9th Circ. Halts 1 Of 2 Calif. Corporate Climate Disclosure Laws

By Rachel Riley

The Ninth Circuit on Tuesday blocked a new California law requiring large companies to publicly disclose financial risks tied to climate change, barring enforcement as an appeal by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups challenging the policy unfolds in federal appellate court.

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Analysis

Trump Admin May Be Overpromising WOTUS Clarity

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

The Trump administration says its proposal to shrink the Clean Water Act's reach would reduce regulatory burdens and provide clarity to farmers, homebuilders and other businesses, but it could face court challenges and potential reworking by future administrations.

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Judge Punts FTC Suit Over Meta's Instagram, WhatsApp Buys

By Bryan Koenig

A federal antitrust campaign against major technology platforms suffered a significant blow Tuesday with a D.C. federal judge's rejection of a Federal Trade Commission suit accusing Meta Platforms of illegally monopolizing social media through its purchases of WhatsApp and Instagram.

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Ex-FDA Chief Accuses J&J Of Hiding Talc Risks For 50 Years

By Craig Clough

A former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration spent a contentious day under cross-examination Tuesday in a Los Angeles bellwether trial over claims that Johnson & Johnson's talc products caused two women's ovarian cancer, accusing the company of hiding the products' health risks for over 50 years.

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Fed Pushes To Shift Oversight Focus In Examiner Guidance

By Jon Hill

The Federal Reserve shared new internal guidance Tuesday that directs its examiners to concentrate on material financial risks to banks and not get "distracted" by process concerns, deepening a policy shift that is drawing sharp rebuke from Fed Gov. Michael Barr.

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OCC Clears Banks To Hold Crypto For Blockchain Fees

By Aislinn Keely

Banks may hold digital assets required to pay crypto transaction fees and test new crypto platforms, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency confirmed in a Tuesday interpretive letter.

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Ex-PetIQ Exec Cops To Insider Trading Ahead Of Acquisition

By Sarah Jarvis

A former executive for Idaho-based PetIQ has pled guilty to insider trading after using another person's brokerage account to purchase stock in his company ahead of its planned acquisition in 2024, court filings show.

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Chancery Rejects Mary Kay Founder's Fee Bid

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court has rejected the demand of Mary Kay Holding Corp.'s co-founder for corporate advancement of legal fees tied to a Texas trust battle with his son, concluding that the billion-dollar dispute stems from personal trust-administration issues, not the executive's service as a company director.

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CFPB's Gradler Takes Deputy Post Amid Agency Uncertainty

By Jon Hill

Geof Gradler, a former industry lobbyist who recently joined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's front office, said that he is taking over as the agency's deputy director, a job that positions him as a potential successor to acting director Russell Vought.

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FDIC Says Capital One Is 'Turning Back Time' With Fee Fight

By Katryna Perera

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has accused Capital One of trying to "turn back time" by retroactively distributing $56 billion and claiming it was erroneously included in the FDIC's fee calculations, in order to dodge roughly $99 million in special assessments tied to the 2023 regional bank crisis.

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Groups Seek More Time To Comment On SEC's RMBS Plan

By Jessica Corso

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association is among those calling for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to grant more time to provide feedback on a plan that could change how the agency regulates residential mortgage-backed securities, citing the recent government shutdown as a reason for extending the deadline. 

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Sick With Cancer, Jack Abramoff Avoids Jail In Crypto Fraud

By Bonnie Eslinger

Disgraced Washington, D.C., lobbyist Jack Abramoff avoided a second stint in prison when a California federal judge sentenced him Tuesday to probation for his role in a cryptocurrency fraud, citing his cooperation with law enforcement and his stage-four cancer.

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Judge Questions If Trump's Say-So Makes Wind Edict Legal

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts federal judge on Tuesday lamented a lack of clear guidance from higher courts as she considered whether wind farm permits can be put on hold indefinitely based solely on a directive from the president.

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NJ Township Seeks To Revise $2.5B DuPont PFAS Settlement

By Mike Curley

Carneys Point Township, New Jersey, is aiming to intervene in the state's federal suit against E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. and others over PFAS contamination, saying a settlement of more than $2.5 billion interferes with its own claims against the company.

