DC Judge Grapples With FBI Agents' Bid To Block Jan. 6 List

By Ali Sullivan

A D.C. federal judge on Wednesday questioned whether she could bar the U.S. Department of Justice from publicizing a list of FBI agents who worked cases stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol without concrete evidence the department intends to do so.

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Wis. Justices Suspend Judge Charged With Blocking ICE

By Jack Karp

The Wisconsin state judge who was arrested and charged for allegedly helping an unauthorized migrant evade arrest by federal immigration officers has been temporarily suspended by the state's highest court.

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Coinbase Urges Justices To Take User's IRS Data Seizure Suit

By Aislinn Keely

Crypto exchange Coinbase on Wednesday urged the U.S. Supreme Court to firm up privacy rights around digital information stored with third parties, backing a petition by a Coinbase user who's challenging the Internal Revenue Service's seizure of his account records.

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Slain Fla. Law Professor's Mother-In-Law Moves To Delay Trial

By Carolina Bolado

The former mother-in-law of slain Florida law professor Dan Markel asked Wednesday to delay her trial on charges she helped orchestrate his murder, citing copious discovery produced in recent weeks by the prosecution.

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NYPD Hit With Class Action Claiming Racial Bias In Gang List

By Brandon Lowrey

Three men on a New York Police Department list of criminal gang members filed a putative class action alleging officers unconstitutionally surveil, detain and harass Black and Latino people on the list, civil rights groups said Wednesday.

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Tyler Tech Says NC Digital Court System 'Works As Designed'

By Emily Sawicki

Facing a civil rights class action filed by North Carolina residents who say the state's new digital court system subjected them to wrongful arrests and extended jail time, the software provider that licensed the program told a federal court that it cannot be held responsible for the way its product is used because it is merely a vendor.

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Space Org. Avoids Charges After Helping In China Export Case

By Gina Kim

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday it won't prosecute a NASA contractor research firm whose former employee was sentenced to prison for smuggling aeronautics software to a sanctioned Chinese university, lauding the organization's "exceptional and proactive cooperation" and timely and voluntary self-disclosures of the ex-employee's conduct. 

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Ex-Atlanta IG Aims To Toss Lobbyist's Bank Subpoena Suit

By Chart Riggall

The city of Atlanta's former inspector general asked a Georgia federal judge Tuesday to end a lobbyist and city contractor's suit against her over a corruption probe she launched into his dealings with the city, arguing that the Fourth Amendment provides no protections against subpoenas she issued for his bank records.

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Cos. Must Plan For China-Taiwan Risks, Ex-Trump Official Says

By Sarah Jarvis

A former U.S. Treasury Department official warned Wednesday that U.S. firms should take a serious look at their business exposure to China and develop contingency plans in the event the country invades Taiwan, saying an escalation in the conflict between the U.S. and China would have devastating effects globally.

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SEC Says Bond Trade Business Was $91M Ponzi Scheme

By Sydney Price

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused three Texas residents of operating a Ponzi-like scheme that raised at least $91 million from over 200 investors disguised as an international bond-trading business.

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SEC Says $2.7M Ponzi-Like Scheme Targeted Elderly Koreans

By Emilie Ruscoe

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sued a Washington woman and a company she controls, alleging she fraudulently raised $2.7 million from at least 33 investors, including elderly Korean-Americans, gaining their trust by using her family relationships and affiliation as a member of their community, and then gambling some of those funds away.

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Analysis

Tariffs, FCPA Enforcement Pause Heighten Bribery Risk

By Sarah Jarvis

President Donald Trump's decision to ratchet up tariffs and lower the guard on antibribery enforcement creates heightened risks for multinational companies, as employees potentially face pressure to avoid costly tariffs while conceiving there are fewer risks in going around the law to do so.

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Full 4th Circ. Avoids Constitutionality Of Geofence Warrants

By Nadia Dreid

The full Fourth Circuit was of many minds Wednesday morning as it ruled to co-sign the appellate court's previous finding upholding the use of a so-called geofence warrant to pinpoint a man's location in order to bring robbery charges against him.

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Ill. Developer Gets 6 Years For Role In Bank Embezzlement

By Lauraann Wood

A real estate developer has been sentenced to more than six years in prison following his conviction for participating in a multimillion-dollar embezzlement scheme at a now-shuttered bank, federal prosecutors in Chicago announced Wednesday.

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Extradited Fund Manager Admits To $3.4M Fraud Scheme

By Sydney Price

The former manager of a Connecticut investment fund, who spent almost a year in custody in South America, pled guilty to wire fraud and money laundering charges in a scheme prosecutors say swindled $3.4 million from investors who thought he was running a conservative hedge fund with consistent returns.

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EU Busts $10M VAT Fraud Ring Involving Chinese Imports

By Jack McLoone

The European Anti-Fraud Office and Polish authorities uncovered a value-added tax fraud ring that exploited European Union rules to dodge over 38.2 million Polish zloty ($10.1 million) in value-added taxes on goods imported from China, they said Wednesday.

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Underwriters Seek Exit From $37M FTC Dispute With Loan Co.

By Elizabeth Daley

Underwriters asked a California federal court on Wednesday to find that they did not have to defend a company accused by the Federal Trade Commission of bilking consumers out of at least $37 million through a credit scheme designed to trick consumers into taking on debt.

