Public Policy

  • August 20, 2026

    Meta Atty 'Absolutely Wrong' On Client Privilege, Judge Warns

    With trial dark Thursday due to juror illness, a California judge overseeing states' claims that Meta Platforms Inc. hid social media's harms heard arguments over evidence, at one point criticizing Meta's efforts to assert attorney-client privilege and calling the company's in-house lawyer "absolutely wrong" about the appropriate standard.

  • August 20, 2026

    OCC Greenlights Brazil Banking Giant's Bid To Form US Bank

    The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Thursday preliminarily approved a charter application from Brazil-based Itaú Unibanco SA, guided by Arnold & Porter, to establish a national bank in the United States.

  • August 20, 2026

    Selig Says CFTC Will Propose Crypto Rules If Clarity Act Stalls

    U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig said Thursday that he's directed agency staff to begin crafting crypto rules in the event that crypto market structure legislation fails to move forward in September.

  • August 20, 2026

    Judge Frees ICE Detainee Over Repeated Bond Missteps

    A Florida federal judge has ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release a Colombia native from detention, finding an immigration judge's repeated denial of bond was based on factual inaccuracies.

  • August 20, 2026

    Sens. Call On FINRA To Update Rules To Curb Transfer Fraud

    U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., urged the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority to boost consumer protections to prevent brokerage fraud through the Automated Customer Account Transfer Service, pointing to "structural weaknesses" in the system they say bad actors are exploiting to drain customers' brokerage accounts.

  • August 20, 2026

    11th Circ. Saves Delta-Aeromexico Joint Venture

    The Eleventh Circuit on Thursday handed Delta Air Lines and Aeromexico a decisive win by vacating a U.S. Department of Transportation order directing them to dismantle their nearly decadelong joint venture, saying the DOT applied a skewed standard and made unsupported findings about the partnership's purported anticompetitive effects.

  • August 20, 2026

    Ruling Clears Path For Nov. 3 Vote On Miami Marina Project

    A Florida state judge has declined to block a November voter referendum on a developer's proposed $80 million overhaul of a city-owned Miami marina site in a July lawsuit aiming to invalidate the deal brought by the marina's operator.

  • August 20, 2026

    Ticket Buyers Ask 2nd Circ. To Nix Live Nation Arbitration

    Concertgoers who purchased tickets on the secondary market are asking the Second Circuit to vacate a lower court's decision forcing them to arbitrate their antitrust claims against Live Nation and its Ticketmaster unit.

  • August 20, 2026

    Mich. Gov. Hopeful Loses Bid For Fee-Based Ballot Access

    A Michigan federal judge Thursday dismissed a would-be gubernatorial candidate's challenge to the state's ballot-access requirements, rejecting his bid to require Michigan to offer candidates the option of paying a fee instead of collecting petition signatures. 

  • August 20, 2026

    Deutsche Bank Freed From Fed's 2017 Forex-Rigging Order

    The Federal Reserve has terminated a 2017 enforcement action that required Deutsche Bank to pay nearly $137 million over its alleged role in Wall Street's foreign exchange rate-rigging scandals.

  • August 20, 2026

    Group Demands Docs Over Feds' Immigration 'Propaganda'

    A legal advocacy nonprofit accused the Trump administration in Washington, D.C., federal court Thursday of failing to provide information on the extent that taxpayer dollars were used to "fund propaganda while thwarting legitimate journalism" over its immigration enforcement efforts.

  • August 20, 2026

    Colo. County's Union-Law Suit Tossed Over Lack Of Standing

    A Colorado federal judge dismissed a county board of commissioners' complaint Thursday for lack of standing after finding that the county sought prospective relief only from a state law expanding county employees' right to unionize and that the county failed to allege any potential injury.

  • August 20, 2026

    Colo. Court Affirms Boulder Stormwater Fees Aren't Taxes

    Stormwater fees in Boulder, Colorado, that were used in part to repay $66 million in bonds are not taxes subject to voter approval under the state's Taxpayer Bill of Rights, an appeals court said Thursday, affirming a state district court.

