Series

Open-Water Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Swimming long distances in open waters is not necessarily an escape from my intellectual property practice, but a complementary discipline that similarly rewards sustained attention, intellectual curiosity, resilience and the ability to pursue a distant objective without losing command of the immediate task, says Christina MacDougall at Morgan Lewis.

How Groq-Nvidia Suit Tests Venture Capital Exit Math

A recent Delaware Court of Chancery suit concerning Nvidia's acquihire of certain Groq employees highlights that when such deals are challenged, the economic dispute turns on reconciling technology, people, cash and continuing ownership rather than on the headline number, says Ben Dubin at VC Expert Services.

Opinion

The Invisible AI Danger That May Undermine Legal Profession

A public database tracking cases involving hallucinations generated by artificial intelligence recently surpassed 2,200 entries, but the bigger risk underlying attorneys’ use of such tools is that they will slowly surrender their judgment to AI and lose analytical skills, says Massachusetts District Court Associate Justice Brian Palmucci.

10 Ways AI Labs Can Limit Antitrust Risks Of Safety Pacts

The OpenAI CEO’s recent call for artificial intelligence laboratories to collectively slow development to allow safety research to catch up invites antitrust scrutiny, but the risks to coordinating competitors can be managed by carefully structuring pacing agreements and layering their approach to compliance, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

FTC Highlights Path To Preserve Board Rights In A Rival Co.

The Federal Trade Commission's move to add key guardrails permitting firearms manufacturer Beretta to retain two directors as it takes a 25% stake in competitor Ruger illustrates how parties may maintain board rights in certain circumstances without running afoul of Section 8 of the Clayton Act, say attorneys at Davis Polk.

Defending Hospital Antisteering Clauses From DOJ Scrutiny

The Trump administration has recently made clear that pursuing antitrust challenges to antisteering provisions in hospital-insurer contracts is a priority — but a review of similar cases against hospital systems and important precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court illuminates some potential defenses in such cases, says Derek Moore at Rule Garza.

How AI Could Help Judges Spot Their Own Biases

In close cases where there’s room for discretion, artificial intelligence could challenge judges’ implicit biases by running counterfactual tests at scale — but any judicial use of such tools would need guardrails, say Arnold Peter at Peter Law and Nancy Rapoport at University of Nevada.

Compete Act Reinforces Calif.'s Antitrust Leadership Role

California's recent passage of the Compete Act, which expands the state's principal antitrust statute's focus on concerted multifirm conduct to business dealings between two or more firms, underscores California's leadership in state antitrust enforcement as attorneys general move to fill perceived gaps left by reduced federal oversight, say attorneys at Skadden.

Mass. High Court Raises Bar For Trade Secret Injunctions

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's recent decision in Daikin v. Russo confirms that trade secret plaintiffs must prove irreparable harm under ordinary equitable principles when seeking a preliminary injunction, putting an end to potential theories of automatic presumption, says Gregory Bombard at Greenberg Traurig.

New Manhattan DA Task Force Puts Antitrust In Its Crosshairs

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office's new corporate crime and antitrust task force is adding local criminal enforcement to a field long led by federal authorities, meaning companies need to account for potential parallel federal and state antitrust investigations when responding to misconduct, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

3 Strategies To Reduce AI Sycophancy In Legal Work

The tendency of generative artificial intelligence models to tell users what they want to hear can reinforce attorneys’ confirmation bias when testing the strength of arguments, and it can’t simply be prompted away — but a few practices can help mitigate it, says Michael Ott at Ice Miller.

FTC's Changing Model Raises Questions About Its Mission

Federal Trade Commission leaders have recently sketched a vision of an agency that continues an enforcement role distinct from the U.S. Department of Justice's, even as a shift toward greater presidential control makes enforcement more responsive to changes in administrations, say attorneys at Wiley.

2nd Circ. EFAA Ruling Shifts Employer Litigation Strategy

In Diaz-Roa v. Hermes Law, the Second Circuit recently held that, under the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, employers can't carve out nonharassment claims and send them to arbitration, which has implications for discovery, litigation costs and resolution strategy in EFAA-covered disputes, say attorneys at Krevolin Horst.

How Senate-Passed Bill May Reshape NCAA Antitrust Liability

With the U.S. Senate's recent passage of the Protect College Sports Act, practitioners should not wait for the U.S. House of Representatives' approval to prepare for shifts in potential antitrust protections, compensation, media rights deals and conference mergers, say attorneys at Norton Rose.

Frozen Potato Ruling Highlights Data-Sharing Antitrust Risk

A recent Illinois federal court decision allowing key claims against frozen potato producer competitors to proceed illustrates the vulnerability of highly concentrated industries to antitrust exposure through aggregated data sharing, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.