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Consumer Protection
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May 28, 2024
FTX Exec Who Acted As Bankman-Fried 'Tool' Gets 7½ Years
A Manhattan federal judge hit cryptocurrency finance expert and former FTX executive Ryan Salame with a 7½-year sentence Tuesday for duping a bank to authorize $1.5 billion of illegal transfers and making fraudulent campaign contributions for the exchange's convicted founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.
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May 24, 2024
Live Nation Ticket Buyers Follow Feds With Antitrust Suit
Live Nation and Ticketmaster were hit with a consumer antitrust proposed class action Thursday accusing them of monopolizing concert promotion and ticketing for major concert venues following their 2010 merger, which comes on the heels of the U.S. Department of Justice's own lawsuit.
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May 24, 2024
Sony Denied Early Bid To Block PlayStation Antitrust Class
A California federal judge Friday denied Sony's preemptive bid to deny class certification in a suit accusing it of overcharging PlayStation Store users through a monopoly on downloadable game cards, saying Sony has yet to show that the plaintiffs are bound by class action waivers, or it can enforce arbitration.
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May 24, 2024
Senate Republican Eyes Tutor.com's China Ties, Data Use
The top Republican on the U.S. Senate's health and education committee has launched an investigation into Tutor.com, a Chinese-controlled web service of The Princeton Review that offers students online tutoring, saying China's Communist Party may be exploiting users' sensitive data.
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May 24, 2024
Uvalde Families Say Call Of Duty, Meta Groomed Shooter
Families of schoolchildren shot at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022 alleged in a pair of lawsuits Friday that Meta Platforms' Instagram, the maker of first-person shooter video game Call of Duty, and a manufacturer of assault rifles helped inspire, train and equip the teenage gunman.
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May 24, 2024
Top Senate Banking Dem Presses DoorDash On Biz Advances
Food ordering and delivery platform DoorDash has come under fire from the chair of the U.S. Senate's banking committee over merchant cash advance products offered on its platform, with the lawmaker saying the typically high costs of such offerings bear "a troubling similarity to payday lending practices."
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May 24, 2024
BofA Inks $21M Deal With Over 1M Customers Over Wire Fees
Bank of America customers on Friday urged a North Carolina federal judge to preliminarily approve their $21 million settlement to resolve claims the financial institution tacked $15 "junk fees" onto incoming wire transfers, saying the deal constitutes significant relief for over a million class members.
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May 24, 2024
Malware Backdoor Found In Software Used By Courtrooms
Software created by a company that provides digital audiovisual technology to courtrooms, jails and other facilities contains a backdoor associated with malware that disguises itself as a normal update, analysts at a cybersecurity firm reported, warning that "users are at high risk and should take immediate action."
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May 24, 2024
Petition Watch: Forum Shopping, Monopolies & Gun Safety
Law360 looks at four U.S. Supreme Court petitions filed in the past two weeks, including the FDA's request that the justices curb an increase in forum shopping at the Fifth Circuit, and two veterinarians who want the justices to allow plaintiffs to pursue antitrust claims for actions allegedly leading to the creation of a monopoly.
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May 24, 2024
PIMCO Says It Needs To Assess CFPB's Loan Service Deal
Investment management giant PIMCO told a Pennsylvania federal judge on Friday that it needs more time to study a proposed $5 million settlement between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a Pennsylvania student loan servicer and multiple student loan trusts, saying its funds are invested in the trusts and may need to consent to the deal.
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May 24, 2024
SEC Says Crypto Firm's Challenge Is 'Fatally Premature'
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission told a Texas federal judge on Friday that a yet-to-launch crypto exchange's bid to bar any future enforcement action is "fatally premature" since the firm hasn't identified a final action to challenge.
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May 24, 2024
FCC Republican Knocks Plan To Require AI Ad Disclosures
A Federal Communications Commission Republican is slamming a commission proposal aimed at limiting the use of artificial intelligence in political advertisements, saying the push is a politically motivated effort to stop Republicans from using AI.
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May 24, 2024
Bungie Cheat Code Sellers Hit With $63K Copyright Verdict
A federal jury said Friday that people behind a video game cheat code owe Bungie about $63,000 for replicating a sci-fi shooter's code to make the cheat software and peddle it on the internet, capping off a nearly weeklong copyright trial in Seattle.
