Analysis

Trade Secret Filings Hit Record High In 2025, Report Finds

By Ivan Moreno

Trade secret litigation reached an all-time high in 2025, with more than 1,500 federal cases filed for the first time ever, according to a new report by legal analytics firm Lex Machina, which also highlights trends about damages, the busiest courts and the law firms most frequently involved.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Chancery Awards $50M To Arxada In Trade Secrets Case

By Adam Lidgett

Chemicals company Arxada on Wednesday was awarded more than $50 million in damages and expenses in its lawsuit in Delaware's Court of Chancery claiming the owner of a company it bought took its trade secrets with his family to form a competitor.

Opinion attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Del. Justices Told ERISA, Legal Fee Tangle Unprecedented

By Jeff Montgomery

An attorney for a distressed credit fund told Delaware's Supreme Court justices on Wednesday that a vice chancellor made an unprecedented finding last year that provisions of the nation's employee retirement income law barred entitlement to legal fee advancement in a state contract case, urging the justices to overturn the ruling.

3 documents attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

SEC Urged To Adopt Insider Trading Rules For Foreign Firms

By Jessica Corso

A former member of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is among a trio of academics pressing the agency to write rules cracking down on insider trading at foreign companies that trade on U.S. exchanges, urging action before a congressionally mandated deadline runs out in March.

Petition attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Social Media Addiction Laws Eyed By Conn. Governor, AG

By Aaron Keller

Connecticut lawmakers will consider forcing social media companies to display mental health warning labels and file state reports detailing the numbers of youth users, parental consent figures and average daily screen time statistics, Gov. Ned Lamont and Attorney General William M. Tong said in a Wednesday statement.

1 document attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Data Co.'s Brass, Top Customer Face SEC 'Round-Trip' Claims

By Emilie Ruscoe

Executives of a now-bankrupt data intelligence company face U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission claims that they conspired with one of the company's biggest customers on a so-called round-trip accounting scheme to overstate the company's revenue and become a more attractive target for a special purpose acquisition company.

Complaint attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

SEC Says Musk Can't Fight 'Uncontested' Facts In Twitter Case

By Katryna Perera

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday further urged a D.C. federal judge to grant it an early win in the agency's enforcement action against Elon Musk over his Twitter stock purchases, saying Musk's recent opposition brief "only confirms that the court should grant" summary judgment.

Response attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Google To Pay Android Users $135M To End Data Use Suit

By Allison Grande

Google agreed to pay $135 million and obtain consent from new Android users for use of their cellular data to resolve a proposed class action accusing it of conducting "passive" data transfers without consumers' knowledge or consent over the Android operating system, according to a proposed deal filed in California federal court.

Settlement attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Anthropic Hit With 2nd Music IP Suit, This Time For $3B

By Hailey Konnath

Major music publishers already suing Anthropic for copyright infringement filed a second, $3 billion suit against the artificial intelligence company on Wednesday, a move they say is necessary to hold Anthropic accountable for "brazen," newly discovered mass infringement of sheet music and songbooks.

Complaint attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Krispy Kreme Reaches $1.6M Deal Over Employee Data Breach

By Rae Ann Varona

Krispy Kreme has agreed to a $1.6 million settlement to resolve a consolidated proposed class action that accused the doughnut chain of failing to protect current and former employees' personal information from a November 2024 data breach, according to a filing in North Carolina federal court.

2 documents attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Company Seeks Damages Despite Invalid Noncompetes

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Supreme Court on Wednesday probed how far employers can go in enforcing noncompete and nonsolicitation clauses tied to lucrative equity awards, pressing both sides in a dispute between Fortiline Inc. and Patriot Supply Holdings Inc. and a group of former executives on whether companies should be able to recover damages for alleged breaches even when lower courts have found the underlying restraints unenforceable.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

6th Circ. Affirms Retailer Not Insured For Pandemic Losses

By Melanie Dorsey

The Sixth Circuit has upheld a Tennessee federal court's decision denying a national clothing retailer's bid for coverage for COVID-19 pandemic-related costs, ruling the lower court conducted its "choice of law" analysis correctly and that Tennessee and Pennsylvania laws bar coverage.

Opinion attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Louis Vuitton Didn't Heed Salesforce Breach Alert, Suit Says

By Gina Kim

Louis Vuitton failed to heed warnings and security recommendations from Salesforce to protect against "vishing" techniques from cybercriminals who ended up infiltrating the fashion house's systems last summer and stole customer information, alleges a proposed class action filed Tuesday in New York federal court.

