3M, Bain Buying Madison Fire & Rescue For $1.95B

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Worker safety and consumer goods conglomerate 3M, advised by King & Spalding LLP, and private equity giant Bain Capital, led by Kirkland & Ellis LLP, on Thursday announced that they have agreed to acquire Paul Hastings LLP-advised Madison Fire & Rescue from Madison Industries in a $1.95 billion deal.

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Prologis, GIC Ink $1.6B Build-To-Suit Logistics JV

By Grace Dixon

Logistics real estate leader Prologis and investor GIC announced Thursday that they have formed a $1.6 billion joint venture to develop and own build-to-suit logistics facilities across major U.S. markets.

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Tulane Panel Flags Growing Political Influence On Dealmaking

By Al Barbarino

At the annual Tulane Corporate Law Institute on Thursday, panelists warned that politics is increasingly shaping dealmaking and complicating how transactions are negotiated and executed, with one likening the discussion to a "hostage" situation.

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PE Behemoths Eye $10B OpenAI JV, Plus More Rumors

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Private equity firms, including TPG and Bain Capital, are considering forming a $10 billion joint venture with OpenAI, Finnish lift maker Kone Oyj is mulling an acquisition of its rival TK Elevator, and Australian investment firm Macquarie has backed out of a bidding war for a stake in Kuwait's oil pipeline network due to the conflict in the Middle East.

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Depo Stay Kept As Trump Media Settles Merger Docs Dispute

By David Minsky

A Florida state judge on Thursday kept a roughly one-month pause on the deposition of certain individuals in Trump Media's lawsuit alleging an investor botched the platform's initial public offering, allowing an arbitrator to resolve a dispute over who controls documents related to the merger with a special purpose acquisition company.

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Fed. Circ. Rejects Last Challenge To Squires' Discretion

By Dani Kass

The Federal Circuit on Thursday shot down Volkswagen's mandamus petition claiming that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office director shouldn't have "unfettered discretion" to deny Patent Trial and Appeal Board challenges, closing the last of 14 related appeals.

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Ex-Workers Ask 11th Circ. To Overturn ERISA Exhaustion Rule

By Kellie Mejdrich

Former workers for a seafood company urged the full Eleventh Circuit to overturn precedent that led a three-judge panel to uphold dismissal of their suit alleging mismanagement of an employee stock ownership plan, arguing the court's strictest-in-the-nation standard on exhausting administrative remedies didn't align with federal benefits law.

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6 Noteworthy Changes From SEC Enforcement Manual Update

Recent updates to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s enforcement manual represent a commitment to transparency and fair process, with the signature change being a requirement that staff make certain probative evidence available during the Wells process, say attorneys at Debevoise.

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Series

Coaching Soccer Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Coaching youth soccer for my 7-year-old son's team has sharpened how I communicate with clients, prepare witnesses, work within teams and think about leadership, making me a more thoughtful and effective lawyer in many ways, says Joshua Holt at Smith Currie.

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Sitting Judges Take Stand Over Threats Growing 'Ordinary'

By Jake Maher

On the heels of an ethics opinion giving them wider latitude to speak publicly, sitting federal judges brought attention Thursday to the increasing threats against them and their family members, warning about the dangers of such threats becoming "ordinary."

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Anatomy Of A Citation Hallucination: AI Edit, Associate Review

By Rachel Riley

Counsel for consumers in a supplement labeling lawsuit against Amazon responded Wednesday to a Seattle federal judge's order to explain an AI-hallucinated citation, saying the error was introduced by a generative artificial intelligence tool used to "harmonize" drafts of a brief, then missed by a fifth-year Boies Schiller associate tasked with checking the citations.

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Jackson Walker, US Trustee Reach Deal On Fee Settlements

By Vince Sullivan

The Office of the U.S. Trustee and law firm Jackson Walker LLP on Wednesday resolved the bankruptcy watchdog's opposition to a series of settlements tied to a romantic relationship between a former Jackson Walker attorney and a now-retired bankruptcy judge.

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Judge Quashes Subpoena Of 5 Firms That Repped Twitter

By Rae Ann Varona

A Delaware federal court ruled Thursday that six former Twitter employees cannot subpoena five law firms that represented the social media company in connection with its acquisition by Elon Musk, rejecting the employees' "conclusory allegations" that the company and Musk used the firms to make false promises of severance benefits.

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Nomination For New DOJ Fraud Chief Heads To Senate Floor

By Courtney Bublé

The nomination of Colin McDonald for the new position of assistant attorney general for fraud was sent to the full Senate on Thursday, after the Judiciary Committee voted 12-10 along party lines to advance his nomination.

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Judge Digs Into Counsel Over 'Astronomically High' Fee Bid

By Nadia Dreid

Attorneys who represented classes of people who say they received harassing phone calls from real estate agents in violation of federal telemarketing laws are asking for way too much of the $20 million settlement, according to the California federal judge who tore into them Wednesday.

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DOJ Antitrust Head Tells Staff: Don't Worry About Criticism

By Bryan Koenig

The acting head of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division said Thursday that he pays no heed to criticism of the agency and tells staff to do the same, while asserting in Washington, D.C., remarks that there's no better time to come work for the DOJ.

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Fired 'Arctic Frost' Agents Accuse FBI Of Political Retribution

By Dorothy Atkins

Two former FBI agents who worked on the "Arctic Frost" investigation into President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss have accused the government of abruptly firing them in an unconstitutional act of "political retribution."

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