Trump Says Epstein Birthday Letter Is Fake In $10B WSJ Suit

By Carolina Bolado

President Donald Trump maintained Tuesday that a "bawdy" birthday letter sent to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that purportedly bears Trump's signature is phony and argued that the Wall Street Journal's decision to write about the letter despite his assertions that it was fake shows actual malice.

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Ed Sheeran Can Challenge Copyright On 'Let's Get It On'

By Elliot Weld

A Manhattan federal judge said Tuesday that she would allow Ed Sheeran to challenge the validity of a 2020 copyright on elements of the Marvin Gaye track "Let's Get It On" before the copyright holder is permitted to amend its suit alleging Sheeran's hit song "Thinking Out Loud" infringes it.

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Combs' Defamation Suit Unlikely To Be Tossed, Judge Says

By Pete Brush

Sean "Diddy" Combs' $50 million defamation suit accusing a grand jury witness, a lawyer and Nexstar Media Inc. of spreading falsities is likely to survive the defendants' motion to dismiss, at least in part, a Manhattan federal judge said Tuesday.

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Kiss' Gene Simmons Sings Praises Of Radio Pay Bill

By Theresa Schliep

U.S. lawmakers are revisiting an effort to get FM and AM radio broadcasters to pay artists when playing their music, with key members of a Senate subcommittee speaking at a hearing Tuesday in favor of a measure that also garnered enthusiastic support from Kiss singer Gene Simmons.

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Judge Won't Nix Alleged AI-Tainted Award In Gaming Fight

By Caroline Simson

A California federal judge on Tuesday dismissed on technical grounds a closely watched case in which a consumer sought to vacate an arbitral award favoring Valve Corp., the company behind the PC game marketplace Steam, over the arbitrator's "outsourcing" of his adjudicative role to artificial intelligence.

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HBO Max Subscribers Sue To Stop Netflix-Warner Bros. Deal

By Nadia Dreid

HBO Max subscribers slapped Netflix with one of the first proposed class actions seeking to halt the streaming behemoth's $82.7 billion plan to buy Warner Bros.' studio and streaming business, calling the deal "one of the more audacious horizontal mergers in recent memory."

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Suns Seek $250M Capital Call Confirmation Amid Buyout Row

By Lauren Berg

The majority owner of the NBA's Phoenix Suns on Tuesday maintained that a $250 million capital call and a subsequent additional funding round this summer were properly issued under the LLC agreement, amid two minority owners' allegations of mismanagement in Delaware's Chancery Court.

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Sens. Propose NIL Accounts To Help Students Grow Earnings

By Tom Lotshaw

Two U.S. senators introduced legislation Monday to allow the growing number of college student-athletes inking name, image and likeness deals with companies to create tax-advantaged investment accounts to save some of their earnings.

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NFL's Lions Want Suit Over Goff Photos Out Of California

By Alex Lawson

The Detroit Lions are looking to snuff out a photographer's copyright case in California federal court over the team's use of photos he took of quarterback Jared Goff, raising doubts about the dispute's ties to the Golden State.

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Minor Consented To Arbitration In Illegal Gambling Suit: Judge

By Caroline Simson

A California federal judge on Tuesday sent a proposed illegal gambling class action against the Israeli owner of popular mobile game Coin Master to arbitration, ruling that the minor plaintiff had sufficient notice of the arbitration provision when she registered to play.

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Judge Says Betting Case No 'Slam Dunk' For Kalshi Or Mass.

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts judge said Tuesday he's unlikely to decide before January whether state gambling regulators can pursue claims that prediction market operator KalshiEX is flouting sports betting laws, and if so, whether he should grant the state's request for an injunction.

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Judge Questions DraftKings Evidence Of 'Bonus' Fine Print

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts state judge on Tuesday said she had "a lot of questions" about the admissibility of a re-created screen image DraftKings wants to rely on to demonstrate that the lead plaintiff in a proposed class action was shown the terms of an allegedly deceptive bonus offer.

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CoStar Urges Justices To Review Revived Antitrust Claims

By Matthew Perlman

CoStar is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Ninth Circuit ruling reviving antitrust counterclaims from a rival commercial real estate platform, saying the appeals court accepted a novel theory of what constitutes exclusive dealing.

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3rd Circ. Won't Let Post-Gazette Duck Benefits Injunction

By Emily Brill

A Third Circuit panel is standing by its decision to let an injunction against the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette remain active while the newspaper appeals, saying it won't reconsider its Nov. 24 refusal to stay an injunction requiring the paper to restore its workers' pre-2020 benefits.

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Mobile Game Maker, Investors Get Final OK For $6.5M Deal

By Emilie Ruscoe

Mobile game developer Playstudios Inc. and its investors have gotten a final nod for their $6.5 million settlement of claims the company failed to disclose issues with a game it projected would be lucrative as it prepared to go public via merger with a special purpose acquisition company.

