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Public Policy
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May 09, 2024
CFPB's Chopra Trains Sights On Credit Card Rewards
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra said Thursday that his agency will be taking aim at what it is describing as "concerning patterns" in the credit card industry's rewards program practices, including stealthy changes to program benefits and manipulation of rewards point values.
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May 09, 2024
Fed. Circ. Judge 'Baffled' By Gov't Args In Boeing Costs Case
An exasperated Federal Circuit judge on Thursday tore into the government's contention that a disputed cost accounting regulation has no bearing on Boeing's claim that the defense contractor was wrongly barred from offsetting multiple simultaneous accounting changes against each other.
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May 09, 2024
NYC Wins Remand Of Climate Deception Suit Against Exxon
A New York federal judge on Wednesday returned to state court the Big Apple's lawsuit alleging Exxon, BP, Shell and the American Petroleum Institute violated a city consumer protection law by systematically deceiving the public about the climate change impacts of their operations.
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May 09, 2024
Solar Co. Wins Remand Of Feds' 'Contrary To Law' Duties
The U.S. Court of International Trade has published opposing outcomes for two Chinese solar cell producers penalized in a recent duty review, affirming duties topping 238% for one and directing the government to reconsider a 12.24% rate for the other.
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May 09, 2024
3rd Circ. Tears Up Pa. Town's 'Crazy Quilt Of A Sign Ordinance'
The Third Circuit backed a lower court's decision Thursday holding that a Pennsylvania town's sign ordinance violated the First Amendment by restricting what "personal expression signs" can be posted based on their content — a precedential victory for local Republicans who challenged the rule.
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May 09, 2024
Efforts To Enact Savanna's Act Falling Short, Lawmakers Say
Two U.S. senators behind a law aimed at reforming law enforcement protocols to address the crisis of missing and murdered Native American women are pressing the U.S. Department of Justice to step up its efforts to finalize its implementation.
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May 09, 2024
Sens. Press Colleagues For Public Defender Funding
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., a former public defender, led a letter Thursday to Senate appropriators calling for the federal public defender program to receive its full funding request for the upcoming fiscal year.
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May 09, 2024
Judge Halts DEA's Hearing On Proposed Psychedelics Ban
An administrative law judge with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has ordered the agency to cancel a June 10 hearing on its proposal to ban two psychedelic substances while a researcher's federal lawsuit challenging the agency's actions plays out in court, according to an order made public Thursday.
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May 09, 2024
Feds' Pay Bias Suit Against Wis. Military Affairs Heads To Trial
A federal judge refused Thursday to grant the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs a win in a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, saying a jury could find that the state agency lowballed an applicant for a director position because she's a woman.
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May 09, 2024
Iowa Immigration Law Tramples On Feds' Authority, Suits Say
The U.S. Department of Justice and a nonprofit filed separate lawsuits on Thursday challenging Iowa legislation that empowers state officials to arrest and remove noncitizens who were previously deported, arguing the statute usurps federal authority over immigration.
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May 09, 2024
DOJ Task Force To Target Healthcare Monopoly, Collusion
The U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division sharpened its focus Thursday on healthcare platforms that combine doctors with insurers, data and more in what the administration's top competition official called the "alarming" accumulation of assets.
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May 09, 2024
Sen. Menendez's 2nd Bribery Trial: All You Need To Know
In the wake of a 2017 mistrial on bribery charges, U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez reaffirmed his dedication to public service and vowed never to stop fighting for the people of New Jersey.
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May 09, 2024
A Senator's Path From NJ Politics To Corruption Charges
U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, the son of Cuban immigrants who climbed the political ladder from the ranks of a New Jersey school board to ultimately become chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is defending his reputation and career against federal corruption charges for the second time in less than a decade.
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May 09, 2024
Red States, Electric Co-Ops Challenge EPA Power Plant Rules
Twenty-seven Republican-led states and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association called on the D.C. Circuit Thursday to unravel the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new source performance standards for greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired electric generating units.
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May 09, 2024
Plumbing Co. Owner Cops To Tax Scheme Tied To Gold Bars
The co-owner of a Boston plumbing supply company pled guilty Thursday to underreporting his business and personal income, after prosecutors said he plowed some of the unreported receipts into $10 million worth of gold and silver bars.
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May 09, 2024
Senate Panel OKs Ban On Mandatory Age Bias Arbitration
The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced a bill out of committee Thursday that would ban the mandatory arbitration of workplace age discrimination claims in a vote that garnered the support of both Democrats and Republicans.
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May 09, 2024
EPA Beats Youths' Constitutional Climate Suit, For Now
A California federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit from a group of children accusing the federal government of allowing unsafe levels of climate pollution in the air, noting it's unclear how a declaratory order from the court would redress their harms, but gave them one final chance to amend their allegations.
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May 09, 2024
Coverage Recap: Day 10 Of Trump's NY Hush Money Trial
Law360 reporters are providing live updates from the Manhattan criminal courthouse as Donald Trump goes on trial for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. Here's a recap from day 10.
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May 09, 2024
Plumbing Co. Ignoring OT Precedent, 1st Circ. Judge Chides
A First Circuit judge said Thursday that a plumbing supply distributor arguing that its inside sales representatives don't qualify for overtime pay appears to be "running as fast as you can to get away" from a key recent precedent.
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May 09, 2024
Okla. Law Curbing Anti-Oil Pension Fund Investments Blocked
Oklahoma can't enforce a law prohibiting the state pension system from investing in companies that limit oil and gas industry assets, a state judge ruled, finding the retiree leading the suit is likely to succeed on arguments that the statute is vague and violates the state constitution.
