Judge OKs DOJ Bid To Drop Boeing 737 Max Conspiracy Case

By Linda Chiem

A Texas federal judge on Thursday dismissed the 737 Max criminal conspiracy case against Boeing, saying the court's hands are tied if the U.S. Department of Justice declines to prosecute the company, but noted that a $1.1 billion nonprosecution agreement still doesn't fully hold Boeing accountable.

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'Send A Message' To Novo Nordisk Over Kickbacks, Jury Told

By Ben Adlin

Counsel for a whistleblower claiming Novo Nordisk paid illegal kickbacks to boost off-label prescribing of its hemophilia drug NovoSeven urged jurors during closing arguments Thursday to "send a message" to the drugmaker, saying it defrauded Washington state's Medicaid and Medicare systems out of nearly $100 million.

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Treasury Hears Banks, Crypto Orgs Spar Over Stablecoin Yield

By Aislinn Keely

A U.S. Treasury Department proposal on how stablecoins should be regulated has sparked a clash between banking groups and crypto advocates over whether issuers and others should be allowed to offer interest on the tokens, with banks and consumer watchdogs warning the activity could create unnecessary risks.

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NetChoice Gets Judge To Halt Colo. Social Media Warning Law

By Rae Ann Varona

A Colorado federal judge Thursday temporarily blocked a state law that would require social media platforms to provide social media health warnings to minors, saying the law likely didn't meet the highest standard of review for First Amendment challenges.

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Amid Investor Cheers, Musk Gets His $1 Trillion Pay Package

By Sue Reisinger

In a landmark vote that turned corporate governance on its head, Tesla Inc. shareholders on Thursday thumbed their noses at both Delaware Chancery Court and top proxy advisers by awarding CEO Elon Musk an estimated $1 trillion compensation package, according to preliminary results.

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Texas AG Wants To Halt Kenvue $400M Shareholder Pay

By Jonathan Capriel

Texas wants to block Johnson & Johnson consumer health spinoff Kenvue from paying $400 million to shareholders, calling it a "fraudulent transfer" amid the company, which makes Tylenol, facing "tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in liabilities" in the state's suit alleging the company hid the risk that acetaminophen could lead to autism.

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Capital One's $425M Rate Deal Rejected Over Low Payouts

By Hailey Konnath

A Virginia federal judge Thursday refused to sign off on Capital One's proposed $425 million settlement with customers accusing the bank of deceptively advertising its 360 Savings accounts, finding that the customers deserve "significantly greater relief" than what's outlined in the deal.

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Samourai Wallet Exec Gets 5 Years In Crypto Laundering Case

By Pete Brush

A Manhattan federal judge sentenced the CEO of crypto mixer Samourai Wallet to five years in prison Thursday after he admitted that his business facilitated big-dollar transfers derived from criminal activity including narcotics trafficking and extortion.

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FEMA Says States 'Mistaken' On Disaster Mitigation Program

By Julie Manganis

The Federal Emergency Management Agency on Wednesday urged a Massachusetts federal judge to throw out a lawsuit by 22 states and the District of Columbia over the future of a program that funds infrastructure-hardening projects to mitigate the effects of natural disasters.

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SD Tribe Says Time Is Right To Fight Dakota Access Pipeline

By Crystal Owens

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is asking the D.C. Circuit to reverse a lower court's order dismissing its challenge that looked to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline, telling the court it is presenting a live, justiciable controversy regarding the federal government's failure to fulfill mandatory statutory obligations.

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Analysis

Mass. Pay Transparency Law May Boost Other Worker Claims

By Chris Villani

Massachusetts' newly implemented pay transparency law seems primed to be used as a tool to bolster laws already in place — including in discrimination and equal pay cases — even if the new statute itself is unlikely to spawn significant legal action, experts told Law360.

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Med Groups Call To Break Up 'Politicized' CDC Vax Committee

By Mark Payne

A Massachusetts doctor and a group of public health trade associations want the federal government to break up a key vaccine committee tasked with nationwide vaccine policy, arguing in an amended lawsuit Thursday that the panel has been tainted with anti-vaccine sentiment.

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Education Tech Co. Inks $5.1M Data Breach Deal With 3 AGs

By Aaron Keller

Technology company Illuminate Education Inc. will pay a total of $5.1 million to California, Connecticut and New York and strengthen its data security efforts after a breach in late 2021 and early 2022 exposed the information of millions of students to online hackers, the attorneys general of the three states announced Thursday.

