SEC Turns The Spotlight On Nasdaq Delisting Standards

By Jessica Corso

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has pumped the brakes on a Nasdaq plan to more quickly shuffle low-value companies off its exchange, saying that public feedback has brought forth concerns that the proposal could open smaller companies up to market abuse and would deny their right to appeal an exchange decision against them.

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Biotech IPOs Surge Ahead As 2 Listings Raise $557M

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

A pair of biotechnology firms began trading on Friday after raising a combined $557 million through upsized initial public offerings that both priced at the top of their proposed $16 to $18 ranges, marking the latest drug developers to join the IPO market in recent weeks.

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Analysis

SEC's Corp. Governance Shift Puts Onus On States, Cos.

By Sarah Jarvis

Lawyers who work with clients on corporate governance matters had a warm response to a recent pledge from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins to let states handle such issues, saying the shift marks a return to the agency's historical approach and may spur increased activity among state regulators.

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Q&A

How Paul Clement Does It All

By Katie Buehler

For most lawyers, getting to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court is a once-in-a-lifetime event, but for a select few, it's a common occurrence. Clement & Murphy PLLC name partner Paul Clement is one of those lawyers. 

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Senators Unveil Stablecoin Yield Compromise For Crypto Bill

By Aislinn Keely

Two members of the Senate Banking Committee on Friday shared language governing interest and rewards payments on stablecoins that appears to resolve a key battle between banks and fintech companies stalling the Senate's progress on a bill to regulate crypto markets known as the Clarity Act.

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UBS Can't Escape $92M FINRA Award Over Tesla Stock Advice

By Sydney Price

An Iowa district judge denied UBS Financial Services' bid to vacate an arbitration award granted by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Inc., telling the firm it must pay more than $23 million in compensatory damages and $69 million in punitive damages to several ex-UBS customers who said the firm advised them to short-sell electric car company Tesla Inc.'s stock.

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Mortgage Giants Want Homeowners' Price-Fixing Suit Tossed

By Isaac Monterose

A group of mortgage originators and several software companies told a Tennessee federal court that a proposed price-fixing class action should be tossed because the plaintiffs didn't plausibly allege that the originators used certain software for a nationwide price-fixing conspiracy involving residential mortgage rates.

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Citron Founder Slips False Statement Charge In Calif. Case

By Craig Clough

A California federal judge has trimmed Citron Research founder Andrew Left's securities fraud case by throwing out one criminal count accusing him of making false statements to federal agents, finding the proper venue for the charge is in Florida where the statements allegedly were made.

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How 'Spillover' Effects Can Skew AI Securities Class Actions

Event study evidence is often central in securities litigation at class certification and beyond, but in an environment where earnings forecasts and statements can have spillover market implications, particularly when concerning artificial intelligence, the task of parsing out the price impact of news requires careful consideration, say Erik Johannesson, Olivia Wurgaft and Nguyet Nguyen at Brattle Group.

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How Data Center Accounting May Draw Enforcement Scrutiny

As public and media scrutiny of the data center industry intensifies, regulators, enforcement authorities and Congress will likely focus on accounting judgments that rely on aggressive assumptions, opaque financing structures or rapidly evolving collateral classes, heightening the risk of investigations and inquiries, say attorneys at King & Spalding.

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Don't 'Throw' Young Attys Under Bus, Judge Warns Musk Atty

By Dorothy Atkins

The California federal judge presiding over Elon Musk's challenge to OpenAI's for-profit conversion criticized Musk's attorney Marc Toberoff on Friday for eliciting "waste of time" trial testimony into Musk's $97.4 billion acquisition bid, warning Toberoff he "shouldn't throw young lawyers under the bus" by not quickly acknowledging his role.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a California federal jury cleared Armistice Capital and two of its executives of class action claims that it pumped and dumped $250 million in Vaxart stock during the COVID-19 pandemic and violated federal securities law with insider trading.

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Whistleblower Says DOJ Rushed SPLC Indictment

By Courtney Bublé

A whistleblower has come forward to say a top U.S. Department of Justice official ordered prosecutors in Alabama to "rush" the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center despite concerns about the viability of the case, according to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.

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California High Court Rejects Dunn's Bid To Nix Suspension

By Adrian Cruz

The California Supreme Court has declined to review a California State Bar decision to impose a one-year stayed suspension on former State Bar executive Joseph Dunn.

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FTC, DOJ Say ABA Reliance Limits Law School Competition

By Matthew Perlman

The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division told the Tennessee Supreme Court the American Bar Association's monopoly over law school accreditations is driving up the cost of legal education.

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Ex-Bondi Adviser Tapped As Fraud Task Force's Chief Lawyer

By Phillip Bantz

Ousted U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's former adviser is taking on a new role as general counsel for the White House's fraud task force.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

A pair of proxy advisory firms have sued two state attorneys general over laws they say impose burdensome requirements for issuing recommendations that go against corporate managers' wishes. Meanwhile, KPMG reports that legal is evolving into a key driver of business performance, and AI is a core component of the department. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Roundup

The Top In-House Hires Of April

By Michele Gorman

Legal department hires during the past month included high-profile appointments at Intel, Colgate and Tripadvisor. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from April.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

The past week in London has seen a Swiss energy trader bring a Financial List claim against shipping benchmarking company Baltic Exchange, law firm Slater and Gordon sued by a former client, Slack and Salesforce hit Microsoft with an antitrust claim, and Stephen Fry bring a personal injury claim after he broke bones falling off a stage. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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