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Feds Grill NY Gov. Aide's Mom In Pursuit Of FARA Money Trail

By Stewart Bishop

Federal prosecutors on Tuesday turned their focus to tracing the proceeds from a purported scheme by a former top New York state government staffer to secretly further the interests of the People's Republic of China, calling the defendant's own mother to the stand over a bank account alleged to have been used to move criminal funds.

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Federal Watchdog Funds Released After Bipartisan Pushback

By Courtney Bublé

The independent agency for federal watchdogs has been brought back to life with the White House budget office restoring its funding.

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CVS Pays $18.2M To Settle False Claims Act Allegations

By Rae Ann Varona

CVS Pharmacy Inc. paid the federal government and California a total of $18.2 million to settle allegations it submitted claims for medication reimbursements without verifying that the medications would be for approved diagnoses, the U.S. Department of Justice has announced.

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Health Co. Execs Convicted In $100M Adderall Sales Scheme

By Lauren Berg

A San Francisco federal jury weighing a first-of-its-kind case on Tuesday convicted two digital healthcare company executives of scheming to sell Adderall through deceptive advertising, allegedly bringing in $100 million in illicit profits.

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Feds Say Hi-Tech 'Trampled' Trust At Close Of Fraud Trial

By Chart Riggall

Federal prosecutors closed out a nearly monthlong fraud trial against Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals and its longtime CEO by telling a Georgia jury Tuesday that they "proudly" stood by what defense attorneys for the supplement manufacturer and distributor previously derided as a "paper case."

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Senate Dem Slams FCC's Carr Over Cybersecurity Plan

By Christopher Cole

A top Senate Democrat on telecom issues blasted Brendan Carr, head of the Federal Communications Commission, on Tuesday for seeking to roll back an FCC cybersecurity ruling issued late in the Biden administration responding to the Salt Typhoon cyberattack.

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Pillsbury Winthrop Latest Firm Targeted By Data Breach Suit

By Hailey Konnath

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP on Tuesday was hit with a proposed class action stemming from a data breach the firm says happened in April, adding to the growing litigation firms are facing in the aftermath of cyberattacks.

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States Can Intervene Over DOJ's HPE Merger Deal

By Matthew Perlman

A California federal court granted a request on Tuesday from state enforcers asking to participate in a review of the U.S. Department of Justice's controversial settlement allowing Hewlett Packard Enterprise to move ahead with its $14 billion purchase of Juniper Networks.

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NTSB Flags Vessel's Loose Wire In Key Bridge Collapse Probe

By Linda Chiem

A single loose wire triggered a power failure aboard the container carrier that slammed into Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge last year, and the absence of an effective warning system didn't give construction workers enough time to clear the collapsing bridge, the National Transportation Safety Board determined Tuesday.

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Colo. High Court Weighs Test For Political Donor Disclosures

By Rachel Konieczny

Colorado Supreme Court justices pushed attorneys Tuesday on how the court should measure a political organization's spending and efforts on ballot measures in determining whether a conservative political group fined for not disclosing donors after spending millions on state ballot questions in Colorado's 2020 election qualifies as an "issue committee" that must disclose its donors.

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What Shutdown's End Means For Worker Safety Enforcement

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Mine Safety and Health Administration may emerge from the government shutdown struggling to juggle complaint backlogs, litigation delays and newly enacted policies with a reduced and demoralized workforce, so employers should stay alert, say attorneys at Conn Maciel.

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How New FinCEN FAQs Simplify Suspicious Activity Reporting

New guidance from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and federal banking agencies that gives financial institutions more flexibility in meeting suspicious activity reporting obligations indicates the administration is following through on its promise to streamline the U.S. anti-money laundering regime, say attorneys at Davis Polk.

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Navigating Sanctions Against Colombia's Head Of State

To limit their exposure from recent sanctions that prohibit dealings with Colombia’s president and specific officials, it is critical that U.S. companies gain a fulsome understanding of potential touchpoints, establish controls to avoid engagement and, if necessary, seek U.S. government approval, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.

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SEC's Dual Share Class Approval Signals New Era For ETFs

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent approval of the dual share class structure marks a landmark moment for the U.S. fund industry, opening the door for asset managers to benefit from combining mutual fund and exchange-traded fund share classes under a single portfolio, say Ilan Guedj at Bates White and Brian Henderson at George Washington University.

