Anthropic Hit With 2nd Music IP Suit, This Time For $3B

By Hailey Konnath

Major music publishers already suing Anthropic for copyright infringement filed a second, $3 billion suit against the artificial intelligence company on Wednesday, a move they say is necessary to hold Anthropic accountable for "brazen," newly discovered mass infringement of sheet music and songbooks.

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Google To Pay Android Users $135M To End Data Use Suit

By Allison Grande

Google agreed to pay $135 million and obtain consent from new Android users for use of their cellular data to resolve a proposed class action accusing it of conducting "passive" data transfers without consumers' knowledge or consent over the Android operating system, according to a proposed deal filed in California federal court.

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Ex-Google Engineer's Trade Secret Theft Case Goes To Jury

By Bonnie Eslinger

Software engineer Linwei Ding "stole, cheated and lied" when he worked at Google LLC, taking its artificial intelligence trade secrets to help himself and China, a California federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday, urging them to convict him of economic espionage and trade secret theft.

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Teva Allowed New Mifepristone Claim But Not New Defendant

By Bryan Koenig

A California federal judge gave Teva permission to update its antitrust suit accusing Corcept Therapeutics of using patent system abuse, bribes and exclusive dealing to block generic competition to its cortisol disorder treatment while refusing to let Teva add another specialty pharmacy as a defendant.

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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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Fairlife Founders Freed From Calif. Cow Treatment Suit

By Jonathan Capriel

The founders of Fairlife brand milk can't be held liable in a California proposed class action accusing the company of making false claims about humane cow treatment, a federal judge ruled, saying the suit failed to point to any examples of intentional acts they made directed to the state.

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Arbitrator Choice Prompts New Feud In Asbestos Claims Fight

By Caroline Simson

A California federal judge on Wednesday ordered a group of reinsurers to confer with Truck Insurance Exchange as the company looks to remove a "side-switching" arbitrator from a dispute over coverage for millions of dollars' worth of asbestos bodily injury claims.

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7th Circ. Weighs 'Unprecedented' Clearview AI Privacy Deal

By Celeste Bott

The Seventh Circuit on Wednesday raised misgivings about a novel settlement ending multidistrict litigation over Clearview AI's collection of biometric data online, pressing an attorney for those objecting to the deal to offer alternatives they'd deem fair, given the risk of the company going bankrupt and class members receiving no payout at all.

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LegitScript's Counterclaims Against PharmacyChecker Tossed

By Matthew Perlman

An Oregon federal court dismissed LegitScript's counterclaims accusing PharmacyChecker.com of making false statements about the legality of importing prescription drugs, in a suit accusing the pharmacy accreditation provider of blacklisting the price-checking website.

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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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Social Media Addiction Laws Eyed By Conn. Governor, AG

By Aaron Keller

Connecticut lawmakers will consider forcing social media companies to display mental health warning labels and file state reports detailing the numbers of youth users, parental consent figures and average daily screen time statistics, Gov. Ned Lamont and Attorney General William M. Tong said in a Wednesday statement.

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Unions Say FEMA Staff Cuts Threaten Disaster Readiness

By Lauren Berg

A coalition of unions, nonprofit organizations and local governments that are challenging the Trump administration's federal worker layoffs and agency reorganizations asked a California federal judge Tuesday for permission to add the Federal Emergency Management Agency as a defendant, saying ongoing staff cuts threaten its legally mandated responsibility to respond to disasters.

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IT Co.'s Arbitration Pact Undercut Class Rights, 9th Circ. Says

By Irene Spezzamonte

TEKsystems Inc. engaged in misleading and coercive actions when it provided an arbitration pact to technology recruiters seeking unpaid overtime nearly two years after they lodged their suit, the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday, affirming a California federal court decision.

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Chinese Man Gets 46 Months In $37M Pig Butchering Scam

By Gina Kim

A Chinese national was sentenced to 46 months in prison Tuesday in California federal court for participating in a global network that tricked 174 victims lured in from dating apps into pouring money into fake digital asset investments, and ultimately laundering $36.9 million in cryptocurrency proceeds to scam centers overseas.

