Public Policy

  • June 06, 2024

    Wash. Labor Dept. Wants To Back AG In ICE Inspections Suit

    The Washington state labor and health departments want to throw their support behind efforts in the Ninth Circuit by the state's governor and attorney general to defend a state law that allows surprise inspections at private immigration detention centers.

  • June 06, 2024

    FCC Floats New Rules On ISPs To Protect Internet Security

    The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday proposed to impose new rules on internet service providers to ensure security of the internet's crucial routing technology, the Border Gateway Protocol.

  • June 06, 2024

    Prof Can Test NC State Building For Carcinogens

    A split state appeals court has granted a former North Carolina State University employee stricken by cancer access to gather evidence in a campus building that studies showed contained cancer-causing materials.

  • June 06, 2024

    Mass. AG Asks State High Court To Affirm Housing Law

    Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell told the state's highest court this week that her office has the authority to seek enforcement of what she says is a mandatory state housing initiative requiring more than half the state's communities to allow multifamily housing development.

  • June 06, 2024

    FDA Urges High Court To Hear 5th Circ. Flavored E-Cig Case

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant its petition for a review of an en banc Fifth Circuit decision overturning its denial of a flavored e-cigarette marketing application, saying this case provides a better vehicle to decide the issues than other petitions at the high court.

  • June 06, 2024

    5th Circ. Sides With Miss. In Pipeline Permitting Row

    The Fifth Circuit has found a lower court properly threw out an interstate pipeline company's assertion that annual levee crossing fees sought by Mississippi regulators were unconstitutional because they fell outside the scope of the company's 75-year-old permit.

  • June 06, 2024

    NC Dems Want Constitutional Right To Public Records

    Democrats in the North Carolina General Assembly have proposed sister bills to amend the state constitution by establishing a right of access to public records and meetings.

  • June 06, 2024

    Election Officials Blasted For Not Stopping Suspended Judge

    A Michigan state judge has said that election officials had abdicated their responsibility to keep "patently ineligible" candidates off the ballot, ordering them to stop former Detroit Judge Kahlilia Davis from running again after the state Supreme Court suspended her for six years for misconduct.

  • June 06, 2024

    Some Colo. Justices Call For Nixing Peremptory Strikes

    Three Colorado Supreme Court justices said this week that eliminating peremptory challenges would help remove "the taint of impermissible discrimination" from the jury selection process, writing in two cases involving the dismissal of Black jurors that the strikes often facilitate racism that can be near impossible for a court to address.

  • June 06, 2024

    Fla. Justices Won't Undo DeSantis' Suspension Of Prosecutor

    State prosecutor Monique Worrell lost her bid to be reinstated to her post in the Ninth Judicial Circuit after a split Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Gov. Ron DeSantis' executive order suspending her passed muster.

  • June 06, 2024

    EPA To Reevaluate Widely Used Toxic Chemical Under TSCA

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has proposed a rule to limit the use of a chemical found in hundreds of products from paint to cleaning products that has been linked to miscarriages, reduced male fertility and other health issues.

  • June 06, 2024

    Judge Who Took Israel Trip Recuses Self From Gaza Case

    A Ninth Circuit judge on Thursday recused himself from a case over the Biden administration's support for Israel's military efforts in Gaza, suggesting he disagreed with Palestinian rights activists' claim that a sponsored trip to Israel disqualified him but nevertheless would step aside "out of an abundance of caution."

  • June 06, 2024

    Former New Jersey AG Recalls 'Gross' Meeting With Menendez

    A U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission official took the stand in the bribery trial of Sen. Robert Menendez on Thursday, testifying that he shut down "gross" inquiries by the congressman while the official was serving as New Jersey's attorney general.

  • June 06, 2024

    Bannon Ordered To Start Prison Term By July 1

    Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon was ordered Thursday in D.C. federal court to surrender and begin his four-month prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena by July 1, after losing his appeal in the D.C. Circuit.

  • June 06, 2024

    Mass. Pot Regulators Hear Pleas To Address Islands' Shortage

    Massachusetts cannabis regulators on Thursday acknowledged they have "some work to do" during a meeting and listening session on Martha's Vineyard, where enforcement of a federal ban on transporting the drug over water is wreaking havoc on the island's supply chain.

