SEC Adopts Rules For Uncovering, Reporting Data Breaches

By Jessica Corso

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced the adoption of cybersecurity rules Thursday that will require investment advisers and broker-dealers to put procedures in place for detecting data breaches and for notifying customers when their personal information may have been compromised.

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Senate Passes Bill To Block SEC Crypto Accounting Guidance

By Aislinn Keely

The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to send a bill overturning the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's controversial crypto accounting guidance to the president's desk, though without the necessary votes to override the White House's planned veto.

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3rd Circ. Shuns Teva's 'Novel' Appeal On Israeli Investor Class

By Jessica Corso

The Third Circuit on Thursday turned away an appeal brought by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., saying the class certification stage was not the right time to hear arguments over the "novel" question of the applicability of U.S. securities laws to Israeli-listed shares.

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Analysis

Buckle Up: CFPB's High Court Win Will Thaw Frozen Docket

By Jon Hill

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is walking away from the U.S. Supreme Court with its funding and rulebook intact, a victory that caps off years of constitutional wrangling over how the agency was set up and will usher in a wave of activity that has financial services attorneys bracing for impact.

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2nd Circ. Backs Win For Big Banks In Forex-Rigging Suit

By Elliot Weld

The Second Circuit on Thursday backed a ruling in favor of a group of large banks accused of conspiring to manipulate the foreign currency exchange market in euros and dollars, agreeing with a lower court that the plaintiffs hadn't made qualifying transactions or shown how prices were distorted.

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Funko Beats Investor Suit Over Warehouse Move For Now

By Katryna Perera

Toy company Funko Inc. on Thursday beat a proposed investor class action alleging it failed to disclose accurate information about problems relocating a distribution center and updating critical software, with a Washington federal judge saying the investors have failed to prove the company's statements were false or misleading, among other things.

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DOL Unveils Long-Delayed Abandoned Retirement Plan Rules

By Jeff Montgomery

After being sidelined for more than a decade, a plan for expanding U.S. Department of Labor rules for terminating retirement plans abandoned by employers are moving forward again, the agency reported Thursday, along with a long-delayed role in the process for bankruptcy trustees.

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FDIC's Gruenberg Scolded By Senators Over Agency Culture

By Katryna Perera

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg on Thursday faced a second round of congressional reprimand from both sides of the political aisle over his agency's workplace misconduct scandal, but Senate Democrats seemed ready to let Gruenberg clean up the mess himself and continue his tenure.

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Analysis

No Relief For Struggling SPACs Under Buyback Tax Proposal

By Tom Zanki

Special-purpose acquisition companies won't get sought-after relief from a new 1% tax on stock buybacks under a recent Treasury Department proposal that otherwise provides helpful clarity on the tax's implications for the subdued SPAC market, lawyers say.

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Clean Energy CEO Gets 6 Years For Forgeries Netting $1.1M

By Matthew Santoni

The CEO of a Pennsylvania clean energy company was sentenced to six years in federal prison for defrauding investors out of $1.1 million and falsifying documents to cover his tracks, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.

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Ex-Pharma Exec Cops To Contempt For Barred Finance Work

By Brian Dowling

A Boston federal judge on Thursday accepted a former pharmaceutical company executive's guilty plea to a criminal contempt charge for using an alias to work on a finance venture despite a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ban.

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C3.ai Shareholder Sues In Del., Citing Baker Hughes Pact

By Leslie A. Pappas

A shareholder of artificial intelligence-driven software developer C3.ai Inc. filed a derivative suit in Delaware's Court of Chancery late Wednesday, alleging breaches of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment related to the California company's strategic partnership with Baker Hughes Co.

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Olo Investor Sues In Chancery To Stop Raine Group Takeover

By Leslie A. Pappas

A shareholder in New York online food-ordering company Olo Inc. sued its officers, directors and largest stockholder in Delaware's Court of Chancery on Wednesday, alleging the board had approved a stock buyback program that would hand control of the company to its largest shareholder for no consideration.

