California

  • May 23, 2025

    IP Notebook: Trump's AI Plan, ChatGPT Logs, Dewberry Cited

    In this round of emerging issues in copyright and trademark law, Law360 takes a closer look at comments submitted to the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies to create an Artificial Intelligence Action Plan as part of an executive order from President Donald Trump.

  • May 23, 2025

    Biotech Insider Traded On $3.5B Novartis Deal, Feds Say

    A former board member at Chinook Therapeutics orchestrated an insider-trading scheme after learning about Novartis' plans to purchase the biotech company for $3.5 billion in 2023, according to an indictment announced Friday.

  • May 23, 2025

    Judge Skeptical Of Harm In Recall Of Tribe's Gambling Eligibility

    A D.C. federal judge on Friday signaled concerns with the Interior Department's decision to revoke a California tribe's gambling eligibility for a casino-resort project in the Bay Area, but said that the tribe faces an uphill battle in establishing the irreparable harm needed to secure a preliminary injunction.

  • May 23, 2025

    Staffing Co. Owner Gets 8 Years For $60M Payroll Tax Fraud

    The owner of California staffing companies who admitted to a long-running payroll tax fraud that caused roughly $60 million in tax losses was sentenced to eight years in prison and ordered to pay $38 million in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service, prosecutors said.

  • May 23, 2025

    9th Circ. Urged To Force ERISA 401(k) Suit Arbitration

    A Los Angeles-based investment management company urged the Ninth Circuit to force individual arbitration of an ex-worker's proposed class action alleging 401(k) mismanagement, arguing a lower court incorrectly concluded an arbitration provision in employees' retirement plan wasn't enforceable because it waived statutory rights under federal benefits law.

  • May 23, 2025

    Musk Doubles Down After OpenAI Drops For-Profit Transition

    OpenAI's decision to abandon its transition into a for-profit enterprise was not enough to appease Elon Musk, who doubled down Thursday with an amended California federal court complaint continuing to allege the ChatGPT maker tricked him into contributing nearly $45 million with false promises of remaining a nonprofit.

  • May 23, 2025

    Foley & Lardner Adds DLA Piper, McDermott Corporate Pros

    Foley & Lardner LLP has hired two seasoned attorneys in California who previously practiced at DLA Piper and McDermott to bolster its innovative technology sector and transactions practice group.

  • May 23, 2025

    2 Firms Tapped To Lead Visa Derivative Suits Over DOJ Claims

    A California federal judge has combined lawsuits accusing Visa's executives and directors of allowing the company to understate the regulatory risk it faced by engaging in anticompetitive actions currently at the center of a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice last year, and appointed two law firms to lead the litigation.

  • May 23, 2025

    GAO Dismisses Protest To Forest Service Fire Retardant Buy

    A Missouri company that supplies the U.S. Forest Service with fire retardants and support services had no basis to protest a sole-source award for the agency to buy 900,000 gallons of another company's product for testing, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said.

  • May 23, 2025

    Off The Bench: Tennis Officials, NCAA Stay On The Defensive

    In this week's Off The Bench, tennis players face pushback from the governing bodies they are accusing of antitrust violations, college basketball players claiming the NCAA exploited them want their class action revived, and a baseball player seeking one last year to play in college hits another legal roadblock.

  • May 23, 2025

    Taxation With Representation: Troutman, A&O Shearman

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, Blackstone acquires TXNM Energy, OpenAI buys io Products, Lumen Technologies sells its Mass Markets fiber-to-the-home business in 11 states to AT&T, and AMD sells its data center infrastructure manufacturing business to Sanmina.

  • May 23, 2025

    FTC Finally Drops Challenge To Microsoft-Activision Deal

    The Federal Trade Commission has dropped its in-house case seeking to block Microsoft's $68.7 billion purchase of video game developer Activision Blizzard, after its Ninth Circuit loss earlier this month, ending a lingering challenge to a deal that closed in late 2023.

  • May 22, 2025

    Nonprofits Seek To Block Trump's DEI, LGBTQ+ Orders

    A group of nonprofits urged a California federal judge Thursday to block President Donald Trump's executive orders targeting diversity and inclusion policies and programs serving the LGBTQ+ community, arguing the unconstitutionally "vague" orders have upended lifesaving services and illegally treat transgender individuals as if they don't exist.

