Calif. Justices Rule Prop 22 Is Constitutional

By Max Kutner

The California Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the Proposition 22 statewide ballot measure from 2020 that exempts certain app-based drivers from the state's independent contractor classification law, a ruling that could have widespread consequences for the gig economy and driver litigation.

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Loeb & Loeb Says Ex-GC's Sanctions Motion Is Bogus

By Daniel Ducassi

Loeb & Loeb LLP urged a Colorado federal judge Wednesday to reject a former general counsel's allegations that it deliberately sent a thumb drive of documents that aren't text searchable, saying they are actually searchable and would have otherwise sent over 64,000 physical pages that weren't.

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Analysis

Boeing's 737 Max Plea Deal: Monitorship, Gov't Contracts

By Linda Chiem

Boeing will be branded with a felony criminal conviction after pleading guilty to conspiring to defraud U.S. regulators over the 737 Max 8's development, an ignominious distinction with fresh complications for the embattled American aerospace titan as it overhauls its corporate culture under a compliance monitorship.

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Paramount-Skydance Deal Is Redstone Windfall, Investor Says

By Katryna Perera

A shareholder of Paramount Global Class B common stock on Wednesday sued chairwoman Shari Redstone and several members of its board over the allegedly "unfair" merger with Skydance Media LLC, claiming the deal is being orchestrated to cash out Redstone's investments in Paramount at a substantial premium compared to other stockholders.

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Disney Can't Sink Fired 'Star Wars' Actor's Political Bias Suit

By Patrick Hoff

Disney and Lucasfilm must face a former "Star Wars" actor's lawsuit claiming she was unlawfully fired for sharing political views on social media, a California federal judge ruled, saying the companies hadn't shown that her statements impeded their artistic expression.

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Class Of 2023 Shatters Records In Legal Employment, Salaries

By Tracey Read

The class of 2023 set new records for the overall employment rate, employment in jobs that require or anticipate bar passage, and median and average salaries. In addition, private practice employment has hit the highest level in more than 30 years, per data released Thursday by the National Association for Law Placement Inc.

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Coinbase Taps Paul Clement For Board After Chevron Win

By Hailey Konnath

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Inc. has added to its board of directors Paul D. Clement, a member of the legal team that recently convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to do away with so-called Chevron deference, according to a recent announcement.

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Brief

USPTO No Longer Wants To Change TM Response Deadlines

By Ivan Moreno

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said Thursday it has decided to keep current post-registration response deadlines after the agency concluded that many trademark owners would not be subject to the proposed shorter response period.

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Kroger, Albertsons Agree To Delay $25B Merger Closing

By Thy Vo

Kroger Co. and Albertsons said Thursday they agreed to delay closing on their $25 billion merger until after a judge rules on the merits of Colorado regulators' antitrust case, allowing the companies to avoid a two-week hearing next month.

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Nike Brass Overhyped Sales Strategy, Shareholder Alleges

By Sarah Jarvis

More than a dozen members of Nike Inc.'s top brass have been sued by a shareholder alleging they misled the public about the financial prospects of the athletic shoe and apparel company's consumer direct strategy, leading to several stock drops in recent years and a class action lawsuit.

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California Disses Chamber's Climate Compliance Attack

By Katryna Perera

The state of California on Wednesday slammed the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's attempt to block the state's corporate climate disclosure rules before discovery opened in the Chamber's suit, arguing it should be allowed a chance to disprove the group's "vague and unsubstantiated" claims.

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Chancery Urged To Sanction Musk, X, Attys After Doc Delete

By Jeff Montgomery

The founder of a legal research site that makes government documents public has petitioned Delaware's Court of Chancery to sanction Elon Musk, his X entities and his counsel after a court clerk allegedly removed, at the request of attorneys for the billionaire, a document filed in Twitter Inc.'s battle over Musk's $44 billion takeover.

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Ex-Pharma Exec's Counsel Accused Of Reading Stolen Emails

By Ryan Boysen

A New Jersey pharmaceutical startup wants to disqualify the "tainted" attorneys of a former executive who was allegedly caught spying on the CEO, claiming the attorneys should have immediately shielded their eyes when they realized their client was using stolen, privileged emails to carry out an "attempted shakedown."

