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Technology
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August 29, 2024
Deals Rumor Mill: Ackman IPO, Covestro Takeover, Trinitech
Bill Ackman is reviving plans for an initial public offering of his new closed-end fund, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is inching closer to launching a takeover of plastics company Covestro, and private equity owners are exploring a $2 billion sale of financial software firm Trintech. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other notable deal rumors from the past week.
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August 29, 2024
4 Firms Guide VivoPower Subsidiary's $904M SPAC Merger
Electric utility vehicle company Tembo E-LV on Thursday announced that it has agreed to merge with special purpose acquisition company Cactus Acquisition Corp. 1 Ltd. in a deal built by four law firms that values the combined business at $904 million.
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August 29, 2024
Nasdaq To Pay $22M CFTC Fine Over Incentive Program
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission slapped Nasdaq Futures Inc. with a $22 million fine Thursday based on allegations that the now-shuttered derivatives exchange failed to disclose an incentive program for high-volume traders.
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August 28, 2024
Calif. Assembly OKs 1st-Of-Its-Kind AI Safety Bill
California lawmakers on Wednesday approved a groundbreaking proposal that would set safety and security standards for large artificial intelligence models.
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August 28, 2024
Telegram CEO Indicted In France Over Crimes On Platform
Paris prosecutors on Wednesday unveiled wide-ranging criminal charges against Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of encrypted messaging-platform Telegram, accusing him of aiding illegal child-pornography, fraud and other crimes and obstructing investigations, and barring him from leaving the country.
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August 28, 2024
RFK Jr.'s Atty In Meta Suit Says He's Still Running, Could Win
A lawyer for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. urged a California federal judge on Wednesday to stop Meta from censoring pro-Kennedy posts on Facebook and Instagram, saying his client "remains a presidential candidate" and could "conceivably still win the election," despite his recent announcement that he's suspending his campaign.
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August 28, 2024
Orrick, Okla. Atty Deny Violating MOVEit MDL Judge's Orders
Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and an Oklahoma attorney have denied violating court orders in multidistrict litigation over a 2023 data breach involving Progress Software's MOVEit file transfer tool, telling a Massachusetts federal court they were allowed to settle similar state litigation against a payroll software provider outside the federal action.
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August 28, 2024
Feds Say Multimillion-Dollar 'Surge' Scheme Bilked Uber Riders
New York federal prosecutors on Wednesday accused two men of leading a yearslong scheme that allowed hundreds of Uber drivers to use illicit apps, including some named Screwber and FakeGPS, to manipulate the rideshare market and gain millions of dollars from riders in fraudulent surge fees.
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August 28, 2024
WARF Can't Revive Apple Patent Fight After Axed $506M Verdict
The Federal Circuit ruled Wednesday that the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation cannot pursue new allegations that Apple infringes its circuit patent, after a previous $506 million verdict against the tech giant was thrown out on appeal.
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August 28, 2024
ACLU Offers Harris 'Roadmap' To Rein In Gov't Surveillance
The American Civil Liberties Union is urging the Democratic presidential nominee to stop what the group calls exploitation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the federal government by ending unwarranted surveillance of Americans if she wins office in November.
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August 28, 2024
Game-Maker Zynga Can't Ax IBM Patent Ahead Of Sept. 9 Trial
The video game developer behind "Farmville" and "Words with Friends" failed Wednesday to convince a Delaware federal judge that claims in an IBM patent cover ideas too routine for patent protection, allowing the tech giant to bring those claims before a jury trial scheduled for early next month.
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August 28, 2024
Fed. Circ. Won't Make ITC Reopen Drill Patent Suit
The Federal Circuit said Wednesday that a Japanese company that makes power drills can't force the U.S. International Trade Commission to finish adjudicating a patent case from a rival after the infringement allegations were dropped.