  • August 20, 2026

    Nintendo Customer Fights To Keep Tariff Refund Suit Alive

    A Washington federal court should deny Nintendo's attempt to escape a proposed class action seeking reimbursement of costs that customers paid toward President Donald Trump's since-invalidated global tariff regime now that the company is pursuing refunds, a customer told the court.

  • August 20, 2026

    Latest Squires Order Grants 2 Patent Petitions, Denies None

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has issued a brief bulk order instituting a pair of America Invents Act petitions, including a Google challenge to a Valtrus Innovations patent, and saying he would assess the merits of four other patent challenges.

  • August 20, 2026

    Quakers Say Everglades ICE Site Teardown Needs Review

    A southeastern regional Religious Society of Friends group filed a brief Wednesday in the ongoing suit over the now-shuttered immigrant detention center in the Everglades, arguing that environmental review is just as necessary when tearing the facility down as when it was being built.

  • August 20, 2026

    Dems Push For Probe Of LNG Tanker Tax Breaks At IRS

    Democratic senators Thursday urged a government watchdog to investigate whether the Internal Revenue Service has determined that liquefied natural gas exporters who use the fuel to propel their tankers can claim an alternative fuel tax credit.

  • August 20, 2026

    DOJ Pot Shift Changes LA Licensing Challenge, 9th Circ. Told

    A California attorney who has challenged state and local cannabis licensing policies across the country on the grounds that they discriminate against out-of-state entrants told the Ninth Circuit that recent federal shifts on medical marijuana mean the dormant commerce clause should apply to the once-federally illicit industry.

  • August 20, 2026

    Tax Biz Owner Charged In Scheme That May Have Bilked $65M

    A federal grand jury charged an Alabama tax preparation business owner with preparing and filing fraudulent returns for clients and himself in a scheme that may have caused the federal government a tax loss of more than $65 million, the U.S. Department of Justice said.

  • August 20, 2026

    Customs Must Free 1 Of 2 Chinese Tire Shipments, CIT Says

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection must release one of two Chinese tire shipments it withheld for years initially due to a lack of identifying requirements, according to a Thursday opinion by the U.S. Court of International Trade.

  • August 20, 2026

    Ethics Complaints Barred In Mass. Sheriff's Pot Extortion Trial

    The government cannot use records of past state ethics commission complaints against a Massachusetts sheriff in an extortion trial set to get underway next week, a federal judge said Thursday.

  • August 20, 2026

    Illinois Must Face US Suit Over Immigrant Protection Laws

    An Illinois federal judge on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to move ahead with its legal challenge to two state laws allowing private parties to sue civil immigration officers and barring civil immigration arrests at courthouses, saying the government has plausibly alleged that the threat of personal liability could impede officers charged with enforcing federal law.

  • August 20, 2026

    Commerce Orders Duties On Aussie, Norwegian Silicon Metal

    The U.S. Department of Commerce on Thursday ordered antidumping and countervailing duties on silicon metals from Australia and Norway after the goods were found to be sold at unfair prices and to be harming domestic industry.

  • August 20, 2026

    New Risks For Importers As US Steps Up Tariff Enforcement

    Importers and trade lawyers have seen an upswelling of tariff enforcement efforts that is transforming the compliance relationship between businesses and the government since President Donald Trump took office a second time.

  • August 20, 2026

    Jury Finds Okla. Highway Contractor Guilty Of Price-Fixing

    A federal jury in Oklahoma found a highway runoff contracting business and two of its employees guilty of antitrust violations for a price-fixing conspiracy that allegedly impacted $100 million in publicly funded construction contracts in the state.

Expert Analysis

  • Attorney Mental Health Is An Ethical Obligation In The AI Era

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    As attorneys cope with the increasing unpredictability that artificial intelligence and constant policy changes have created, particularly in practice areas where they carry the emotional weight of clients’ most consequential life events, otherwise soft discussions about self-care are a matter of professional competence, says attorney Jack Jrada.

  • Md. Ruling Reflects Classic Administrative Law Principle

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    A Maryland federal court's recent decision in Columbus v. Kennedy significantly limits how far the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services can go in reshaping the Affordable Care Act through regulation, highlighting a principle that will likely be applied in similar Administrative Procedure Act challenges, says Michael King at Brownstein Hyatt.