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Judge Vacates $1.3M Deal After 7 Years Pass With No Payment

By Sydney Price

A California federal judge has vacated an order from seven years ago preliminarily approving a $1.3 million settlement of claims brought by Wins Finance Holdings Inc. shareholders, saying Wins' failure to secure approval from the Chinese government to release the funds makes it unlikely the investors will get paid under the deal.

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Generics Makers Want Hospital Drug Data In Price-Fixing MDL

By Mark Payne

A group of 150 hospitals suing generic-drug makers for alleged price fixing in multidistrict litigation should hand over data on their drug purchases, the drugmakers have told a Pennsylvania federal court, arguing they don't sell directly to the hospitals and therefore have no records themselves. 

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Investor Says Cannabis Biz Shielded Tax Debt Before Sale

By Jonathan Capriel

A Los Angeles investor claimed in a state lawsuit that he was defrauded out of $100,000 by a cannabis business owner and brokers who sold him shares in a dispensary without warning him that its tax debt was nearly $150,000.

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BlackRock, Eclipse Lead Cellares' $257M Funding Round

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Integrated development and manufacturing organization company Cellares, which focuses on the large-scale manufacturing of cell therapies, on Wednesday announced that it closed a $257 million funding round, bringing the South San Francisco, California-based company's total capital raised to $612 million.

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Amazon Seeks To Send Delivery Co.'s RICO Suit To Arbitration

By Rachel Riley

Amazon is urging a Washington federal judge to force a shipping contractor to arbitrate his proposed class action targeting the e-commerce company's logistics partner program, arguing the Ninth Circuit has already held that disputes stemming from its Delivery Service Partner agreement belong in arbitration.

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FCC Sees Dead People On Lifeline, But Dems Balk At New Reg

By Christopher Cole

Democrats are bristling against a plan by the Federal Communications Commission to reduce purported fraud in the Lifeline program, where the agency says some states enrolled dead people and others who don't qualify.

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Crowell & Moring Adds Tech Firm IP Atty In Southern Calif.

By James Mills

Crowell & Moring LLP is expanding its California team, bringing in an intellectual property attorney most recently with biotechnology firm Grail as a partner in its Orange County office in Irvine.

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Jeffer Mangels Picks New Vice Chair For Hospitality Team

By Isaac Monterose

Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP has picked its cybersecurity and privacy group co-chair to serve as the new vice chair for its global hospitality team, which currently employs more than 40 attorneys, the firm announced Monday.

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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: January Lessons

In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses five rulings from October and November, and identifies practice tips from cases involving consumer fraud, oil and gas leases, toxic torts, and wage and hour issues.

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And Now A Word From The Panel: MDL Year In Review

2025 was a roller coaster for the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, with the panel canceling one hearing session due to the absence of new MDL petitions, yet also issuing rulings on more new MDL petitions than in 2024 — making it clear that MDLs are still thriving, says Alan Rothman at Sidley Austin.

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What To Expect From Justices' 401(k) Ruling, DOL Rulemaking

The U.S. Supreme Court's upcoming ruling in Anderson v. Intel, addressing alternative assets in defined contribution plans, coupled with the U.S. Department of Labor's recently proposed regulation on fiduciary duties in selecting alternative investments, could alleviate the litigation risk that has impeded wider consideration of such investments, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

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Bid Protest Spotlight: Evaluations, Redactions, Remands

Victoria Angle at MoFo examines three December bid protest decisions highlighting the scope of agency discretion when evaluating contractor proposals, the extent to which an agency may redact documents that comprise the record of its evaluation decisions, and the breadth of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims' discretion to grant government requests for remand.

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Series

Judges On AI: How Judicial Use Informs Guardrails

U.S. Magistrate Judge Maritza Dominguez Braswell at the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado discusses why having a sense of how generative AI tools behave, where they add value, where they introduce risk and how they are reshaping the practice of law is key for today's judges.

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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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