FCC Signs Off On Skydance's $8B Acquisition Of Paramount

By Hailey Konnath

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday gave the green light to Skydance Media's controversial $8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global and its subsidiaries, including CBS' parent company, setting aside concerns that the deal will hurt competition.

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3 Firms Guide $1.25B Waystar-Iodine Software Deal

By Al Barbarino

Healthcare payment software provider Waystar has agreed to acquire Texas-based Iodine Software for $1.25 billion, in a deal steered by three law firms that aims to deepen Waystar's reach into clinical hospital workflows with artificial intelligence-driven software tools.

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Union Pacific, Norfolk Pursuing Coast-to-Coast Rail Megadeal

By Al Barbarino

Norfolk Southern Corp. and Union Pacific Corp. on Thursday confirmed they are in "advanced discussions" on a potential megamerger that would create a transcontinental rail giant — and one that may stand a better chance of success under a more flexible regulatory regime. 

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3 Firms Advise $1.1B Deal To Take Office REIT Private

By Nate Beck

Canada-based City Office REIT said Thursday that it has agreed to be acquired by an affiliate of hedge fund Elliott Investment in a take-private deal valued at $1.1 billion and advised by DLA Piper, Hogan Lovells and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP.

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Rising Star: McGuireWoods' Dan Howell

By Christine DeRosa

Dan Howell of McGuireWoods LLP represented Dominion Energy Inc. in its $14 billion sale of three local natural gas distribution companies and Apogee Engineering in its acquisition by private equity firm Bernhard Capital Partners, earning him a spot among the mergers and acquisitions practitioners under age 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.

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EU Probes If KKR Gave 'Incorrect Or Misleading' Merger Info

By Bryan Koenig

European Union antitrust enforcers announced an investigation Thursday into whether KKR & Co. Inc. provided "incorrect or misleading information" as part of the review of its $23.7 billion acquisition of NetCo that received unconditional approval last year.

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Tyson's $55M Delaware Win Won't Aid Ga. Suit, Rival Says

By Chart Riggall

Poultry rendering company American Proteins Inc. told a Georgia federal judge Wednesday that a Delaware court's award of $55 million to Tyson Foods for overpaying to acquire the company has no bearing on their antitrust suit over whether Tyson forced the buyout through strong-arm tactics.

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Chancery OKs $12.75M Settlement In MoneyLion SPAC Suit

By Jeff Montgomery

Saying parts of the deal "reflect a poster-child scenario for the problems and malincentives associated with the de-SPAC form," a Delaware vice chancellor on Thursday approved a $12.75 million settlement in a stockholder suit challenging a take-public deal for digital finance platform MoneyLion.

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Chesnara Raises £140M To Fund HSBC Life Buy

By Dawood Fakhir

British pensions company Chesnara PLC said Thursday that it has raised approximately £140 million ($190 million) to partly fund the £260 million acquisition of the specialist life protection and investment bond provider of banking giant HSBC.

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Deals Rumor Mill

CapVest Seeks $11.7B Stake In Stada, Plus More Rumors

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

British private equity firm CapVest Partners is looking to take a major stake in German drugmaker Stada Arzneimittel in a roughly $11.7 billion deal, Comedy Central's "South Park" creators have nabbed a $1.5 billion five-year streaming rights deal with Paramount, and ExxonMobil wants to explore deepwater blocks in Trinidad and Tobago for oil and gas. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other deal rumors from the past week.

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Accelerant, McGraw Hill IPOs Raise Over $1.1B Combined

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Two private equity-backed companies, insurance marketplace Accelerant and education publishing giant McGraw Hill Inc., have joined the recent surge in initial public offerings, with both companies going public on Thursday after pricing IPOs that raised more than $1.1 billion total.

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Series

Playing Baseball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Playing baseball in college, and now Wiffle ball in a local league, has taught me that teamwork, mental endurance and emotional intelligence are not only important to success in the sport, but also to success as a trial attorney, says Kevan Dorsey at Swift Currie.

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Opinion

DOJ's HPE-Juniper Settlement Will Help US Compete

The U.S. Department of Justice settlement with Hewlett Packard Enterprise clears the purchase of Juniper Networks in a deal that positions the U.S. as a leader in secure, scalable networking and critical digital infrastructure by requiring the divestiture of a WiFi network business geared toward small firms, says John Shu at Taipei Medical University.