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August 28, 2024
Injured Driver Asks 6th Circ. To Revive Hyundai Car-Theft Suit
An Ohio motorist who was injured in a crash involving a stolen Hyundai vehicle driven by a teenager told the Sixth Circuit on Wednesday that the automaker must be held liable for knowingly selling defective theft-prone vehicles, and ineffectively combating a viral TikTok trend that launched a car-theft "epidemic."
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August 28, 2024
Cooley, Latham Steer Defense Co.'s $80M VC Funding Round
Parry Labs announced Wednesday that the Virginia-based defense technology company, represented by Cooley LLP, has raised $80 million in its first institutional investment round fueled by Capitol Meridian Partners, represented by Latham & Watkins LLP, and other venture capital firms.
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August 28, 2024
US, Canada Agree To Work Together On Privacy Enforcement
The Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday it has inked an agreement with Canada's privacy regulator to share information and cooperate on enforcement actions to protect consumers' data.
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August 28, 2024
Rural Carriers Say Broadband Map Errors Undermine 5G Fund
Rural wireless carriers are urging the Federal Communications Commission to verify broadband map data on its own in order to resolve long-standing concerns that inaccurate industry maps of the country's broadband coverage threaten the effective distribution of the FCC's recently revived 5G Fund.
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August 28, 2024
Billionaire Vik Says Deutsche Bank's 'Harassment' Must End
Deutsche Bank AG's Connecticut state court lawsuit against billionaire Alexander Vik and his daughter is a doomed effort to relitigate issues that were already decided in a 2013 case that likewise sprang from the bank's global legal battle to collect a $243 million foreign judgment, the defendants said in seeking an early win.
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August 28, 2024
Tech Co. Defends GoDaddy Antitrust Claims
The maker of a tool for connecting domains to third-party applications is defending its antitrust case against GoDaddy, telling a Virginia federal court the world's largest domain registrar is forcing customers to use its own configuration product.
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August 28, 2024
Yelp Sues Google Over Reviews Self-Preferencing
Yelp sued Google in California federal court Wednesday, targeting the self-preferencing of Google's own local search offerings as illegal monopolization after years of public lobbying against the search giant.
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August 28, 2024
TikTok Lawsuit, Kids' Privacy Bills Push Cos. 'Back To Basics'
The federal government's lawsuit challenging TikTok's policing of kids on its platform and mounting efforts to boost online protections for teens is ramping up pressure on a broad range of website operators, highlighting the importance for companies to think beyond existing legal frameworks to avoid growing legal scrutiny.
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August 28, 2024
Pa. Justices To Mull 'Click-Through' Arbitration Agreements
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania will review a ruling that so-called "click-through" terms of service for apps and online forms don't give users adequate notice that they are often waiving their rights to a jury trial, according to an order issued Tuesday.
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August 28, 2024
Disney's $8.5B India Media Merger Gets Regulatory Nod
India's competition watchdog said in a statement Wednesday it has conditionally approved the proposed $8.5 billion merger between Disney India's media business and Reliance Industries, after the merging entities reportedly overcame regulatory concerns about their grip on broadcast rights to cricket.
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August 28, 2024
AI Software Co. Must Face SEC's $108M Pyramid Scheme Suit
A Florida federal judge has refused to toss a suit brought by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against the owners of a multilevel marketing company, accusing them of running a fraudulent and unregistered securities offering that raised roughly $108 million from claims that they are using artificial intelligence to develop software, saying the SEC has sufficiently pleaded the existence of a scheme, among other things.
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August 28, 2024
Congress Urged To Address Trump Financial Conflicts
After possible financial conflicts of interest caused consternation during President Donald Trump's first term, an ethics watchdog is calling for a series of legislative reforms to prevent them from recurring if he's reelected.
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August 28, 2024
DOL Backs IBM Retirees' Bid To Revive Suit At 2nd Circ.
The U.S. Department of Labor urged the Second Circuit to revive a proposed class action alleging IBM shorted retirees on pension payments through the use of outdated mortality data, stating the lower court's ruling tossing the case "flies in the face" of U.S. Supreme Court precedent.