Complaint attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Employee Exodus Prompts CEO Defamation Lawsuit

By Matthew Santoni

Employees moving from one Turkish company to another has led to a $5.5 million defamation lawsuit between the CEOs of their American affiliates, according to a complaint filed in a federal court in Pennsylvania.

Complaint attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Call Center Workers Ink Wage Deal With Disability Nonprofit

By Irene Spezzamonte

A disability services nonprofit has agreed to pay $76,500 to settle a suit accusing it of failing to pay call center employees for work before shifts and during unpaid meal breaks and of miscalculating their overtime, the workers told a Virginia federal court.

Settlement attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Nomura Unit Taps Legal Chief To Steer Crypto Trust Bank Plan

By Aislinn Keely

A crypto-focused subsidiary of financial services group Nomura has applied to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to establish a national trust bank headed by its legal chief.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Withers Launches East Coast L&E Team With Outten & Golden Trio

By Andrea Keckley

Withers announced Tuesday that it has launched an employment practice on the East Coast, welcoming three former Outten & Golden PC lawyers who have advised executives across a wide range of industries.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Ropes & Gray Adds 3 Partners In New York

By Christine DeRosa

Ropes & Gray LLP has expanded its offerings in New York with the addition of three attorneys, one each from Debevoise, Paul Weiss and Wachtell Lipton.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

What Businesses Offering AI Should Expect From The FTC

The Federal Trade Commission's move to reopen and set aside an administrative order against Rytr shows that the FTC is serious about executing on the administration's Artificial Intelligence Action Plan, and won't stand in the way of businesses offering AI products with pro-consumer, legitimate uses, say attorneys at Reed Smith.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: January Lessons

In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses five rulings from October and November, and identifies practice tips from cases involving consumer fraud, oil and gas leases, toxic torts, and wage and hour issues.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

FTO Designations: Containing Foreign Firms' Legal Risks

Non-U.S. companies can contain legal risks related to foreign terrorist organizations by deliberately structuring operations to demonstrate that any interactions with cartel-affected environments are incidental, constrained and unrelated to advancing harm on the U.S., says David Raskin at Nardello & Co.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Series

Judges On AI: How Judicial Use Informs Guardrails

U.S. Magistrate Judge Maritza Dominguez Braswell at the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado discusses why having a sense of how generative AI tools behave, where they add value, where they introduce risk and how they are reshaping the practice of law is key for today's judges.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

ICE Violated Nearly 100 Court Orders, Minn. Judge Says

By Rae Ann Varona

The Minnesota federal court's chief judge admonished U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Wednesday for violating nearly 100 court orders concerning the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota while another judge, on the same day, temporarily blocked ICE from unlawfully arresting and detaining refugees in the North Star State.

2 documents attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Tobey Maguire Says He Rerouted Fee To Goldstein

By Jared Foretek

"Spider-Man" star Tobey Maguire told the jury Wednesday in Thomas Goldstein's tax fraud trial that he paid $500,000 for his legal services to another poker player the former SCOTUSblog founder owed money to, rather than Goldstein's law firm.

2 documents attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Tom Goldstein Saga Could Go From Courtroom To Big Screen

By Rachel Rippetoe

As federal prosecutors are two weeks into detailing SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein's storied descent into the world of high-stakes poker during his tax fraud trial in Maryland, Hollywood producers are gearing up to tell the same story on-screen.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Fla. Prosecutors' Detention Defense Met With Sanction Threat

By Adrian Cruz

The U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Florida, Gregory Kehoe, along with an assistant U.S. attorney have been threatened with sanctions by a federal judge for the methods their office used in defending the mandatory detention of noncitizens.

Decision attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Brief

Trump Announces Pick For New Assistant AG For Fraud Role

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday evening that he would be nominating Colin McDonald, associate deputy attorney general, for the newly created assistant attorney general for fraud role.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

USPTO Seeks 'Serious Sanctions' For Chinese Co.'s 19K Apps

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office says the "most serious sanctions" are warranted against a China-based company for filing more than 19,000 trademark submissions using names of U.S.-licensed attorneys who did not review the applications, saying submissions were at times filed in 3-minute intervals "or less."

Order attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »

Prosecutors Form New Group To Fight Federal Overreach

By Ryan Boysen

Several progressive prosecutors have launched a new group to hold accountable federal officials who "exceed their lawful authority," amid a growing backlash to the Trump administration's immigration crackdown and the recent killing of two protesters by immigration agents in Minneapolis.

Read full article » | Save to favorites »

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.

2 documents attached | Read full article » | Save to favorites »