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UK Tribunal's Clearview Decision Expands GDPR Application

The Upper Tribunal’s recent decision in Information Commissioner v. Clearview AI is an important ruling on the extraterritorial reach of the European Union and U.K. General Data Protection Regulations, broadening behavioral monitoring to include not only activity by the company, but also its client, says Edward Machin at Ropes & Gray.

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Calif. Species Protections Will Increase Compliance Burdens

California's recently enacted A.B. 1319 automatically protects species when the federal government rolls back its own protections — which could mean an onslaught of state-level compliance mandates for the regulated community that come with no advance notice or public hearings, says attorney David Smith.

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Ill. State Farm Suit Tests State Insurance Data Demand Limits

The Illinois Department of Insurance's recently filed suit against State Farm, seeking nationwide data on its homeowners insurance, raises important issues as to the breadth, and possible overreach, of a state's regulatory authority, says Stephanie Pierce at Kutak Rock.

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Litigation Funding Could Create Ethics Issues For Attorneys

A litigation investor’s recent complaint claiming a New York mass torts lawyer effectively ran a Ponzi scheme illustrates how litigation funding arrangements can subject attorneys to legal ethics dilemmas and potential liability, so engagement letters must have very clear terms, says Matthew Feinberg at Goldberg Segalla.

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Bonus Spotlight

Cravath Unveils Associate Bonuses, Multiple Firms Follow

By Aebra Coe

Multiple firms swiftly fell in line Tuesday evening just hours after Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP announced associate bonuses in line with those offered last year, continuing a long tradition of BigLaw firms following Cravath's lead on compensation.

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Analysis

Perkins Coie's Trump Fight Doesn't Scare Off UK Suitor

By Chris Villani

Perkins Coie LLP's ongoing fight with the Trump administration did not deter a proposed combination with British law firm Ashurst, signaling that the legal community is not worried about fallout from the president's suspension of the firm's security clearances.

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Republican Senators Seek Judge Boasberg's Suspension

By Courtney Bublé

Six Republican senators, three of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, are asking that Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg of the District of Columbia be administratively suspended while Congress considers his impeachment.

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Sanctioned Atty Convinces Mo. Court Errors Not Caused By AI

By Emily Sawicki

A Missouri federal judge sanctioned former counsel for Liberty Mutual Personal Insurance Co. Monday for including citation errors in a motion this fall, finding that, although the attorney likely inserted the errors herself without the use of AI software, "such carelessness, exacerbated by a lack of internal guardrails, is entirely unacceptable."

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Brief

Conn. Atty Fined $500 For AI-Generated Errors In Wage Suit

By Emily Sawicki

In an order that noted an attorney's remorse, a Connecticut federal judge sanctioned a solo practitioner $500 this week for submitting a brief packed with false, AI-generated case citations, finding the fake authorities wasted court resources, risked misleading a pro se litigant and undermined trust in the judicial system.

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Disbarred NC Atty Must Pay $5.2M For Escrow Fund Misuse

By Abigail Harrison

A disbarred attorney was ordered to pay $5.2 million in restitution and serve four years of probation during a Tuesday sentencing hearing in North Carolina federal court, after he pled guilty to a criminal wire fraud charge related to the misuse of escrow funds.

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Judge Upholds NY Law Blocking ICE Courthouse Arrests

By Andrea Keckley

New York beat back a federal lawsuit challenging the state's policy barring immigration officials from arresting people near its courthouses, after a federal judge rejected the U.S. Department of Justice's preemption claims.

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NY AG James Blasts 'Outrageous Conduct' Behind Indictment

By Adrian Cruz

New York Attorney General Letitia A. James has told a Virginia federal court to dismiss the U.S. government's indictment of her, calling it "patently unconstitutional" and "outrageous conduct."

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McGuireWoods Is Delaying Defamation Case, NC Justices Told

By Hayley Fowler

The former CEO of a managed care organization who alleges McGuireWoods and one of its ex-partners defamed him during a press conference more than seven years ago has told North Carolina's top court not to take up the case, panning their petition as yet another stalling tactic.

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Brief

Missouri Federal Judge To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. District Judge Douglas Harpool of the Western District of Missouri has given notice he will take senior status upon the confirmation of state Judge Megan Benton, whose nomination to the federal bench President Donald Trump announced Friday.

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