DOJ Awards $1M In First For Antitrust Whistleblower Program

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division awarded a whistleblower $1 million for providing information that led to charges and a $3.28 million criminal fine against used-vehicle auction site EBlock, marking the first-ever award under a new antitrust whistleblower program, the DOJ announced Thursday.

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Analysis

Congress' Limited Tariff Role May Persist After Justices Rule

By Dylan Moroses

The U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on President Donald Trump's emergency tariffs could leave the door open for Congress to play a larger role in trade policy heading into November's midterms, but that opportunity may pose few political incentives for lawmakers.

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Former First Brands Execs Indicted On Fraud Charges

By Ben Zigterman

Patrick James, the founder of bankrupt auto parts maker First Brands Group, and his brother Edward James were indicted by federal prosecutors in New York, who accused the pair of inflating invoices, double pledging collateral and concealing liabilities from lenders.

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Calif. Jury Convicts Ex-Google Engineer Of Stealing AI Secrets

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal jury on Thursday found former Google software engineer Linwei Ding guilty of seven counts of trade secret theft and seven counts of economic espionage in a criminal trial over allegations that he stole the tech giant's artificial intelligence trade secrets to help himself and China.

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FINRA Fines Compliance Chief, Firm For Reg BI Failures

By Sarah Jarvis

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has fined a broker-dealer and its chief compliance officer for allegedly failing to supervise representatives' recommendations of certain risky and illiquid bonds, with the latter also agreeing to a three-month suspension.

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Ex-Synapse Compliance Chief Settles FINRA Supervisory Case

By Sarah Jarvis

The former chief compliance officer of a subsidiary of bankrupt fintech company Synapse has agreed to a $20,000 fine and yearlong suspension to settle the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's allegations he failed to preserve certain books and records ahead of the firm's collapse.

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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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DCA Midair Collision: One Year Later

By Linda Chiem

Investigators' determination that the Federal Aviation Administration ignored repeated warnings about near-misses and risky helicopter traffic around the nation's capital is expected to spur regulatory reforms and potentially heighten the government's legal exposure in civil litigation stemming from the deadly midair collision in Washington, D.C., a year ago.

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Fed's Master Account Stance Goes Too Far, 2nd Circ. Told

By Jon Hill

The Federal Reserve's claim of broad discretion to cut financial institutions off from master accounts could turn these U.S. payment system gateways into potential tools of partisan warfare, an attorney for a Puerto Rico bank told a Second Circuit panel Thursday.

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CFTC's Selig Eyes Prediction Markets Rules In Debut Speech

By Aislinn Keely

U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig on Thursday delivered his first public remarks as the agency's leader, laying out an agenda that includes setting rules for prediction markets and collaborating closely with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on a variety of cryptocurrency initiatives.

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GOP-Led Crypto Bill Clears Senate Panel In Party-Line Vote

By Aislinn Keely

The Senate Agriculture Committee advanced a Republican-led proposal to regulate crypto markets on Thursday with a vote that fell starkly along party lines after Democrats made clear they would not support the bill without provisions to prevent public officials from profiting from crypto ventures.

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OppFi Says It's Not Pulling Calif. 'Dummy Lender' Scheme

By Craig Clough

An attorney for Opportunity Financial LLC urged a Los Angeles state judge Thursday to toss a California regulator's claims that it uses a Utah bank partner to dodge state regulations, saying it's not part of a "dummy lender" scheme and the court has all the information it needs to end the case.

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SEC Lays Out Taxonomy For Tokenized Securities Trading

By Jessica Corso

Publicly traded companies that convert their shares into cryptocurrency are still subject to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, agency staff said Wednesday as they outlined a classification scheme for trading in tokenized securities.

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4th Circ. Told EPA's W.Va. Haze Approval Broke Law

By Elaine Briseño

Two environmental groups have urged the Fourth Circuit to vacate the U.S. Environmental Protection's approval of a regional air quality plan in West Virginia, arguing it allows power plants in the area to skirt required pollution controls.