  • DOJ China Container Indictments Signal Global Cartel Risk

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    The U.S. Department of Justice's recent announcement that it had indicted Chinese manufacturers for conspiring to drive up the price of shipping containers sold in the U.S. illustrates the Antitrust Division's interest in pursuing overseas cartel conduct, especially in China, signaling that multinational companies with employees abroad should strengthen antitrust compliance to avoid running afoul of U.S. national security policy, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

  • More Cos. Will Copy SpaceX's Shareholder Proposal Opt-Out

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    For more than 80 years, the shareholder proposal looked like a federal right guaranteed to all public company investors, but after SpaceX opted out before its recent initial public offering, other companies are likely to follow, says Mohsen Manesh at the University of Oregon School of Law.

  • How DOJ Is Approaching Monitorship After Signaling Limits

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    As the U.S. Department of Justice keeps more monitors in place than expected, a look at the matters in which prosecutors are maintaining oversight reveals the sort of companies enforcers might trust to self-remediate, and also those that may receive independent supervision, say attorneys at Kendall Brill.

  • Opinion

    DHS' World Cup Influencer Warning Overreads Visa Law

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    The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s reported position that foreign influencers covering the 2026 World Cup need work visas if their content is monetized runs contrary to both legislative intent and long-standing precedent that structure the visa inquiry around labor market substitution, says Jun Li at Reid & Wise.

  • 3 Steps For Banks As Section 1071 Rule Finally Becomes Final

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    Some community banks and other lenders will get some breathing room in the final Section 1071 rule exempting them from small business lending reporting duties, but other reporting institutions should update applications, systems and staff training ahead of the 2028 compliance date, says Memrie Fortenberry at Jones Walker.

  • Why DOE Isn't Phasing Out Appliance Efficiency Regs

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    While the U.S. Department of Energy recently acted on President Donald Trump's 2025 executive order requiring it to consider sunsetting many energy regulations, the DOE has not proposed phasing out efficiency standards for appliances and industrial equipment — but it could pursue other approaches to ease such requirements, say attorneys at HWG.

  • Series

    Power To The Paralegals: Burnout As A Structural Problem

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    Law firm leadership can best retain their paralegals not by encouraging self-care, but by seeking top-down structural solutions for the quiet proliferation of responsibilities and the vicarious exposure to client trauma that particularly drive burnout in this vital role, says Erika Sneeringer at Brockstedt Mandalas.

  • Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: June Lessons

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    In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses five recent rulings from cases involving allegations of internet data misuse, consumer fraud claims, immigration, insurance and First Amendment violation claims.

  • Justices' FCC Fine Ruling May Weaken Agency Leverage

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T upheld the commission's forfeiture framework as consistent with Jarkesy, but it is also likely to reduce the effectiveness of the commission’s forfeiture proceedings as a collection and deterrence tool, say attorneys at Venable.

  • Takeaways From 1st Del. Ruling Applying Moelis Amendments

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    Delaware corporations should carefully review contractual arrangements and governance documents following the Court of Chancery's recent enforcement of a non-Delaware forum selection clause in a CEO's employment agreement under 2024 amendments to the state's General Corporation Law, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Ill. Law Firm MSO Bill Clashes With Court Power, Ethics Rules

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    An Illinois bill prohibiting law firms from certain business arrangements with management service organizations, sent to the governor for signature last week, encroaches upon the courts' constitutional powers and goes beyond the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct in regulating investment in law-related services, says Matthew O’Hara at Smith Gambrell.

  • Google Antitrust Case Puts Spotlight On De Facto Exclusivity

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    Mozilla's recent amicus filing in U.S. v. Google arguing that its agreement to make Google the default search engine did not amount to de facto exclusivity highlights the growing debate over traditional indicators of exclusivity, with implications for any business that uses rebates, preferred contracts or volume incentives, says Chris Gowen at WilmU Farnan School of Law.

  • Justices' Montgomery Ruling Doesn't Expand Shipper Liability

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    Whether negligent hiring liability claims against shippers will increase after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision last month in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II is anyone's guess, but the ruling itself will have no impact on shippers' actual liability in personal injury claims relating to trucking accidents, says Ronald Leibman at McCarter & English.

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