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Binance, Ex-CEO Say FTX Users Can't Blame Them For Fallout

By Aislinn Keely

Crypto exchange Binance, its former CEO and its U.S. arm told a Florida federal judge that a lawsuit from spurned users of now-defunct competitor FTX wrongly tries to blame two social media posts from Binance founder Changpeng Zhao for FTX's stunning collapse rather than the fraudulent conduct of FTX executives.

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Google Wants To Keep 'Monopolistic Status Quo,' Epic Says

By Bryan Koenig

Epic Games assailed Google on Wednesday for overcomplicating and overpricing changes to the Play Store required by the gaming giant's antitrust jury win, arguing that what Google says are needed security and maintenance protocols are just the latest effort to relitigate the case and "weaken the remedy."

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Chancery Says DGCL 'Donut Hole' Dooms Governance Deal

By Jeff Montgomery

A "donut hole" baked into a rushed Delaware General Corporation Law amendment by state lawmakers earlier this year has tripped up most governance concessions that information technology company N-able Inc. granted to its lead investors, a Delaware vice chancellor ruled on Thursday.

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SEC Seeks To Narrow Attack On Nasdaq Board Diversity Rule

By Jessica Corso

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told the Fifth Circuit Thursday that conservative groups objecting to a Nasdaq rule mandating the disclosure of board diversity data can no longer complain about the exchange's offer to help companies recruit applicable candidates because that offer has expired, mooting at least one aspect of a broader attack against the rule.

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Analysis

The Biggest Copyright Decisions Of 2024: A Midyear Report

By Ivan Moreno

The justices ruled there's no time limit for how far back copyright plaintiffs can pursue infringement damages as long as their claims are timely, and an Ohio jury said video game developers didn't infringe a tattoo artist's works by depicting the images on basketball players. Here's a look at some of the most notable copyright decisions so far in 2024.

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Higher Education Atty Rejoins Saul Ewing In Its Del. Office

By Rose Krebs

Saul Ewing LLP announced Thursday that it has welcomed back an attorney with two decades of litigation and in-house experience, including more than a decade at the University of Delaware.

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NYSE Delisting May Be The Cost Of FCPA Compliance

ABB’s recent decision to delist its U.S. depository receipts from the New York Stock Exchange, coupled with having settled three Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement actions, begs the question of whether the cost of FCPA compliance should factor into a company's decision to remain listed in the U.S., says John Joy at FTI Law.

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Del. 3M Ruling Risks Upending Corporate Insurance Programs

A Delaware court's findings last week in the 3M earplug insurance litigation that a parent company's defense fee payments don't count toward a subsidiary's self-insured retention and that an insurer's duty to pay defense costs doesn't attach to multidistrict litigation merit closer scrutiny in light of the modern corporate form and the fundamental objectives of MDLs, say Julie Hammerman and Gary Thompson at Thompson HD.

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Analysis

How Being A Female Litigator May Aid Harris' Presidential Bid

By Aebra Coe

Female litigators regularly confront implicit biases and double standards when it comes to "their appearance, voice, attire, demeanor and their advocacy," according to the author of an American Bar Foundation research report on first chair trial lawyers.

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'Terrible Decisions': Ex-McElroy Deutsch CFO Gets 5 Years

By Carla Baranauckas

McElroy Deutsch Mulvaney & Carpenter LLP's former chief financial officer was sentenced Friday in a New Jersey state court to five years in prison and ordered to pay restitution for embezzling more than $1.5 million from the firm and failing to pay income tax.

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Analysis

How Barrett Became The High Court's Justice To Watch

By Katie Buehler

Justice Amy Coney Barrett has revealed a unique trifecta of caution toward overly broad opinions, devotion to the factual record and concern for the practical effects of court rulings that separates her from the other right-leaning justices and contains the potential to broker more moderate rulings in future terms.

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Cadwalader Suing Lloyd's Over Cyberattack Coverage Denial

By Lynn LaRowe

Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP has filed suit against insurer Lloyd's of London in North Carolina state court, alleging the company has failed to reimburse the law firm for expenses related to a November 2022 data breach.