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May 09, 2024
Biden Seeks To Elevate Interior Dept. Official To No. 2 Post
The White House announced Thursday that President Joe Biden intends to nominate Fish and Wildlife Assistant Secretary Shannon A. Estenoz as deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
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May 09, 2024
EPA Defends Factory Farm Water Pollution Regs At 9th Circ.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday urged the Ninth Circuit to toss green groups' lawsuit seeking to revive their petition for new, stronger Clean Water Act regulations for large animal feeding facilities.
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May 09, 2024
3rd Circ. Judge Jordan To Retire In January 2025
Judge Kent A. Jordan will retire from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit next year after serving on that bench for nearly two decades, Law360 has learned.
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May 09, 2024
Watchdog Seeks Texas Judge's Recusal In Noncompete Case
An industry watchdog is calling on U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker to step away from the U.S. Chamber's lawsuit in Texas federal court challenging the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's new noncompete rule, citing "ample financial conflicts" including his investments in Amazon, Apple and IBM, two of which are members of the Chamber.
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May 09, 2024
6th Circ. Nominee Sparks Debate Over Blue Slips
Four judicial nominees were approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, including a Sixth Circuit nominee who has come under fire from Republicans for ethics accusations and whose nomination sparked a larger debate about the lack of blue slips for appellate nominees.
Expert Analysis
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Tipsters May Be Key To Financial Regulators' ESG Efforts
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are looking to whistleblowers to assist their climate and ESG task forces, suggesting insider information could be central to the agencies' enforcement efforts against corporate greenwashing, false investment claims and climate disclosure violations, says John Crutchlow at Youman & Caputo.
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Opinion
Why USPTO Should Issue Inherency Guidance Memo
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office should issue a new guidance memo in regard to the standard for inherency during the examination process, as the standard is frequently misapplied during prosecution, and consistency of the standard in the USPTO should match that in the federal courts, says Irving Feit at Lucas & Mercanti.
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5 Takeaways From SAP's Foreign Bribery Resolutions
German software company SAP’s recent settlements with the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, resolving allegations of foreign bribery, provide insights into government enforcement priorities, and how corporations should structure their compliance programs to reduce liability, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.
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Series
Serving As A Sheriff's Deputy Made Me A Better Lawyer
Skills developed during my work as a reserve deputy — where there was a need to always be prepared, decisive and articulate — transferred to my practice as an intellectual property litigator, and my experience taught me that clients often appreciate and relate to the desire to participate in extracurricular activities, says Michael Friedland at Friedland Cianfrani.
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Fears About The End Of Chevron Deference Are Overblown
While some are concerned about repercussions if the U.S. Supreme Court brings an end to Chevron deference in the Loper and Relentless cases this term, agencies and attorneys would survive just fine under the doctrines that have already begun to replace it, say Daniel Wolff and Henry Leung at Crowell & Moring.
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Parsing Chinese Governance On AI-Generated Content
As essential risk-mitigation, companies with a China reach should be aware of recent developments in Chinese oversight of AI-generated content, including the latest rulings and regulations as well as the updated ambit for supervisory bodies, say Jet Deng and Ken Dai at Dacheng.
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Perspectives
Context Is Everything In Justices' Sentencing Relief Decision
In the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Pulsifer v. U.S. decision, limiting the number of drug offenders eligible for sentencing relief, the majority and dissent adopted very different contextual frames for interpreting the meaning of “and” — with the practical impact being that thousands more defendants will be subject to severe mandatory minimums, says Douglas Berman at Moritz College of Law.
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Opinion
The SEC Is Engaging In Regulation By Destruction
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent use of regulation by enforcement against digital assets indicates it's more interested in causing harm to crypto companies than providing guidance to the markets or protecting investors, says J.W. Verret at George Mason University.
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Series
NJ Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q1
Early 2024 developments in New Jersey financial regulations include new bills that propose regulating some cryptocurrency as securities and protecting banks that serve the cannabis industry, as well as the signing of a data privacy law that could change banks’ responsibility to vet vendors and borrowers, say attorneys at Chiesa Shahinian.
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Former Minn. Chief Justice Instructs On Writing Better Briefs
Former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Gildea, now at Greenberg Traurig, offers strategies on writing more effective appellate briefs from her time on the bench.
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Preparing For Possible Calif. Criminal Antitrust Enforcement
Though a recent announcement that the California Attorney General's Office will resume criminal prosecutions in support of its antitrust enforcement may be mere saber-rattling, companies and their counsel should nevertheless be prepared for interactions with the California AG's Antitrust Section that are not limited to civil liability issues, say Dylan Ballard and Lillian Sun at V&E.
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What To Know About IRS' New Jet Use Audit Campaign
The Internal Revenue Service recently announced plans to open several dozen audits scrutinizing executive use of company jets, so companies should be prepared to show the business reasons for travel, and how items like imputed income and deduction disallowance were calculated, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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ShapeShift Fine Epitomizes SEC's Crypto Policy, And Its Flaws
A recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission order imposing a fine on former cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift for failing to register as a securities dealer showcases the SEC's regulation-by-enforcement approach, but the dissent by two commissioners raises valid concerns that the agency's embrace of ambiguity over clarity risks hampering the growth of the crypto economy, says Keith Blackman at Bracewell.
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California Shows A Viable Way Forward For PFAS Testing
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has no good way of testing for the presence of specific per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances in food packaging — but a widely available test for a range of fluorine compounds that's now being used in California may offer a good solution, says Vineet Dubey at Custodio & Dubey.
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2nd Circ. Adviser Liability Ruling May Shape SEC Enforcement
The Second Circuit’s recent decision in U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Rashid, applying basic negligence principles to reverse a finding of investment adviser liability, provides a road map for future fraud enforcement proceedings, says Elisha Kobre at Bradley Arant.