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May 24, 2024
E-Rate Growth Needed As Other Funds Wane, FCC Chief Says
Calling the E-Rate program for subsidizing broadband in schools and libraries a "quiet powerhouse," the head of the Federal Communications Commission is looking to build support in Congress to expand it to cover off-campus learning after pandemic rescue funds dissipated.
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May 24, 2024
Biden's Judicial Impact And What's Left On The Wish List
President Joe Biden secured confirmation of his 200th federal judge Wednesday and has transformed the judiciary by picking more women and people of color than any other president. But the upcoming election season could derail his hopes of confirming many more judges.
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May 24, 2024
White Sox Settle ADA Suit Over Season Tickets Policy
The Chicago White Sox have settled a lawsuit alleging the Major League Baseball team violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by refusing to sell season tickets for wheelchair-accessible seats on its website.
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May 24, 2024
4th Circ. Urged To Keep Suit Against Credit Co. In Fed. Court
A Maryland credit card customer pressed the Fourth Circuit to affirm a district court's decision to keep in federal court a proposed class action alleging subprime credit card company Mercury Financial did business without a license, arguing arbitration cannot be fairly enforced, and that Mercury is trying to raise new arguments on appeal.
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May 24, 2024
Software-Aided Price Fixing Under Antitrust Assault
Claims that companies in the same industry are using software middlemen to fix prices are percolating in federal courts around the country, with cases targeting major operators in residential real estate, hospitality and health insurance, among other areas.
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May 24, 2024
Feds' Probe Into Waymo Self-Driving Car Finds More Incidents
The U.S. auto safety regulator has said it found nine additional incidents of Waymo LLC autonomous vehicles exhibiting "unexpected driving behaviors" and has asked the company for more information as part of a new investigation.
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May 24, 2024
EPA Denies Ala. Coal Ash Management Program Application
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued a final decision denying Alabama's application to run a federally approved permit program to manage coal ash landfills and impoundments, saying the state's permit program doesn't meet federal standards for protecting people and waterways.
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May 24, 2024
New Minnesota Law Removes Barriers To Public Broadband
Public broadband advocates on Friday lauded Minnesota's enactment of a state law making it easier to deploy community broadband networks.
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May 24, 2024
FCC Probing Unauthorized Navigation Satellite Signals In US
The Federal Communications Commission is continuing its investigation into U.S. phones receiving unauthorized Russian and Chinese navigation satellite signals, but FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel told lawmakers last week that she didn't have much more to share on the inquiry.
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May 24, 2024
Coinbase Says Crypto Securities Question Is Ripe For Review
Crypto exchange Coinbase again urged a Manhattan federal judge to send to the Second Circuit the question of whether digital assets meet the definition of investment contracts, saying the question could "shape or distort a multitrillion-dollar industry."
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May 24, 2024
Alabama Judge Says Attys Subverted Plumbing Defect Deal
In an effort to safeguard the due process rights of hundreds of homeowners, an Alabama federal judge has tossed out more than 300 settlement class "opt-outs" and partially reopened the objection period in a product liability suit, determining that outside attorneys repeatedly misled clients regarding the pending settlement, leading to the numerous exclusion requests.
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May 24, 2024
CFPB Will Ask DC Circ. To Rescue Rule Challenged By PayPal
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Friday it will appeal a Washington, D.C., federal judge's recent decision that sided with payments giant PayPal in its lawsuit challenging the agency's extension of certain prepaid card regulations to digital wallets.
Expert Analysis
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Series
Calif. Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q1
The first quarter of the year brought the usual onslaught of new regulatory developments in California — including a crackdown on junk fees imposed by small business lenders, a big step forward for online notarizations and a ban on predatory listing agreements, says Alex Grigorians at Hanson Bridgett.
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Tipsters May Be Key To Financial Regulators' ESG Efforts
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are looking to whistleblowers to assist their climate and ESG task forces, suggesting insider information could be central to the agencies' enforcement efforts against corporate greenwashing, false investment claims and climate disclosure violations, says John Crutchlow at Youman & Caputo.