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Attys Face Sanctions For Fake Citations In Whistleblower Suit

By Rachel Rippetoe

A Virginia federal judge has asked lawyers representing a plaintiff in a whistleblower case to defend why they should not be sanctioned for including seemingly fabricated case sources in a brief objecting to a protective order, questioning whether it was a case of "ChatGPT run amok."

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Ex-Thompson Hine Atty Says Firm Can't Oppose NY Jurisdiction

By Xiumei Dong

Former Thompson Hine LLP income partner Rebecca Brazzano fired back at efforts by two firm partners to dismiss her lawsuit alleging sexual harassment, contending among other arguments that they waived their right to contest personal jurisdiction by filing another motion that attempts to force arbitration that didn't raise the jurisdiction issue.

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Cuomo Harassment Document Fight Heads To NY Appeals Court

By Rachel Scharf

A Manhattan judge on Friday allowed both the New York attorney general and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo to appeal parts of a decision requiring the state to produce unredacted transcripts of some witness interviews in the sexual harassment investigation that led to Cuomo's resignation.

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Rutgers Fights Contempt Bid By Student Who Filed Bias Suit

By Rose Krebs

Rutgers University wants a New Jersey state court to reject a bid by a law school student who filed a discrimination suit against it to hold the school in contempt for moving ahead with disciplinary measures against him, arguing there is "no basis" to grant the request.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Boyden Gray PLLC leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the full Fifth Circuit struck down as unconstitutional the Federal Communications Commission's system for subsidizing telecommunications service for rural and low-income users.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

What a news week! President Joe Biden started it off by announcing he would not seek re-election, but then said he would push for reform of the U.S. Supreme Court in his remaining time. And the Boeing Co. confirmed it has finalized its agreement with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to one count of criminal conspiracy to defraud, related to safety issues and two fatal plane crashes.

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

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen U.K. band The 1975 face action by Future Sound Asia after its performance in Malaysia resulted in a festival's cancelation, Spectrum Insurance hit by The Motoring Organization following their dispute over information misuse, and a former police constable pursue defamation against a colleague for allegedly instigating a campaign of harassment against her. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Assa Abloy Resolves DOJ Merger Monitor Dispute

By Bryan Koenig

Assa Abloy told a D.C. federal judge that it's agreed "in principle" on how a monitoring trustee will review its compliance with a U.S. Department of Justice merger lawsuit settlement, resolving a simmering dispute over its complaints of an open-ended multimillion-dollar investigation.

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Georgia Judge Won't Block Prosecutor Oversight Commission

By Kelcey Caulder

A Georgia judge has rejected an attempt to temporarily block a new state commission created to investigate and discipline state prosecutors, finding it doesn't violate Georgia's constitution.

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SEC Sues Banker And Ex-Prosecutor Alleging $1.6M Fraud

By Rae Ann Varona

A Georgia banker fraudulently bilked approximately $1.6 million from unsuspecting investors for "furs and furniture" and other expenses while a former Florida prosecutor ignored several red flags when holding on to the investments, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told a Georgia federal court.

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Colorado's New Chief Justice Sworn In

By Daniel Ducassi

Chief Justice Monica M. Márquez started her three-year term leading the Colorado Supreme Court on Friday after being sworn in during a closed-door ceremony.

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Girardi Can't Show Ex-CFO's Spending Habits In Fraud Trial

By Gina Kim

Jurors in Tom Girardi's upcoming fraud trial won't hear details about the spending habits of Girardi Keese's former CFO, who's accused of a "side fraud" that bilked millions without Girardi's knowledge, after a California federal judge agreed with prosecutors Friday that the evidence appears more prejudicial than probative.

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Hunter Biden's Attys Made 'False Statements,' Judge Says

By Bonnie Eslinger

The California federal judge overseeing Hunter Biden's criminal tax trial threatened to sanction the presidential son's lawyers Wednesday, saying they made "false statements" in a motion to dismiss that cited a Florida federal judge's order disqualifying the special prosecutor in Donald Trump's classified documents case.

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