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Roundup

Pa. Statehouse Catchup: Cannabis Quality, 'Deepfake' Fines

By Matthew Santoni

Even as the Pennsylvania General Assembly has struggled to agree to a state budget since the summer deadline passed, legislators have introduced and advanced bills dealing with perennial topics like cannabis legalization or responding to newer concerns like AI-fueled fraud.

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Judge Mehta 'Still Digging Out' From Google, Oath Keepers

By Bryan Koenig

U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta said Thursday he is still playing catch-up from a period during which his time was spent with virtually nothing but the Google search case and the prosecution of Oath Keepers charged with sedition and other crimes from the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol.

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Google-Epic Judge Raises Doubts About App Antitrust Deal

By Bonnie Eslinger

The California federal judge overseeing Epic Games' antitrust suit against Google expressed serious doubts Thursday about their recent deal to end their fight over Android app distribution, ordering an evidentiary hearing and warning he's not sure the proposed deal will correct Google's illegal conduct.

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Edwards Defends $945M Heart Valve Deal From FTC Challenge

By Matthew Perlman

Edwards Lifesciences urged a D.C. federal court to reject the Federal Trade Commission's bid to put its planned $945 million acquisition of JenaValve on hold, saying the deal will increase innovation and save the lives of thousands of people with a form of heart valve disease.

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Debt Collectors Sue Over Colo.'s Medical Debt Reporting Ban

By Jon Hill

A major debt collection trade group sued to block a Colorado law banning medical debt from credit reports, arguing it conflicts with a federal law that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently said doesn't let states regulate credit report content.

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CFPB Frees TransUnion From Biden-Era Enforcement Order

By Sarah Jarvis

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has freed TransUnion LLC from compliance monitoring and reporting provisions in a deal stemming from allegations the credit reporting bureau took years to place requested security freezes for consumers, according to a recent filing.

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FDA Warns Companies About Illegal Marketing Of Botox

By Jonathan Capriel

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has ordered the companies behind 18 websites to stop selling all Botox injectables to consumers that they have marketed as being able to treat chronic migraine, sweaty palms, overactive bladder and blepharospasm, or spasms that force one's eyelids closed.

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Ex-Goodwin Financial Services Leader Jumps To Covington

By James Boyle

A former Goodwin Procter LLP attorney with more than 20 years of experience advising clients on mergers and acquisitions and capital markets transactions has joined Covington & Burling LLP's Boston office as a partner and co-chair of the firm's financial services practice.

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Akerman Adds Alternative Investments Pro From Crowell

By Andrea Keckley

Akerman LLP announced on Wednesday that it has hired a former Crowell & Moring LLP attorney with a history of working in-house for institutional investment firms.

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Questions To Ask Your Client When Fraud Taints Financing

As elevated risk levels yield fertile conditions for fraud in financing transactions, asking corporate clients the right investigative questions can help create an action plan, bring parties together and help clients successfully survive any scam, says Mark Kirsons at Morgan Lewis.

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Navigating DEA Quotas: Key To Psychedelics Industry Growth

As new compounds like DOI enter the Schedule I landscape, manufacturers who anticipate U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration quota regulations, and build quota management into their broader strategy, will be best equipped to meet the growing demand, say Kimberly Chew at Husch Blackwell and Jaime Dwight at Promega.

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Federal Acquisition Rules Get Measured Makeover

The Trump administration's promised overhaul of the Federal Acquisition Regulation is not a revolution in rules, but a meaningful recalibration of procurement practice that gives contracting officers more space to think, to tailor and to try, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.

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2nd Circ. Peloton Ruling Emphasizes Disclosure Context

The Second Circuit’s recent decision to revive shareholders’ suit alleging that Peloton made materially misleading statements makes clear that public companies must continually review risk disclosures to determine if previous hypotheticals have materialized, say attorneys at Baker Botts.

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Game Not Over: Player Redshirt Suits Keep NCAA On Defense

A class action recently filed in Tennessee federal court highlights a trend of student-athlete challenges to the NCAA's four seasons eligibility rule following the historic House settlement in June, which altered revenue-sharing and players' name, image and likeness rights, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.

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Series

Mindfulness Meditation Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Mindful meditation enables me to drop the ego, and in helping me to keep sight of what’s important, permits me to learn from the other side and become a reliable counselor, says Roy Wyman at Bass Berry.