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Interior Dept. Says NY Can't Overcome Offshore Wind Halt

By Ganesh Setty

The Trump administration has urged a D.C. federal court to reject New York's attempt to undo the suspension of an Ørsted subsidiary's offshore wind project, saying the state has only claimed distant and derivative economic harm.

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DC Circ. Urged To Revive PJM Watchdog's Access Fight

By Keith Goldberg

The electricity market watchdog for PJM Interconnection on Thursday urged the D.C. Circuit to reconsider its dismissal of its lawsuit over the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denying it access to certain committee meetings held by the regional grid operator.

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DOL Proposes Pharmacy Benefit Manager Fee Disclosure Rule

By Kellie Mejdrich

The U.S. Department of Labor's employee benefits subagency Thursday proposed a rule to require new fee disclosures from pharmacy benefit managers, which act as intermediaries between drugmakers, pharmacies and insurers, to help managers of employee health plans ensure PBM services are reasonably priced.

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SBA Cuts Over 1,000 Firms From Contracting Program

By Madeline Lyskawa

The U.S. Small Business Administration has announced it suspended 1,091 firms from its contracting program for failing to meet the agency's deadline to submit three years' worth of financial documents to prove they still qualify. 

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NHTSA Opens Waymo Probe After Autonomous Car Hits Child

By Dorothy Atkins

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened another investigation into Waymo LLC autonomous vehicles and how they operate in school zones after one hit a child near an elementary school in Santa Monica, California, marking the second safety probe into Waymo's maneuverings around children since October.

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Dems Have Questions Over FTC's Unsealed Pepsi Complaint

By Matthew Perlman

Democratic lawmakers have accused PepsiCo Inc. of providing misleading responses to a previous inquiry about the Federal Trade Commission's abandoned price discrimination case, while also raising concerns that the agency dropped the case for political reasons.

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ADA Settlement Brings Changes To Detroit Courthouses

By Melanie Dorsey

A settlement in an Americans with Disabilities Act class action brought by two attorneys and a community activist will lead to ADA-compliant upgrades like private bathrooms, accessible voting machines and new signage at municipal buildings serving Detroit and Wayne County.

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Brief

FCC's Carr Says More Plans To 'Delete' Regs On Way Soon

By Christopher Cole

The chief of the Federal Communications Commission says more rounds of his "Delete, Delete, Delete" initiative to scale back what he views as obsolete telecom rules will be coming up soon.

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FCC To Collect More Info On Cos.' Ties With US Adversaries

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to require companies seeking telecommunications approvals to attest in writing if they are owned or controlled by foreign adversaries in a bid to increase national security in the media and telecom industries.

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Feds OK Expansion To Boost Techs In 6 GHz Airwaves

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday agreed to new rules expanding use of the 6 gigahertz spectrum band, mainly to drive the growth of devices using the Internet of Things and virtual and augmented reality.

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Navigating Trade Secret Exceptions In Noncompete Bans

Recent and ongoing developments in the noncompete landscape, including a potential decision from the Tenth Circuit in Edwards Lifesciences v. Thompson, could offer tools for employers to bring noncompete agreements within trade secret exceptions amid an era of heightened employee mobility, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.

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OCC Rulemaking May Clear Haze Around Trust Banks' Scope

A recent Office of the Comptroller of the Currency proposal at last eliminates uncertainty around whether national trust banks can engage in nonfiduciary activities, but it does not address which activities are permissible or whether a minimum amount of fiduciary activity is required, say attorneys at Davis Polk.

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Rescheduling Cannabis Marks New Tax Era For Operators

As the attorney general takes steps to move cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, operators and advisers should prepare by considering the significant changes this will bring from tax, state, industry and market perspectives, says Michael Harlow at CohnReznick.

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Justices' BDO Denial May Allow For Increased Auditor Liability

The Supreme Court's recent denial of certiorari in BDO v. New England Carpenters could lead to more actions filed against accounting firms, as it lets stand a 2024 Second Circuit ruling that provided a road map for pleading falsity with respect to audit certifications, says Dean Conway at Carlton Fields.