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Butler Snow Attys DQ'd For Fake AI Citations In Prisoner Case

By Emily Sawicki

Three Butler Snow LLP attorneys have been publicly reprimanded and removed from representing the former commissioner of the Alabama Department of Corrections in an incarcerated man's federal civil rights case, after a judge found they had filed motions including "hallucinations" generated by ChatGPT.

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Ky. Clerk Seeks To Overturn Marriage Equality Ruling

By Danielle Ferguson

A Kentucky clerk who made international headlines for refusing to issue marriage licenses in protest of the legalization of same-sex marriage asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to overturn its 2015 marriage equality decision after she unsuccessfully tried to shake a civil judgment against her.

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Q&A

'Tiger King' Atty Talks Building A Firm Through Social Media

By Parker Quinlan

Hours after a federal jury in Manhattan returned a mixed verdict in a sex trafficking case against Sean "Diddy" Combs, Molly Parmer, a Georgia defense attorney and TikTok content creator with more than 94,200 followers, posted a video outlining what he could expect in terms of sentencing. Law360 spoke with Parmer about her practice and how she turned her solo firm, Parmer Law, into a space for online court observers.

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Analysis

AI Rollout At USPTO Has Attys Foreseeing Stronger Patents

By Ryan Davis

As the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office incorporates more use of artificial intelligence in patent examination, attorneys predict the technology could lead to stronger patents in the future, especially for designs, though it may make the process more challenging for applicants.

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Alina Habba Says She Is Now Acting US Atty In NJ

By Lauren Berg

Alina Habba posted on social media Thursday that she is now the acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, two days after the federal district court declined to extend her tenure in the interim position.

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Trump Admin Sues NYC To Block Sanctuary Policies

By Rae Ann Varona

The Trump administration on Thursday filed suit in New York federal court seeking to bar New York City from enforcing policies it alleges amount to "intentional sabotage" of federal immigration enforcement and thus violate the U.S. Constitution's supremacy clause.

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DOJ Sentence Ask In Breonna Taylor Case Shows Policy Shift

By Parker Quinlan

Although the request by top U.S. Department of Justice officials seeking a one-day sentence for a former Louisville police officer who participated in the raid that led to Breonna Taylor's death wasn't heeded, former federal prosecutors and defense attorneys say a government request to downgrade a sentence is unusual, but likely to recur in politically relevant matters.

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Jeanine Pirro's Nomination Advances To Full Senate

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted out seven U.S. attorney nominations Thursday, which include Jeanine Pirro, former Fox News host and New York state judge, and four others who had to be revoted on after Democrats walked out of last week's meeting over objections to how the consideration of controversial Third Circuit nominee Emil Bove was being handled.

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Chamberlain Hrdlicka Wins Bid To Arbitrate Malpractice Claim

By Lynn LaRowe

Chamberlain Hrdlicka White Williams & Autry PC won a Texas state appellate decision Thursday forcing a former client to arbitrate his claims that the firm's alleged malpractice over a business restructuring ultimately cost him millions in a divorce.

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High Court Hits Pause On 8th Circ. Voting Rights Order

By Crystal Owens

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday paused an Eighth Circuit order to vacate two North Dakota tribes' challenge to two of the state's voting laws that they allege will silence the state's Indigenous voters and disenfranchise millions across seven Midwestern states.

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NJ Attys Warn RICO Case Revival Would 'Chill' Lawyering

By George Woolston

The New Jersey State Bar Association told a Garden State appellate court that lawyers across the state will be chilled from zealously advocating for their clients if it revives the state's racketeering indictment against two politically connected attorneys, making it the second attorney advocacy group to file a proposed amicus curiae brief in the case.

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Ex-Calif. Judge Says 'Trying To Do Too Much' Led To Backlog

By Emily Sawicki

A former California state appellate justice said health problems and a strong work ethic harmed his ability to handle his caseload quickly, leading to delays in hundreds of cases that precipitated ethics charges, telling a watchdog he "can only be faulted for trying to do too much under the circumstances."

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Brief

Senate Tees Up Vote On Emil Bove To 3rd Circ.

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 50-48 on Thursday to tee up the confirmation of Emil Bove to the Third Circuit, which will likely happen next week.

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