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Delaware Fee Inflation Worries Overblown, Study Says

By Jeff Montgomery

A newly published report by two Stanford University researchers asserts that high-dollar attorney fee awards in Delaware courts make up "a very small minority of cases" and are "no basis for concern," throwing cold water on growing worries about so-called fee inflation in the First State.

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'It's A War, Man': Trump's Deputy AG Unloads On Judges, Bars

By Jeff Overley

The U.S. Department of Justice is in "a war" with federal judges who are "not following the law," and it is separately formulating plans to block "activist, obnoxious" bar associations from assessing ethics complaints against government lawyers, a top DOJ official said Friday.

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Jeffer Mangels Hit With Pregnancy Bias Suit By Ex-Associate

By Hailey Konnath

A former Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP associate has accused the firm of discriminating against women, especially pregnant women, claiming that she was harassed throughout her pregnancy and eventually fired after she advocated for herself and pointed out the disparate treatment.

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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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Ex-Calif. Judge Seeks To Toss Sex Assault, Coverup Charges

By Craig Clough

A former California state judge on Friday moved to toss federal criminal charges alleging that he sexually assaulted a court employee and lied to investigators, saying the employee was not under his direct supervision so he could not have been acting under the "color of law" when the alleged assault occurred.

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Ex-Polsinelli Atty Agrees To Dismiss Sexual Harassment Case

By Hailey Konnath

A former Polsinelli PC equity shareholder agreed to drop her suit alleging two former partners sexually harassed her, and she was fired after reporting it, according to a notice filed Friday in Washington, D.C., federal court.

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Mass. Federal Judge Mark Wolf Retires After 40 Years

By Chris Villani

Senior U.S. District Judge Mark L. Wolf on Friday announced that he is retiring after more than 40 years on the federal bench, having presided over some of the most notable cases in Massachusetts federal court over the past four decades.

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Hearing Officer Clears Mass. Judge Of Aiding ICE Escape

By Julie Manganis

A hearing officer has concluded that Massachusetts state court Justice Shelley Richmond Joseph was not aware of a plan to allow a defendant to evade an ICE agent waiting at a suburban Boston court in 2018, but is recommending a public reprimand for other actions the judge took that day.

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Roundup

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

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen Big Technologies file fresh claims against its ousted chief executive, West Ham United FC sue Arthur J. Gallagher Insurance for breach of duty, and RSM UK face a new claim over a company's administration. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K. 

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Del. Federal Court Won't Keep Trump's Interim US Atty In Role

By Jack Karp

Delaware's federal court will not appoint the district's current interim U.S. attorney and President Donald Trump's choice for that position to remain in the role, according to a notice from the district's chief judge.

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DOJ Backs Trump In NY False-Records Conviction Appeal

By Emily Sawicki

The U.S. Department of Justice is throwing its support behind President Donald Trump's effort to overturn his New York criminal conviction for falsifying business records, filing a proposed amicus brief on Friday citing the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark 2024 decision "defining the contours of a president's federal constitutional immunity from criminal prosecution."

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Brief

Pension Corp. Installs EEOC Ex-Chair Dhillon As Director

By Kellie Mejdrich

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. swore in former U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chair and commissioner Janet Dhillon as the 17th director of the federal agency, which runs two insurance programs backstopping the nation's single and multiemployer defined-benefit pension plans.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

The federal judge overseeing Epic Games' antitrust suit against Google Inc. has doubts about their settlement deal and is asking for more evidence. And a Black McDonald's executive, who claimed he was fired for confronting his CEO over a racial comment, has lost his bias suit. 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

Latham & Watkins LLP and Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart PC lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Eighth Circuit vacated a National Labor Relations Board ruling that Home Depot illegally forced out a worker who showed support for Black Lives Matter.

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Shutdown, Funding Crisis Leave Federal Defenders Unpaid

By Courtney Bublé

The record-long government shutdown has hindered an already dire funding situation for the federal defense community, but now the judiciary is working on requests to Congress to alleviate that.

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Analysis

How One Law Firm Got Two Big White-Collar Wins In 48 Hours

By Phillip Bantz

The white-collar team at Dykema Gossett PLLC secured back-to-back dismissals of two criminal cases in as many days last month by challenging the government's experts, flagging discovery issues and hammering on other perceived weaknesses in the prosecutions.

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