Fatburger Owner FAT Brands Hits Ch. 11 With $1.5B Debt

By Emily Lever

FAT Brands Inc., the owner of Fatburger and Johnny Rockets, and its affiliates have filed for Chapter 11 protection in a Texas bankruptcy court with $1.45 billion in funded debt, felled by an unsustainable debt load and flagging liquidity. 

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Creators Say Snap Bypassed YouTube Safeguards To Train AI

By Adam Lidgett

Snapchat has been hit with a proposed class action in California federal court by YouTubers who claim the social media platform wrongfully scraped copyrighted videos to train its artificial intelligence model.

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Autodesk Investor Suit Over Internal Controls Axed For Good

By Katryna Perera

A California federal judge has dismissed, for good, a class action alleging that software company Autodesk misled investors on its financial metrics and internal controls, finding that there is nothing actionable or misleading about the three remaining challenged statements in the suit.

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Facebook Users' Suit Over Hacked Accounts Tossed, For Now

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge tossed with leave to amend Monday a proposed class action alleging Meta lets hackers take over users' Facebook accounts while profiting from users' data, finding that the consumers fail to allege a viable contract breach, but allowing them another shot at amending their theory of liability.

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Google's Allegedly Stolen AI Secrets Not Valuable, Jury Told

By Bonnie Eslinger

Former Google engineer Linwei Ding's counsel wrapped his defense case Tuesday, questioning a technical expert who told a California federal jury that the documents taken by Ding related to artificial intelligence supercomputers wouldn't allow someone to replicate Google's technology and had minimal value to competitors.

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Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2026 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2026 editorial advisory boards.

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Language Access Bill Targets Trump's English-Only Order

By Joyce Hanson

Four members of Congress have introduced a bill that would protect language access at federal agencies for millions of people in the United States with limited English, saying an executive order by President Donald Trump declaring English as the official U.S. language wrongly minimizes multilingual services.

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Marilyn Monroe Homeowners Sue LA Again Over Landmarking

By Gina Kim

Owners of a home where Marilyn Monroe died sued Los Angeles officials for the second time Friday, alleging in California federal court that designating the property a historic cultural monument prevented them from demolishing the decaying building they still must pay taxes on, which amounts to an unconstitutional government taking without just compensation.

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Investor Group Battles PG&E's $100M Wildfire Suit Deal

By Emlyn Cameron

A faction of the proposed class members in a securities class action targeting Pacific Gas & Electric Co. have asked the California federal judge overseeing the case to deny a settlement of claims that the company misled investors about its safety practices ahead of deadly wildfires in the past decade.

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Split 9th Circ. Backs Blue Shield Win In Residential Care Row

By Gianna Ferrarin

A split Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday held Blue Shield of California did not abuse its discretion in declining to cover an adolescent's stay at a mental health treatment facility, rejecting arguments on appeal that the insurer wrongly went against the recommendations of treating physicians.

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Kratom Buyers Call Co.'s Products Addictive, Dangerous

By Mike Curley

A group of kratom product buyers is suing 7Tabz Retail LLC in California federal court, launching the latest suit alleging kratom companies are pushing an addictive drug without warning buyers about the danger.

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Lasik Provider Can't Shake Wiretap Claims In Tracking Row

By Allison Grande

The operator of a laser eye surgery website must face a proposed class action alleging it illegally shared patients' confidential medical information with Meta, a California federal judge ruled, finding that the plaintiff could continue to press allegations under state and federal wiretap law.

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Judge Asks If Jurisdiction Exists To Cancel 'Perplexity' TM

By Elliot Weld

A California federal judge has ordered artificial intelligence startup Perplexity AI to explain why she has jurisdiction to cancel a trademark for a similarly named company after vacating a default judgment that was issued due to that company failing to secure a lawyer.

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SF Giants Accused Of Charging 'Junk Fees' On MLB Tickets

By Gina Kim

The San Francisco Giants for years lured consumers into buying tickets to ball games by unlawfully charging undisclosed "junk fees" that aren't revealed until checkout, after pressuring them with a countdown clock, alleges a proposed class action filed Monday in California federal court.

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9th Circ. Affirms Ripple's Early Win On Registration Claim

By Emilie Ruscoe

The Ninth Circuit won't revive class action claims alleging cryptocurrency company Ripple Labs sold the digital token XRP in an unregistered securities offering, upholding in its decision Tuesday a lower court's finding that the claims are time-barred.

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SEC Blunts Some Shareholder Activists With Policy Reversal

By Sarah Jarvis

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has reversed course on allowing shareholders with less than $5 million in holdings to publicize information about their proxy ballot proposals through the agency, saying it will object to such voluntary submissions going forward.

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Crypto Network Cofounder Hit With $100M RICO Suit

By Gina Kim

The co-founder and board members of cryptocurrency-associated data cloud platform Cere Network were sued in California federal court Tuesday over an alleged pump-and-dump scheme where they secretly sold over $41 million in Cere tokens on various exchanges and misappropriated investor funds. 

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AGs' HPE-Juniper Hold Too Broad, Too Late, Judge Says

By Bryan Koenig

A California federal judge explained his reasoning for refusing to block further integration between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks, while Democratic attorneys general challenge the Justice Department's controversial settlement permitting the merger.