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Series
Serving As A Sheriff's Deputy Made Me A Better Lawyer
Skills developed during my work as a reserve deputy — where there was a need to always be prepared, decisive and articulate — transferred to my practice as an intellectual property litigator, and my experience taught me that clients often appreciate and relate to the desire to participate in extracurricular activities, says Michael Friedland at Friedland Cianfrani.
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Opinion
The SEC Is Engaging In Regulation By Destruction
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent use of regulation by enforcement against digital assets indicates it's more interested in causing harm to crypto companies than providing guidance to the markets or protecting investors, says J.W. Verret at George Mason University.
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Series
NJ Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q1
Early 2024 developments in New Jersey financial regulations include new bills that propose regulating some cryptocurrency as securities and protecting banks that serve the cannabis industry, as well as the signing of a data privacy law that could change banks’ responsibility to vet vendors and borrowers, say attorneys at Chiesa Shahinian.
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Former Minn. Chief Justice Instructs On Writing Better Briefs
Former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Gildea, now at Greenberg Traurig, offers strategies on writing more effective appellate briefs from her time on the bench.
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ShapeShift Fine Epitomizes SEC's Crypto Policy, And Its Flaws
A recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission order imposing a fine on former cryptocurrency exchange ShapeShift for failing to register as a securities dealer showcases the SEC's regulation-by-enforcement approach, but the dissent by two commissioners raises valid concerns that the agency's embrace of ambiguity over clarity risks hampering the growth of the crypto economy, says Keith Blackman at Bracewell.
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Stay Interviews Are Key To Retaining Legal Talent
Even as the economy shifts and layoffs continue, law firms still want to retain their top attorneys, and so-called stay interviews — informal conversations with employees to identify potential issues before they lead to turnover — can be a crucial tool for improving retention and morale, say Tina Cohen Nicol and Kate Reder Sheikh at Major Lindsey.
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Antitrust Ruling Shows Limits Of US Law's Global Reach
Antitrust plaintiffs often cite the legislative history of the Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvements Act to support application of U.S. antitrust law to alleged injuries abroad, but as a California federal court recognized recently in Figaro v. Apple, the cited history does no such thing, say Daniel Swanson and Eli Lazarus at Gibson Dunn.
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Overdraft Opt-In Practices Hold Risks For Banks
A recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau action against Atlantic Union Bank regarding overdraft opt-in sales practices highlights compliance risks that financial institutions must be aware of, especially when enrolling customers by phone, says Kristen Larson at Ballard Spahr.
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Opinion
Intoxicating Hemp Products: It's High Time For Clarity
Thanks to ambiguity in the 2018 Farm Bill, intoxicating hemp cannabinoid products are largely unregulated and are widely available without restrictions on who can buy the products, and although there are several possible solutions, voluntary industry action by good actors is the best option, say Andrew Kline and Tommy Tobin at Perkins Coie.
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Calif. High Court Ruling Has Lessons For Waiving Jury Trials
The California Supreme Court’s recent decision in TriCoast Builders v. Fonnegra, denying relief to a contractor that had waived its right to a jury trial, shows that litigants should always post jury fees as soon as possible, and seek writ review if the court denies relief from a waiver, say Steven Fleischman and Nicolas Sonnenburg at Horvitz & Levy.
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HHS' Updated Tracking Tech Guidance Offers Little Clarity
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights' updated guidance on the use of online tracking technologies appears more focused on legal issues raised in ongoing litigation with the American Hospital Association and less on practical guidance for covered entities, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.
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Take AG James' Suit Over Enviro Claims As A Warning
New York Attorney General Letitia James' recent suit against JBS USA Food Co. over allegedly misleading claims about its goal to reach net zero by 2040 indicates that challenges to green claims are likely to continue, and that companies should think twice about ignoring National Advertising Division recommendations, say attorneys at Kelley Drye.
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And Now A Word From The Panel: Benefits Of MDL Transfers
A recent order from the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation highlights a critical part of the panel's work — moving cases into an existing MDL — and serves as a reminder that common arguments against such transfers don't outweigh the benefits of coordinating discovery and utilizing lead counsel, says Alan Rothman at Sidley Austin.