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Website Operators Challenge $102M FTC Judgment

By Carolina Bolado

Two former executives of On Point Global LLC urged the Eleventh Circuit to reverse a civil contempt sanction of $102 million for violating a prior injunction, arguing that the lower court should have held a hearing to allow them to present evidence in their favor.

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Kratom Cos. Get False Ad, Addiction Suit Tossed

By Mike Curley

A California federal judge has dismissed a proposed class action alleging Thang Botanicals and FTLS Holdings LLC mislead consumers about addictive qualities of their kratom products after the plaintiffs failed to file an amended complaint on time.

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BetMGM Beats Problem Gambler's 3rd Circ. Fraud Suit Appeal

By Rae Ann Varona

The Third Circuit has declined to revive a man's consumer fraud suit accusing BetMGM and others of pushing him to continue gambling through more than 1,800 text messages, finding in a nonprecedential opinion that he failed to state a claim under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act.

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Feds Barred From Reviving 'Unlawful' Tornado Cash Sanctions

By Aislinn Keely

A Texas federal judge has permanently barred the U.S. Department of the Treasury from enforcing its now-dissolved sanctions on crypto mixer Tornado Cash after the advocates who challenged the designation argued the government's removal of the sanctions wasn't enough.

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Crunching The Numbers Of Trump SEC's 1st 100 Days

During the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought significantly fewer stand-alone enforcement actions than at the beginning of the Biden and the first Trump administrations, with every one of the federal court complaints including allegations of fraudulent conduct, say attorneys at Dentons.

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A New Tool For Assessing Kickback Risks In Health Marketing

The Seventh Circuit's recent decision in U.S. v. Sorensen, reversing a conviction after trial of a durable medical equipment distributor, highlights two principle considerations for determining whether payments to marketers in healthcare are unlawful under the Anti-Kickback Statute, says Elisha Kobre at Sheppard Mullin.

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Series

Adapting To Private Practice: From DOJ Enviro To Mid-Law

Practitioners leaving a longtime government role for private practice — as when I departed the U.S. Department of Justice’s environmental enforcement division — should prioritize finding a firm that shares their principles, values their experience and will invest in their transition, says John Cruden at Beveridge & Diamond.

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Susman Godfrey Urges Court To Reject Trump's Dismissal Bid

By Hailey Konnath

Susman Godfrey LLP has pressed a D.C. federal court not to kill the firm's suit challenging President Donald Trump's executive order targeting the firm, arguing that the government's "meritless" dismissal motion "goes to great lengths to distract from the indisputable truth" that the order is "blatantly unconstitutional."

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Marshals Service Pick Vows To Protect Judges Amid Tensions

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump's nominee for director of the U.S. Marshals Service, Gadyaces Serralta, stressed to Democrats on Wednesday that the agency's mission to protect judges and enforce court orders would not change under his leadership despite increasing criticism of the bench from the president and other policymakers.

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Analysis

Wheeling & Appealing: The Latest Must-Know Appellate Action

By Jeff Overley

Spring has sprung for appellate arguments over the White House's pruning and shearing of agencies, part of a bountiful circuit calendar in May, when appeals courts will also tend to defamation drama involving a pro golfer, antitrust suits against drugmakers and hotels, and a nine-figure patent verdict against Apple Inc.

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Dem Reps. Urge Court To Block IRS-ICE Info-Sharing Pact

By Anna Scott Farrell

House Democrats and two organizations that help immigrants prepare tax returns urged a D.C. federal court to block the Internal Revenue Service from sharing with immigration enforcement agencies the names and addresses of people suspected of being in the country illegally.

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Exec Says MyPillow Attys Can't Use AI Mistakes To Delay Trial

By Thy Vo

A former Dominion Voting executive said MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell shouldn't be allowed to delay a June defamation trial because his attorneys face potential sanctions for a brief that used artificial intelligence, arguing recent executive orders against law firms suggest the defamation claim would face "extreme prejudice" from a delay.

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FTC Transfer Stripped From House Judiciary Reconciliation

By Courtney Bublé

A provision to transfer the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust functions to the U.S. Department of Justice was stripped out of the House Judiciary Committee's budget reconciliation bill on Wednesday.

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Philly Judge Under Fire For Promoting Wife's Cheesesteak Biz

By James Boyle

Pennsylvania's judicial ethics board has accused a Philadelphia judge of using his position on the bench to promote a cheesesteak restaurant opened by his wife and named in honor of his late parents.

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Monthly Merger Review Snapshot

By Matthew Perlman

Enforcers opened high stakes court proceedings against Meta Platforms and Google for monopolization claims that could force the tech giants to sell pieces of the companies, while also moving ahead with several challenges and reviews of pending deals in other industries. Here, Law360 looks at the major merger review developments from April.

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Brief

Akin Atty Returns To FCC To Lead Wireline Bureau

By Nadia Dreid

After three years in private practice, the Federal Communications Commission has welcomed an Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP attorney back to the agency as the newest head of the commission's Wireline Competition Bureau.

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Calif. Bar Seeks Credits, Lower Pass Score After Exam Fiasco

By Craig Clough

The California Bar has asked the state's supreme court to help it account for rampant technical difficulties on the February 2025 bar exam by approving a lower passing score and allowing the bar to give test-takers credit for some questions they left blank.

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