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DOJ Gets OK To Unseal Epstein Grand Jury Docs In NY Case

By Lauren Berg

The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday secured a Manhattan federal judge's permission to unseal grand jury materials related to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein, following a new law passed by Congress that requires the agency to release its files on the late sex offender.

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Ad Analytics Co.'s Brass Face Investor Suit Over Bot Traffic

By Emilie Ruscoe

Current and former officers and directors of digital advertisement measurement services DoubleVerify Holdings Inc. kept the company from disclosing artificial intelligence-driven industry shifts that hurt its bottom line, including the company's own failures to detect increasingly sophisticated bot traffic, a shareholder derivative action alleges.

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Republican FCC Commish Signals More 'Delete' Reg Actions

By Christopher Cole

A Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday the agency is looking at even more ways to reduce clutter on the telecom regulatory landscape.

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More Than 160 State Lawmakers Call For BEAD Fund Release

By Christopher Cole

A bipartisan group of more than 160 state legislators wants the Trump administration to quickly release money from a $42.5 billion federal internet service deployment fund that hasn't been spent yet on deploying infrastructure.

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Brief

'Policy Corps' Aims To Promote Widespread US Connectivity

By Christopher Cole

A pair of public interest groups on Tuesday started a broad advocacy push for universal service reform and deploying more broadband to underserved areas.

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AI Evidence Rule Tweaks Encourage Judicial Guardrails

Recent additions to a committee note on proposed Rule of Evidence 707 — governing evidence generated by artificial intelligence — seek to mitigate potential dangers that may arise once machine outputs are introduced at trial, encouraging judges to perform critical gatekeeping functions, say attorneys at Lankler Siffert & Wohl.

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Bonus Spotlight

Litigation Shops Paying Above-Market Bonuses, Reports Say

By Andrea Keckley

Litigation boutiques Yetter Coleman LLP and Dunn Isaacson Rhee LLP are giving above-market bonuses to their associates, according to reports from Above the Law and Bloomberg.

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Jack Smith To Launch Firm With Willkie Partner, 2 Ex-Deputies

By Jack Rodgers

Jack Smith, the former Justice Department special counsel appointed to investigate President Donald Trump, is set to launch his own firm alongside two of his former top deputies and the co-chair of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP's investigations and enforcement practice.

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Judge Bove Faces Complaint Over Trump Rally Attendance

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. Circuit Judge Emil Bove, who previously served as President Donald Trump's personal defense attorney and a top official at the U.S. Department of Justice, has been hit with a judicial misconduct complaint for his appearance at a Trump event on Tuesday night.

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Analysis

Wanted: Temporary US Attorney, No Experience Needed

By Phillip Bantz

Frustrated by a string of court rulings disqualifying several of his U.S. attorney picks, President Donald Trump lamented recently that he might "just have to keep appointing people for three months and then just appoint another one, another one." Experts say the idea raises legal and practical issues.

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Akerman Beats Healthcare Cos.' Bid To Escape Fee Suit

By Madison Arnold

Akerman LLP can continue its fees lawsuit against Rennova Health Inc. and other defendants after they lost their motion to dismiss the suit for being "facially time-barred, factually flawed and legally indefensible," a Florida state judge has ruled.

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Fla. Atty Faces Bar Referral Over 'Hallucinated' Case In Filing

By Madison Arnold

A Florida appeals court will refer an attorney to the state's Bar after she filed a brief that included a "hallucinated" case.

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AGs Say Judicial Safety Threats Reaching 'All-Time Highs'

By Matthew Santoni

Attorneys general for 43 states, three territories and the District of Columbia signed a letter to Congress urging more financial support for judicial security in the face of threats against judges, including funding for a program that lets judges scrub addresses and personal information from online databases.

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Disciplined Attys Want High Court's Take On Judge Criticism

By David Minsky

A father-daughter team of attorneys have brought a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court challenging their suspensions for criticizing a Florida state judge who reversed a $2.75 million jury verdict in favor of their client in a racial discrimination lawsuit, saying their comments are protected by the First Amendment. 

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McIver's Immunity Disputed In Detention Center Assault Case

By Elizabeth Daley

Federal prosecutors asked a New Jersey federal judge to maintain all charges against U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver, who was accused in an indictment of assaulting federal officers outside an immigration detention center during a scrum in which the mayor of Newark was arrested in May.

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Regulate AI With Existing Regs, Financial Industry Lobby Says

By Sarah Jarvis

The Financial Services Institute on Wednesday recommended that regulators apply existing rules and standards to artificial intelligence, saying they should use new rules only when AI brings "genuinely new issues or significantly alters existing risks."

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