Expert Analysis
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PTAB Rulings Shed Light On Quantum Computing Patents
Recent Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions on enablement rejections against quantum computing patent claims provide patent practitioners with valuable guidance on best practices for avoiding and overcoming enablement, say Fred Qiu and Alex Nie at Sheppard Mullin.
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Calif. Web Tracking Cases Show Courts' Indecision Over CIPA
Several hundred cases filed to date, and two recent conflicting rulings, underscore California courts' uncertainty over whether the use of web analytics tools to track users' website interactions can give rise to a violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, says Patricia Brum at Snell & Wilmer.
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To Make Your Legal Writing Clear, Emulate A Master Chef
To deliver clear and effective written advocacy, lawyers should follow the model of a fine dining chef — seasoning a foundation of pure facts with punchy descriptors, spicing it up with analogies, refining the recipe and trimming the fat — thus catering to a sophisticated audience of decision-makers, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Circuit Judge Writes An Opinion, AI Helps: What Now?
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.
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Opinion
US Solar Import Probe's Focus On China Is Misguided
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.
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'Food As Health' Serves Up Fresh Legal Considerations
The growth of food as medicine presents a significant opportunity for healthcare organizations and nontraditional healthcare players to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs, though these innovative programs also bring compliance considerations that must be carefully navigated, say attorneys at McDermott.
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EU's AI Act: Pitfalls And Opportunities For Data Collectors
The European Union’s new Artificial Intelligence Act entails explicit requirements and limitations throughout the AI value chain that might affect firms directly or indirectly dealing with AI development, such as data-as-a-service companies and web scraping providers, says Denas Grybauskas at Oxylabs.
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Series
In The CFPB Playbook: Regulatory Aims Get High Court Assist
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.
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Novel Web Privacy Suits Under Calif. Credit Card Law From '71
A new surge in web-tracker litigation could make application of the California Song-Beverly Credit Card Act far more complex, despite the law far predating the rise of e-commerce, as plaintiffs continue to push the bounds of privacy litigation in the Golden State, say Matthew Pearson and Desirée Hunter-Reay at BakerHostetler.
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FTC Hearing On Fake Review Rule Stressed Compliance Costs
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.
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Trending At The PTAB: Real Party In Interest And IPR
The Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s recent Luminex v. Signify decision, finding a complaint seeking indemnification may be treated as a public demand sufficient to establish a real party-in-interest, shows that the board continues to apply a broad and expansive definition to that term, say Yicong (Eve) Du and Yieyie Yang at Finnegan.
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BF Borgers Clients Should Review Compliance, Liability
After the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recently announced enforcement proceedings against audit firm BF Borgers for fabricating audit documentation for hundreds of public companies, those companies will need to follow special procedures for disclosure and reporting — and may need to prepare for litigation from the plaintiffs bar, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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Perspectives
Trauma-Informed Legal Approaches For Pro Bono Attorneys
As National Trauma Awareness Month ends, pro bono attorneys should nevertheless continue to acknowledge the mental and physical effects of trauma, allowing them to better represent clients, and protect themselves from compassion fatigue and burnout, say Katherine Cronin at Stinson and Katharine Manning at Blackbird.
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CFPB's Expanding Scope Evident In Coding Bootcamp Fine
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent penalty against a for-profit coding bootcamp that misrepresented its tuition financing plans is a sign that the bureau is seeking to wield its supervisory and enforcement powers in more industries that offer consumer financing, say Jason McElroy and Brandon Sherman at Saul Ewing.
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Fintech Compliance Amid Regulatory Focus On Sensitive Data
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent, expansive pursuit of financial services companies using sensitive personal information signals a move into the Federal Trade Commission's territory, and the path forward for fintech and financial service providers involves a balance between innovation and compliance, say attorneys at Wilson Sonsini.