  • May 22, 2025

    Training LLMs Is OK, Pirating Isn't: Anthropic Judge Tips Hand

    A California federal judge considering writers' copyright suit against Anthropic indicated Thursday that he thinks training its LLM with copyrighted works is fair use, but said plaintiffs can likely pursue claims that the AI startup infringed by obtaining those training materials from pirating websites instead of buying them.

  • May 22, 2025

    EV Carmaker Lucid Gets Inflated Biz Suit Trimmed, Again

    A California federal judge on Thursday again trimmed a proposed investor class action that alleges electric carmaker Lucid made misleading production forecasts, finding that the latest complaint still doesn't adequately allege the defendants knew some of the challenged statements were false when they were issued.

  • May 22, 2025

    Chegg Investors Get Final OK In $55M Student Cheating Deal

    A California federal judge on Wednesday gave his blessing to a $55 million settlement resolving investor claims that educational technology company Chegg Inc. falsely attributed its "dramatic growth" during the COVID-19 pandemic to its sustainable business model, rather than to students using the platform to cheat.

  • May 22, 2025

    Feds Push To Nix Landmark Migrant Kids Detention Settlement

    The Trump administration is urging a California federal judge to end a landmark settlement agreement governing the custody of detained immigrant children — a move advocacy groups that have long fought for it quickly vowed to fight.

  • May 22, 2025

    Fiber Optics Co.'s Leaders Sued Over Financial Restatements

    Officers and directors of fiber optics technology company Luna Innovations Inc. are facing a shareholder derivative complaint after the company announced it would revise certain financial statements after prematurely recognizing certain revenue it hadn't actually earned yet.

  • May 22, 2025

    California City Cleared In Employment Discrimination Trial

    A Los Angeles jury cleared the city of Baldwin Park, California, of liability on Thursday in a wrongful-termination suit by a former longtime employee who claimed that she was forced to resign after complaining about race and gender bias and misuse of federal housing funds.

  • May 22, 2025

    Levi Strauss Calls For Sanctions Against Boies Schiller

    Levi Strauss is seeking more than $15,000 from Boies Schiller Flexner LLP and training for the firm's litigation attorneys in the proceeding over a former executive's sex discrimination claims, telling a California federal judge that Boies Schiller flouted deadlines and refused to meet with opposing counsel.

  • May 22, 2025

    Senators Unveil DNA Privacy Bill Amid 23andMe's Ch. 11 Sale

    A bipartisan group of U.S. senators on Thursday introduced a bill designed to safeguard customers' genetic information in bankruptcy cases, saying 23andMe's plan to sell users' DNA data to a pharmaceutical company during its Chapter 11 raises new concerns surrounding consumer privacy.

  • May 22, 2025

    Calif. Docs Bring FDA Stem Cell Regulation Fight To Top Court

    Two California clinics that provide stem cell treatments are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Ninth Circuit panel's finding that their treatments are "drugs" subject to Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act regulations.

  • May 22, 2025

    Calif. Judge Likely To Extend Block On Gov't Reorg, Job Cuts

    A California federal judge indicated Thursday she'll likely convert her temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction against President Donald Trump's executive order to reduce the federal workforce, saying the law "seems clear" that presidents cannot issue large-scale agency reductions without congressional approval and "to hold otherwise" would contradict nine previous presidents and 21 congresses.

  • May 22, 2025

    At NY Show, The Trial Is Fake But The Entertainment Is Real

    Playing at Irondale in Brooklyn, production company Fever's "The Jury Experience" seeks to capitalize on the trend of immersive, interactive entertainment by giving members of the public a chance to take part in something conventional wisdom says they'd normally try to avoid — jury duty.

  • May 22, 2025

    Tax Court Backs IRS In Multibillion-Dollar Facebook Clash

    The U.S. Tax Court largely sided with the IRS on Thursday in a multibillion-dollar tax dispute with Facebook, upholding the agency's approach for valuing the company's intangible property but finding it applied the wrong data points in its analysis.

Expert Analysis

  • A Judge's Pointers For Adding Spice To Dry Legal Writing

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    U.S. District Judge Fred Biery shares a few key lessons about how to go against the grain of the legal writing tradition by adding color to bland judicial opinions, such as by telling a human story and injecting literary devices where possible.