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Series

Playing Tennis Makes Me A Better Lawyer

An instinct to turn pain into purpose meant frequent trips to the tennis court, where learning to move ahead one point at a time was a lesson that also applied to the steep learning curve of patent prosecution law, says Daniel Henry at Marshall Gerstein.

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FTC Warns 42 Law Firms Of DEI 'Anticompetitive Collusion'

By Sarah Jarvis

The Federal Trade Commission announced Friday that it has sent warning letters to 42 major law firms for their purported participation in an outside diversity, equity and inclusion program, alleging their participation could constitute anticompetitive collusion.

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Analysis

Real Estate Attys 'Not Going In Blind' Amid Data Center Boom

By Chris Villani

The explosion of artificial intelligence has created a sharp demand for new data centers with no signs of slowing down, posing challenges that have some real estate attorneys turning to well-worn playbooks from other industries.

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Susman Faces Suit After Ex-Client's Arbitration Loss

By Adam Lidgett

Susman Godfrey LLP and a litigation funding business were hit with a lawsuit in Texas state court by an Irish patent litigation business that is challenging the outcome of an arbitration proceeding putting it on the hook for more than $37.8 million.

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Attys Rip Judge-Shopping Sanctions As Bid To 'Rewrite' Rules

By Jake Maher

Two Alabama attorneys who were sanctioned for allegedly judge shopping in a civil rights case urged the Eleventh Circuit to toss the sanctions Friday, arguing the judges accusing them were seeking to "rewrite" the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

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Brief

Bill Regulating Attorney AI Use Passes California Senate

By Emily Sawicki

A proposed California law that would regulate attorneys and arbitrators' use of generative artificial intelligence statewide has headed to the Assembly after the state Senate unanimously approved the measure.

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Colo. Firm Hit With Proposed Class Action Over Data Breach

By Rachel Konieczny

A Colorado law firm failed to properly care for the personal information of clients and their customers and did not provide adequate notice of a February 2025 data breach, according to a proposed class action in state court.

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Litigation Funder Suit Against Janus Henderson Can Proceed

By Ryan Boysen

A lawsuit that claims a Janus Henderson Group subsidiary schemed to take over a mass torts litigation funder can go forward, after a Delaware Chancery Court judge ruled the funder's case was compelling enough to survive a motion to dismiss.

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House To Vote On Reform Of Court Nondisclosure Orders

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., fumed at the House on Friday for trying to undo a provision that allows him and other senators investigated by special counsel Jack Smith to sue for damages and held up the government funding vote as a result. But a bill the House is poised to take up next week could alleviate some of his concerns.

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9th Circ. Says DOJ Can Withhold VW Grand Jury Records

By Emily Field

The Ninth Circuit on Friday held that the U.S. Department of Justice couldn't be forced to hand over about 6 million Volkswagen documents that were part of a Jones Day investigation into the automaker's 2015 emissions-cheating scandal, as the government obtained them through a grand jury subpoena.

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Analysis

The Message From Delaware Courts: Change Is Coming

By Jeff Montgomery

Delaware's Supreme Court delivered a reminder to the state's corporation law ecosystem recently with a reversal of a Court of Chancery decision invalidating a 7-year-old stockholder agreement that granted broad corporate powers to investment bank Moelis & Co.'s founder.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Max Austin

This past week in London saw collapsed solar bonds company Rockfire Capital sue the Royal Bank of Scotland, e-ticket platform Eventbrite target the owners of Salford Red Devils rugby club over an alleged contract breach, and Scottish distiller William Grant & Sons square off against a former MP in a trademark tussle tied to its Glenfiddich whisky. 

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

When Minnesota-based companies publicly called for de-escalation after two fatal shootings by federal ICE agents, the nation saw how CEOs and their general counsel can step up amid controversy. And a new study shows that white collar offenders received more than half of all recent pardons. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Kellogg Hansen Todd Figel & Frederick PLLC leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a D.C. Circuit panel revived a lawsuit that accuses pharmaceutical companies of aiding a Hezbollah-linked militia's terrorism in Iraq.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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