SEC Gives Cos. Freer Rein To Block Shareholder Proposals

By Jessica Corso

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that it will not review most of the requests it gets from publicly traded companies hoping to exclude shareholder proposals from corporate ballots this proxy season, saying that it will not object to the exclusions due to time and resource constraints.

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Tyson Won't Make Carbon Claims Under Greenwashing Deal

By Hailey Konnath

Tyson Foods Inc. has agreed to stop making promises to reach "net-zero" greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and to sell "climate-smart" beef, according to a settlement filed Monday that resolves greenwashing allegations brought by the Environmental Working Group.

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Tesla Wins Bid To Unwind Class In Race Harassment Suit

By Grace Elletson

A California judge said a class of thousands of Black workers should be disbanded in a suit alleging rampant racist harassment at Tesla's factory in Fremont, California, after the workers' lawyers faced difficulty in securing witness testimony and asked the court for a new trial plan. 

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GOP States Urge Justices To Clarify Collective Cert. Standard

By Patrick Hoff

A coalition of 21 states and two business groups told the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday that lower courts' allegedly premature certification of collective actions drives up the cost of litigation and forces employers into multimillion-dollar settlements, backing Eli Lilly & Co. in a worker's age bias case.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court and Delaware Supreme Court last week had a dense slate of fiduciary duty battles, merger-process challenges, post-bankruptcy fights and a series of cases probing the limits of fraud pleading, credible-basis inspections and board-level disclosure duties.

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Judge Questions Eaton's Role In Lowered Credit Rating

By Molly Moses

Tax Court Judge Albert Lauber questioned an expert for Eaton on Monday about how he arrived at a lowered credit rating for the U.S. company in a report he prepared in January 2013, shortly after it acquired an Irish-based global electrical products manufacturer and inverted.

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Medtronic Can't Nix FCA Claims Despite 1st Circ. Precedent

By Rae Ann Varona

A Massachusetts federal judge reconsidered reviving Medtronic's bid to defeat claims it violated the False Claims Act in light of new First Circuit precedent on a causation standard, but ruled that a whistleblower's evidence warranted keeping the claims alive for now.

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Atty Lowell Gets Delay In EBay Trial Amid NY AG Case Work

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts federal judge on Monday agreed to postpone the trial in a cyberstalking lawsuit against eBay and several former executives at the request of defense attorney Abbe David Lowell, who had cited his ongoing work for several high-profile clients, including New York Attorney General Letitia James in the Trump administration's criminal prosecution.

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Atty 'Misplaced' Trust In Par Funding Promoter, Panel Hears

By P.J. D'Annunzio

A former Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott LLC attorney accused of ethical violations related to promoting the Par Funding merchant cash advance business told a Pennsylvania disciplinary panel Monday that all he did was zealously represent his client, who pitched the ill-fated enterprise to potential investors.

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Engineer Gets 46 Months For Stealing Tech To Aid China

By Craig Clough

An engineer was sentenced by a California federal judge to 46 months in prison for stealing trade secrets regarding nuclear missile detection used by the government and planning to send it to the People's Republic of China, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday.

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Gibson Dunn Seeks Exit From Josh Cellars TM Royalties Case

By Aaron Keller

With a February trial date looming, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP has asked a Connecticut state judge's permission to stop representing the former president of a company behind the popular "Josh Cellars" wine brand, claiming unpaid legal bills and an alleged breakdown of the attorney-client relationship require its withdrawal.

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Fintech Ryvyl Gets First OK For Derivative Suit Deal

By Sydney Price

Blockchain-based payment solutions company Ryvyl Inc. has reached a deal with its investors to settle their derivative claims that the company was damaged by an alleged concealment of accounting issues.

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Chancery Mulls Receiver For Foundering Gaming Chat Co.

By Jeff Montgomery

Saying the court stands at "the outer boundaries" of precedent, a Delaware vice chancellor on Monday declined for now to appoint a receiver for voided online gaming chat venture TeamSpeak and ordered targeted discovery regarding the standing of a stockholder who sued the company's directors and others for alleged breaches of fiduciary duty.

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E-Discovery Quarterly: Recent Rulings On Dynamic Databases

Several recent federal court decisions illustrate how parties continue to grapple with the discovery of data in dynamic databases, so counsel involved in these disputes must consider how structured data should be produced consistent with the requirements of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, say attorneys at Sidley.

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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: November Lessons

In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses five recent rulings and identifies practice tips from cases involving claims related to oil and gas royalty payments, consumer fraud, life insurance, automobile insurance, and securities violations.

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Analysis

UK Firms Drive Transatlantic Appetite For M&A Dealmaking

By Aebra Coe and Chris Villani

The merger announced Monday between British legal giant Ashurst LLP and American law firm Perkins Coie LLP is the latest in a spate of deals driven, in part, by an appetite among global firms to gain a strong presence in the U.S.

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'Astounding' Holland & Knight Conduct Drives Liability Ruling

By Ryan Boysen

Holland & Knight LLP has forfeited a malpractice lawsuit in Alaska by refusing to turn over information to a Native American tribal corporation, with a state judge entering a default judgment as a sanction and calling the firm's conduct "a head scratcher" and "astounding."

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Brief

ABA Decries Lawmaker Calls For Impeachments Of Judges

By Courtney Bublé

The American Bar Association said on Monday it's "alarmed" by lawmakers' interest in impeaching judges just because they don't like their rulings.

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Judge Orders Grand Jury Docs Released In Comey Case

By Brandon Lowrey

A Virginia federal magistrate judge Monday ordered the disclosure of all grand jury materials related to the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, saying government misconduct may have tainted the grand jury proceedings.

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DOJ Backs White House's Military Lawyer Transfers

By Courtney Bublé

A newly released legal opinion from the U.S. Department of Justice says the Trump administration is allowed to detail military lawyers to serve as immigration judges and special assistant U.S. attorneys in the District of Columbia.

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Senator Slams Trump For 'Blowing Up' Wis. US Atty Process

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., accused President Donald Trump on Monday of skirting the process to nominate U.S. attorneys in Wisconsin with his pick of a failed Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate for the office that covers Milwaukee.

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Law School Admission Council Pushes To Toss Antitrust Suit

By Andrea Keckley

The Law School Admission Council is continuing its push to toss a proposed class action accusing it of fixing application fees with its member schools, saying in a Pennsylvania federal court filing last week that the applicant's opposition to its dismissal motion "entirely fails to engage with the incoherence at the core of his case."

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Holyoak Leaves FTC For Interim US Atty In Utah

By Bryan Koenig

Melissa Holyoak left the Federal Trade Commission on Monday to become Utah's interim U.S. attorney, leaving the FTC down to two commissioners, both Republicans, in the Trump administration's latest use of interim U.S. attorney appointments.

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