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Medtronic Rival's VP Says Docs Praised Device But Didn't Buy

By Craig Clough

A vice president in charge of sales at Applied Medical testified Tuesday in a California federal trial over his company's antitrust claims against Medtronic, and said the overwhelmingly positive feedback Applied received from surgeons who used its advanced bipolar devices often didn't result in sales. 

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Shein Moves To Toss Artist's 'Misguided' Copyright, RICO Suit

By Rae Ann Varona

Shein urged a California federal court to toss a proposed copyright and racketeering class action that accuses the fast-fashion online retailer of using sophisticated algorithmic systems and artificial intelligence to steal artists' works, chiding the suit's bid to equate Shein with a criminal enterprise as "fanciful and severely misguided."

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Kirkland-Led Leonard Green Gets $3.6B For Single-Asset Fund

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Leonard Green & Partners LP, advised by Kirkland & Ellis LLP, has announced it closed its inaugural investment program focused on single-asset continuation funds sponsored by third-party private equity managers, with $3.6 billion of commitments.

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3 Firms Guide GigCapital's Latest SPAC, Raising $220M

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

GigCapital9 Corp., the latest special purpose acquisition company led by serial SPAC sponsor Avi Katz, began trading publicly Tuesday after pricing its $220 million initial public offering.

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Immigrants Sue ICE Over 'Intolerable' Calif. Detention Center

By Lauren Berg

After launching a "sweeping dragnet" of immigration arrests in California, the Trump administration is subjecting people to "dangerous conditions and pervasive abuses" at a detention center in the Mojave Desert as part of its broader plan to intimidate and deport immigrants, according to a lawsuit filed in California federal court.

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Kelley Drye Adds Ex-23andMe, Facebook Privacy Pros

By Lauren Berg

Kelley Drye & Warren LLP said Monday it is boosting its privacy and information security practice with the addition of a former 23andMe attorney in California and a former Facebook attorney in Texas.

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Willkie Adds Private Equity Pro From Sidley Austin In LA

By Rose Krebs

Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP has added a partner from Sidley Austin LLP to strengthen its capacity to advise private equity funds, asset managers and other clients about corporate transactions.

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Lessons From EdTech Provider's Data Breach Settlements

Education technology company Illuminate Education's recent settlements with three states and the Federal Trade Commission over state privacy law claims following a student data breach are some of the first of their kind, suggesting a shift in enforcement focus to how companies handle student data and highlighting the potential for coordinated enforcement actions, say attorneys at Wilson Sonsini.

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Key Sectors, Antitrust Risks In Pricing Algorithm Litigation

Algorithmic pricing lawsuits have proliferated in rental housing, hotels, health insurance and equipment rental industries, and companies should consider emerging risk factors when implementing business strategies this year, say attorneys at Hunton.

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ICE Violated Nearly 100 Court Orders, Minn. Judge Says

By Rae Ann Varona

The Minnesota federal court's chief judge admonished U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday for violating nearly 100 court orders concerning the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota while another judge, on the same day, temporarily blocked ICE from unlawfully arresting and detaining refugees in the North Star State.

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Tobey Maguire Says He Rerouted Fee To Goldstein

By Jared Foretek

"Spider-Man" star Tobey Maguire told the jury Wednesday in Thomas Goldstein's tax fraud trial that he paid $500,000 for his legal services to another poker player the former SCOTUSblog founder owed money to, rather than Goldstein's law firm.

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Tom Goldstein Saga Could Go From Courtroom To Big Screen

By Rachel Rippetoe

As federal prosecutors are two weeks into detailing SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein's storied descent into the world of high-stakes poker during his tax fraud trial in Maryland, Hollywood producers are gearing up to tell the same story on-screen.

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Fla. Prosecutors' Detention Defense Met With Sanction Threat

By Adrian Cruz

The U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, Gregory Kehoe, along with an assistant U.S. attorney have been threatened with sanctions by a federal judge for the methods their office used in defending the mandatory detention of noncitizens.

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Brief

Trump Announces Pick For New Assistant AG For Fraud Role

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday evening that he would be nominating Colin McDonald, associate deputy attorney general, for the newly created assistant attorney general for fraud role.

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USPTO Seeks 'Serious Sanctions' For Chinese Co.'s 19K Apps

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says the "most serious sanctions" are warranted against a China-based company for filing more than 19,000 trademark submissions using names of U.S.-licensed attorneys who did not review the applications, saying submissions were at times filed in 3-minute intervals "or less."

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Prosecutors Form New Group To Fight Federal Overreach

By Ryan Boysen

Several progressive prosecutors have launched a new group to hold accountable federal officials who "exceed their lawful authority," amid a growing backlash to the Trump administration's immigration crackdown and the recent killing of two protesters by immigration agents in Minneapolis.

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Analysis

Trade Secret Filings Hit Record High In 2025, Report Finds

By Ivan Moreno

Trade secret litigation reached an all-time high in 2025, with more than 1,500 federal cases filed for the first time ever, according to a new report by legal analytics firm Lex Machina, which also highlights trends about damages, the busiest courts and the law firms most frequently involved.

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