break The Cycle Of Burnout
While attorney burnout remains a perennial issue in the legal profession, shifting post-pandemic expectations mean that law firms must adapt their office cultures to retain talent, say Kevin Henderson and Eric Pacifici at SMB Law Group.
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Amazon's €32M Data Protection Fine Acts As Employer Caveat
The recent decision by French data privacy regulator CNIL to fine Amazon for excessive surveillance of its workers opens up a raft of potential employment law, data protection and breach of contract issues, and offers a clear warning that companies need coherent justification for monitoring employees, say Robert Smedley and William Richmond-Coggan at Freeths.
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Understanding And Working With The Millennials On Your Jury
Every trial attorney will be facing a greater proportion of millennials on their jury, as they now comprise the largest generation in the U.S., and winning them over requires an understanding of their views on politics, corporations and damages, says Clint Townson at Townson Litigation Consulting.
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Vagueness In Calif. Climate Law Makes Compliance Tricky
California's recently enacted Voluntary Carbon Market Disclosures Act requires companies making claims of carbon neutrality, or significant greenhouse gas emissions reductions, to disclose information supporting those claims — but vague and conflicting language in the statute poses multiple problems for businesses, say John Rousakis and Chris Bowman at O'Melveny.
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Series
Competing In Dressage Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My lifelong participation in the sport of dressage — often called ballet on horses — has proven that several skills developed through training and competition are transferable to legal work, especially the ability to harness focus, persistence and versatility when negotiating a deal, says Stephanie Coco at V&E.
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Breaking Down FDIC's New Advertising And Signage Rule
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s final rule on signage and advertising, coming on the heels of a campaign against nonbank businesses purporting to offer FDIC-insured deposit products, introduces important new requirements and clarifies existing regulations for both traditional depository institutions and novel digital platforms, say attorneys at Venable.
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Potential Defendant Strategies Amid Calif. Privacy Questions
Although the current case law surrounding the California Consumer Privacy Act is in its infancy, courts have begun addressing important issues related to the notice-and-cure provisions of the statute, and these decisions show defendant-businesses would be wise to assert their notice rights early and repeatedly, say Viola Trebicka and Dan Humphrey at Quinn Emanuel.
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How 2 CFPB Advisory Opinions Affect Reporting Agencies
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued two advisory opinions last month that demonstrate a continued commitment to address inaccuracies in background check reports and consumer file disclosures through broad interpretation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act, expanding on a coordinated federal agency effort, say attorneys at Cooley.
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A Close Look At The FCC's Revised SIM Card Fraud Rules
Carolyn Mahoney and John Seiver at Davis Wright break down recently proposed revisions to the Federal Communications Commission's customer proprietary network information and local number portability rules for wireless providers, discuss the revisions' implications on artificial intelligence regulation, and provide tips to prevent SIM swap and port-out fraud.
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What Retailers Should Note In Calif. Web Tracking Suits
As retailers face a deluge of class actions alleging the use of conventional web analytic tools violate wiretapping and eavesdropping provisions of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, uncovering the path toward a narrow interpretation of the law will largely depend on how these cases proceed, say Matthew Pearson and Kareem Salem at BakerHostetler.
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Del. Ruling Adds Momentum For Caremark Plaintiffs
The Delaware Supreme Court's recent opinion in Lebanon County Employees' Retirement Fund v. Collis could be viewed as expanding plaintiffs' ability to viably plead a Caremark claim against directors, so Delaware companies should be on heightened alert and focus on creating a record of board oversight, say attorneys at V&E.
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Key Maritime Law Issues In 2024: Election-Year Unknowns
In the final installment of this three-part article reviewing the top challenges for the maritime industry this year, Sean Pribyl at Holland & Knight examines how the uncertainty surrounding the forthcoming U.S. election may affect the maritime sector — especially companies involved in offshore wind and deep-sea mining.
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The Legal Industry Needs A Cybersecurity Paradigm Shift
As law firms face ever-increasing risks of cyberattacks and ransomware incidents, the legal industry must implement robust cybersecurity measures and privacy-centric practices to preserve attorney-client privilege, safeguard client trust and uphold the profession’s integrity, says Ryan Paterson at Unplugged.
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Key Maritime Law Issues In 2024: Environmental Challenges
In the second installment of this three-part article examining key concerns for the maritime sector this year, Sean Pribyl at Holland & Knight considers how the industry will be affected by environmental concerns — including the growing push for decarbonization, and regulatory scrutiny around greenwashing and ESG issues.