Zillow Preview Appeases Compass Enough To Drop Ban Suit

By Bryan Koenig

Compass dropped its New York federal court antitrust lawsuit against Zillow on Wednesday, satisfied that a new "preview" feature for pre-market home listings was enough of a departure from a contested rule that banned listings from appearing on Zillow if they had been marketed elsewhere for more than a day.

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FTC Says Amazon Seeks 'Impossible' Standard For Sanctions

By Bryan Koenig

The Federal Trade Commission pressed a Washington federal judge Tuesday to sanction Amazon.com for using autodeleting Signal chats and deleting raw meeting notes to hide evidence of company policies that created an artificial pricing floor across online retail stores, arguing Amazon is fighting the motion by inventing an "impossible-to-meet standard" for imposing sanctions.

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Shipbuilders Cut Deals To End No-Poach Claims

By Matthew Perlman

Affiliates of Huntington Ingalls, Marinette Marine and Serco have reached settlements resolving the claims against them in a case accusing some of the country's biggest shipbuilders of conspiring to suppress naval architect and engineer wages.

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Nippon Permanently Ducks Consumers' US Steel Merger Suit

By Bryan Koenig

A California federal judge has given Nippon Steel a permanent reprieve from consumers challenging its now-completed purchase of U.S. Steel Corp., concluding the lawsuit still hasn't made the connection from the merger's potential impacts on steel to the prices consumers spend buying steel-containing products and riding in steel-containing vehicles.

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Capital One Beats Consumer Suit Over Discover Deal, Again

By Nadia Dreid

Capital One has persuaded a California federal judge once again to squash a suit brought by credit card users who say that the company's $35 billion purchase of Discover is bad news for them and ought to be unwound, but the court is giving the consumers one last chance.

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Food Cos. Get Another Shot At David Protein Antitrust Case

By Matthew Perlman

A New York federal court is letting low-calorie food producers take another shot at their antitrust claims accusing protein bar-maker David Protein of refusing to sell them a fat replacement ingredient after purchasing the ingredient's only supplier.

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College Athletes Continue Challenge Of NCAA Eligibility Rules

By Elaine Briseño

A group of college football players hoping to extend their playing careers by challenging existing eligibility rules have criticized the NCAA's efforts to toss their antitrust suit, arguing in Tennessee federal court that the organization has overstated the legal requirements for defining a relevant market.

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Judge Preserves CBD Co.'s Contract Breach Spat

By Jonathan Capriel

A hemp and CBD company run by North Carolina State Rep. John Bell won't get a default win on its $1.6 million counterclaim against Texas-based ex-business partners who accused it of stealing trade secrets and using political connections to threaten their executives with jail time, a North Carolina federal judge has ruled.

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BMG Launches Copyright Suit Against Anthropic

By Elliot Weld

Music publisher BMG has hit artificial intelligence startup Anthropic with a copyright infringement suit alleging it made unauthorized use of recordings to train its Claude AI models, adding to a heap of legacy media companies accusing AI firms of infringement.

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How Internal Reporting Could Benefit Antitrust Whistleblowing

As the Justice Department's new antitrust whistleblower program stands to raise questions over the interaction between rewards and corporate leniency, incentivizing internal reporting first could increase the likelihood that the Antitrust Division receives the high-quality evidence needed to successfully prosecute cartel cases, says Daniel Oakes at Axinn.

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Series

Law School's Missed Lessons: The Human Element

Law school teaches you to quickly apply intellect and logic when handling a legal issue, but every fact pattern also involves a person, making the ability to balance expertise with empathy critical to the growth of relationships with clients, colleagues and adversaries, says Rachel Adcox at Adcox Strategies.

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Analysis

Texas Biz Court's Likely Role In Patent Fights Becoming Clear

By Dani Kass

The Texas Business Court has released its first opinion exploring when intellectual property can be used to create jurisdiction, and attorneys say the decision involving state trade secret law offers insight into when patent matters can be pursued there.

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Conn. Justices Won't Hear Ex-Alex Jones Atty's Ethics Case

By Andrea Keckley

The Connecticut Supreme Court will not hear a challenge to the two-week suspension of Alex Jones' former lawyer, leaving intact an intermediate Appellate Court decision affirming the pared-down punishment surrounding his law firm's handling of Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre victims' personal information.

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Calif. Bills Would Reform Litigation Funding, Client Recruiting

By Emily Sawicki

Two new bills introduced to the California Assembly this week seek to impose reforms on the state's legal industry, including adding mandatory disbarment for attorneys convicted of felony "capping" — or illegally paying for client recruitment — and blocking corporate litigation funders from influencing cases.

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Senator Unveils Draft AI Bill Intended To Wipe Out State Regs

By Hailey Konnath

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., on Wednesday released a draft of proposed legislation that would override a "patchwork" of state artificial intelligence regulations, touting the proposal as protecting "children, creators, conservatives and communities" and slamming the state regulations as hindering "AI innovation."

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Biotech Investor Blames Pierce Atwood For Messy Asset Sale

By Julie Manganis

A Ukrainian billionaire who was recently ordered to pay other investors in a failed genetic testing company more than $1.8 million in damages is blaming the Pierce Atwood LLP lawyers who advised him on what a court later found to be a "fundamentally unfair" forced asset sale.

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Powell Says He Won't Make Fed Exit While Facing DOJ Probe

By Jon Hill

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that he will stay on as a board member of the central bank if he remains under U.S. Department of Justice investigation when his term as Fed chairman runs out this spring.

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