  • June 06, 2024

    'Brussels Effect' Of EU's AI Act Is Uncertain, Legal Pros Say

    BigLaw attorneys advising international clients on the European Union's AI Act tell Law360 there are significant uncertainties over vague terms in the 458-page statute, how its steep eight-figure fines will be enforced, and whether it will set a new standard globally as part of the "Brussels effect."

  • June 06, 2024

    Justices Say Feds Liable For Tribes' Healthcare Admin Costs

    A split U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday held that the federal government is required to reimburse two Native American tribes millions of dollars in administrative healthcare costs, saying the spending is necessary for the communities to operate programs assumed from the Indian Health Service.

  • June 05, 2024

    Texas AG Sets Up New Team To Enforce Data Privacy Laws

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is "doubling down" on efforts to curb companies' misuse of residents' personal information by establishing a new team dedicated to enforcing the state's data protections, including a comprehensive consumer data privacy law that's set to take effect next month. 

  • June 05, 2024

    Tokenizing Real Assets Touches Crypto Concerns, Reps Say

    Putting stocks and other real-world assets on the blockchain is markedly different from issuing cryptocurrencies, but federal lawmakers on Wednesday showed that the debate about how to regulate so-called tokenization is decidedly similar when it comes to weighing its potential efficiencies against threats to privacy and consumer protection.

  • June 05, 2024

    BIA Escapes Washington Ranch's $48M Wildfire Suit

    A federal judge in Washington state on Wednesday tossed a ranch's $48 million negligence lawsuit alleging the Bureau of Indian Affairs is liable for damages from a 2020 wildfire, ruling that agreements between the bureau and a Native American tribe did not spell out a specific firefighting duty.

  • June 05, 2024

    Catholic Broadcasters Angry Over FCC 'Gender Ideology' Rule

    The Catholic Radio Association is up in arms over the Federal Communications Commission's new workforce diversity reporting mandates that will require broadcasters to report how many nonbinary people they employ, telling the agency they're being forced to record something that "does not comport to reality."

  • June 05, 2024

    Scrutinize Gag Order On Trump's Twitter DMs, X Tells Justices

    X Corp. is pressing the U.S. Supreme Court to review a court order allowing special counsel Jack Smith to obtain messages from Donald Trump's account on the social media platform while barring X from alerting the former president beforehand.

  • June 05, 2024

    Bank Group Takes Fight Over FDIC Fee Letter To 8th Circ.

    A Minnesota bank industry group is appealing its federal district court loss in litigation over Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation guidance proscribing non-sufficient funds fees, or NSF fees, the organization said Wednesday.

  • June 05, 2024

    State-Funded Preschools In Colo. Can't Bar LGBTQ+ Kids

    A Colorado federal judge has granted Catholic preschools a narrow injunction blocking the state from requiring that they allow students to enroll without regard for their religious affiliation in order to receive funding from a universal preschool program but upheld the state's nondiscrimination requirements regarding LGBTQ+ students.

  • June 05, 2024

    Citibank Can't Avoid Paying $6M Wash. Biz Tax

    Washington's high court won't spare Citibank from a $6 million business tax bill, declining to revisit a ruling that the bank's money-making activities amounted to a physical presence in the state despite not having any local branches open at the time.

Expert Analysis

  • 8 Steps Companies Should Take After An Internal Investigation

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    Given the U.S. Department of Justice’s increasing focus on corporate compliance and remediation of misconduct, companies must follow through in several key ways after an internal investigation to ensure history does not repeat itself, say Jonathan Aronie and Joseph Jay at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Circuit Judge Writes An Opinion, AI Helps: What Now?

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    Last week's Eleventh Circuit opinion in Snell v. United Specialty Insurance, notable for a concurrence outlining the use of artificial intelligence to evaluate a term's common meaning, is hopefully the first step toward developing a coherent basis for the judiciary's generative AI use, says David Zaslowsky at Baker McKenzie.

  • Opinion

    US Solar Import Probe's Focus On China Is Misguided

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    The U.S. Department of Commerce's recent anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigation focuses on the apparent Chinese ownership of solar device importers in four Southeast Asian countries — a point that is irrelevant under the controlling statute, says John Anwesen at Lighthill.