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MoneyLion Beats Investor Suit Over Reverse Stock Split

By Sydney Price

A New York federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by shareholders of digital finance platform MoneyLion, who allege the company and its directors approved a reverse stock split that stripped preferred shareholders of their rights, saying the investors should have known the consequences of the vote.

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Exploring An Alternative Model Of Litigation Finance

A new model of litigation finance, most aptly described as insurance-backed litigation funding, differs from traditional funding in two key ways, and the process of securing it involves three primary steps, say Bob Koneck, Christopher Le Neve Foster and Richard Butters at Atlantic Global Risk LLC.

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Lessons On Challenging Class Plaintiffs' Expert Testimony

In class actions seeking damages, plaintiffs are increasingly using expert opinions to establish predominance, but several recent rulings from California federal courts shed light on how defendants can respond, say Jennifer Romano and Raija Horstman at Crowell & Moring.

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Analysis

Alito Flag Report Fuels Ethics Debate, But Likely No Recusal

By Katie Buehler

Responses to a report that an upside-down American flag flew outside U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's home following the 2020 presidential election broke along partisan lines Friday, with conservatives decrying it as a smear campaign and liberals calling for his recusal from pending election-related cases and for general court ethics reform.

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Analysis

Trump's Potential Witness Could Be Defense 'Dynamite'

By Phillip Bantz

As Donald Trump's hush money trial in Manhattan nears its end, experts say criminal defense attorney Robert Costello, who once advised the former president's ex-fixer and key prosecution witness Michael Cohen, has surfaced as a potentially bombshell witness for the defense.

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Menendez Bribery Trial: 5 Things To Know About Week 1

By Carla Baranauckas

Explosive opening statements, closed-door jury questioning and an FBI agent's recount of the moment he found a treasure trove of gold bars and cash highlighted the first week of trial in the government's second corruption case against U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez.

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Ga. Judge In 2020 Election Cases To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones of the Northern District of Georgia, who has presided over high-profile cases involving the 2020 election, voting rights and abortion, will take senior status on Jan. 1, 2025, according to an update Friday.

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AG Garland Held In Contempt By House Committees

By Courtney Bublé

Two House committees voted late Thursday to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt for not turning over audio recordings of the president and his ghostwriter speaking with special counsel Robert Hur for his investigation into President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents.

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Ex-Baltimore State's Atty Says 20-Month Sentence Too Harsh

By Emily Sawicki

Former Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby has asked a federal judge to cut down prosecutors' requested 20-month prison sentence after she was convicted of abusing a COVID-19-era program to obtain money from a retirement fund and conning a lender to obtain a vacation home, arguing the proposal "stray[s] from the reality of this case."

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'We Feel It': NJ Ranks 2nd In Ch. 11 Cases, Chief Judge Says

By George Woolston

New Jersey federal courts saw the second most Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings in the nation over the last year, Chief U.S. District Judge Renée Marie Bumb of the District of New Jersey said on Friday.

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NJ Courts Chief Warns Plan To Pick Appeals Bench A 'Mistake'

By George Woolston

Chief Justice Stuart Rabner of the New Jersey Supreme Court on Friday defended how the state judiciary assigns appeals court judges, criticizing a proposal to move the power to appoint appellate judges from the chief justice to the state Senate and the governor's office.

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1st Circ. Rejects Ex-Immigration Judges' Bid For Asylum Redo

By Elliot Weld

The First Circuit's full bench refused to reopen a Salvadoran woman's case seeking asylum, despite former immigration judges weighing in to say that the judge who denied her asylum didn't follow a legal requirement to ensure her record was complete.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Haynes and Boone LLP and Lubin & Enoch PC lead this week's edition of Law360's Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously determined that federal courts do not have discretion to toss a case once it's decided that the claims belong in arbitration.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

The SEC adopted cybersecurity rules to require investment advisers and broker-dealers to put procedures in place for detecting data breaches and for notifying customers when their personal information may have been compromised, and lawyers said SPACs won't get sought-after relief from a new 1% tax on stock buybacks under a recent Treasury Department proposal. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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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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