  • Implementation, Constitutional Issues With Birthright Order

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    President Donald Trump's executive order reinterpreting the 14th Amendment's birthright citizenship clause presents unavoidable administrative problems and raises serious constitutional concerns about the validity of many existing federal laws and regulations, says Eric Schnapper at the University of Washington School of Law.

  • A Close-Up Look At DOJ's Challenge To HPE-Juniper Deal

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    The outcome of the Justice Department's challenge to Hewlett Packard Enterprise's proposed $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks will likely hinge on several key issues, including market dynamics and shares, internal documents, and questions about innovation and customer harm, say attorneys at McDermott.

  • Justices Likely To Issue Narrow Ruling In $1.3B Award Dispute

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    After last week's argument in Devas v. Antrix, the Supreme Court appears likely to reverse the holding that minimum contacts are required before a federal court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a foreign state and remand the case for further litigation on other important constitutional questions, say attorneys at Cleary. 

  • AG Watch: Texas Is Entering New Privacy Enforcement Era

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    The state of Texas' recent suit against Allstate is the culmination of a long-standing commitment to vigorously enforcing privacy laws in the state, and while still in the early stages, it offers several important insights for companies and privacy practitioners, says Paul Singer at Kelley Drye.

  • IRS Scrutiny May Underlie Move Away From NIL Collectives

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    The University of Colorado's January announcement that it was severing its partnership with a name, image and likeness collective is part of universities' recent push to move NIL activities in-house, seemingly motivated by tax implications and increased scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service, say attorneys at Buchanan Ingersoll.

  • 6 Laws Transforming Calif.'s Health Regulatory Framework

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    Attorneys at Hooper Lundy discuss a number of new California laws that raise pressing issues for independent physicians and small practice groups, ranging from the use of artificial intelligence to wage standards for healthcare employees.

  • Opinion

    NCAA Name, Image, Likeness Settlement Is A $2.8B Mistake

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    While the plaintiffs in House v. NCAA might call the proposed settlement on name, image and likeness payments for college athletes a breakthrough, it's a legally dubious Band-Aid that props up a system favoring a select handful of male athletes at the expense of countless others, say attorneys at Clifford Chance.

  • Implications Of Kid Privacy Rule Revamp For Parents, Cos.

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    The Federal Trade Commission's recent amendments to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act will expand protections for children online, meaning parents will have greater control over their children's data and tech companies must potentially change their current privacy practices — or risk noncompliance, say attorneys at Labaton Keller.

  • Copyright Ruling Could Extend US Terminations Worldwide

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    If upheld on appeal, Vetter v. Resnik, a recent ruling from a Louisiana federal court, could extend the geographical scope of U.S. copyright termination rights to foreign territories, say attorneys at Manatt.

  • Anticipating Calif. Oversight Of PE Participation In Healthcare

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    A new bill recently introduced in the California Senate revives last year's attempt to increase oversight of healthcare transactions involving private equity groups and hedge funds, meaning that attorneys may soon need to assess the compliance status of existing management relationships and consider modifying contract terms, says Andrew Demetriou at Husch Blackwell.

  • Recent Cases Suggest ESG Means 'Ever-Shifting Guidelines'

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    U.S. courts have recently handed down a number of contradictory decisions on important environmental, social and governance issues, adding to an already complex mix of conflicting political priorities, new laws and changing regulatory guidance — but there are steps that companies can take to minimize risk, say attorneys at Paul Hastings.

  • Pepperdine Case Highlights Shift In Collegiate IP Landscape

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    A complaint filed by Pepperdine University against Netflix and Warner Bros. two weeks ago alleges that a comedy series unlawfully copies the school's trademarks, and the decision could reshape the portrayal of collegiate athletics on screen and the legal tools schools use to defend their emblems, says Mindy Lewis at Michelman & Robinson.

  • What To Know About Insurance Coverage For Greenwashing

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    As the number of public and private lawsuits relating to greenwashing dramatically grows, risk managers of companies making environmental claims should look to several types of insurance for coverage in the event of a suit, say attorneys at Hunton.

  • 7 Tips For Associates To Thrive In Hybrid Work Environments

    Excerpt from Practical Guidance
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    As the vast majority of law firms have embraced some type of hybrid work policy, associates should consider a few strategies to get the most out of both their in-person and remote workdays, says James Argionis at Cozen O’Connor.

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