  • DC Circ. Ruling Heightens HHS Contract Pharmacy Challenges

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    The D.C. Circuit's recent ruling that the Section 340B program does not bar manufacturers from restricting deliveries of discounted drugs to contract pharmacies represents a second strike against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' current contract pharmacy policy and raises the stakes surrounding an upcoming Seventh Circuit ruling on the same issue, say attorneys at Foley Hoag.

  • Ohio Tax Talk: The Legislative Push For Property Tax Relief

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    As Ohio legislators attempt to alleviate the increasing property tax burden, four recent bills that could significantly affect homeowners propose to eliminate replacement property tax levies, freeze property taxes for longtime homeowners, adjust homestead exemptions annually for inflation, and temporarily expand the homestead exemption, say Raghav Agnihotri and Rachael Chamberlain at Frost Brown.

  • Aviation Watch: Mostly Smooth Landing For New FAA Law

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    The recently signed Federal Aviation Administration Reauthorization Act enhances air safety in several key ways, including strengthened passenger rights and cockpit voice recorder requirements, but an expansion of slot exemptions at Reagan National Airport is a notable misstep, says Alan Hoffman, a retired attorney and aviation expert.

  • Series

    In The CFPB Playbook: Regulatory Aims Get High Court Assist

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    Newly emboldened after the U.S. Supreme Court last month found that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding is constitutional, the bureau has likely experienced a psychic boost, allowing its already robust enforcement agenda to continue expanding, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.

  • NY Public Campaign Funding May Attract Scrutiny From Feds

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    The upcoming elections across New York this year will be the first under the state’s public campaign finance program — which may broaden federal prosecutors' purview to target state election fraud and corruption, says Jarrod Schaeffer at Abell Eskew.

  • FTC Theories Of Harm After Anesthesia Co. Ruling

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    As Federal Trade Commission litigation against U.S. Anesthesia Partners proceeds following a Texas federal court's recent decision to dismiss a private equity sponsor from the suit, the case attempts to incorporate and advance some of the commission's theories of competitive harm from the final 2023 Merger Guidelines, say attorneys at Mintz.

  • National Security And The Commercial Space Sector: Part 2

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    Strategy documents recently published by the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Space Force confirm the importance of the commercial space sector to the DOD, but say little about achieving the institutional changes needed to integrate commercial capabilities in support of national security in space, say Jeff Chiow and Skip Smith at Greenberg Traurig.

  • FTC Hearing On Fake Review Rule Stressed Compliance Costs

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    The Federal Trade Commission is likely to finalize its proposed rule to prohibit marketers from using deceptive practices in their product reviews after an informal hearing covered arguments over whether costs of implementing the rule, such as review moderation and software maintenance, would be minimal, says Jeffrey Edelstein at Manatt.

  • FTC Focus: Exploring The Meaning Of Orange Book Letters

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    The Federal Trade Commission recently announced an expansion of its campaign to promote competition by targeting pharmaceutical manufacturers' improper Orange Book patent listings, but there is a question of whether and how this helps generic entrants, say Colin Kass and David Munkittrick at Proskauer.

  • 3 Recent Decisions To Note As Climate Litigation Heats Up

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    Three recent rulings on climate-related issues — from a New York federal court, a New York state court and an international tribunal, respectively — demonstrate both regulators' concern about climate change and the complexity of conflicting regulations in different jurisdictions, say J. Michael Showalter and Robert Middleton at ArentFox Schiff.

  • Perspectives

    Justices' Repeat Offender Ruling Eases Prosecutorial Hurdle

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last week in Brown v. U.S., clarifying which drug law applies to sentencing a repeat offender in a federal firearms case, allows courts to rely on outdated drug schedules to impose increased sentences, thus removing a significant hurdle for prosecutors, says attorney Molly Parmer.

  • Investors Can Aid In The Acceptance Of Psychedelic Medicine

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    Psychedelic medicine is ready to have its breakthrough moment, and although it still faces political, legal and communications challenges, private equity investors can play a significant role in changing the public perception on psychedelics from taboo to acceptance, say Kimberly Chew at Husch Blackwell, Charlie Panfil at the Daschle Group and Ethan Lutz at FTI Consulting.

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