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May 02, 2024
Chancery Ruling Plays Role In Tesla's S&P Governance Grade
Business rating agency Standard & Poor's has revised downward to "moderately negative" electric vehicle company Tesla Inc.'s grade for management and governance, pointing in part to CEO Elon Musk's dominant role, and the company's "uncommonly high" risk from lawsuits, including the Delaware Chancery Court's recent scuttling of his $56 billion pay plan.
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May 02, 2024
ADM Investor Says Brass Misled About Growth, SEC Probe
The current and former top brass of food processing company Archer-Daniels-Midland were hit with a derivative suit in Delaware federal court alleging they provided false information to investors about the company's growth and failed to disclose a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's investigation into its nutrition business.
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May 02, 2024
5th Circ. Pauses NLRB Suit Against SpaceX Amid New Appeal
A Fifth Circuit panel on Thursday paused an ongoing National Labor Relations Board suit against SpaceX to consider the company's challenge to what it calls the "effective" denial of its bid to block a suit by an agency it claims is unconstitutional.
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May 02, 2024
NFL's Top Atty Jeff Pash To Retire After Nearly 3 Decades
Jeff Pash plans to retire as the NFL's executive vice president and general counsel after 27 years with the league, during which he was a major figure in its most consequential legal developments of the 21st century.
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May 02, 2024
Activist Files New Proxy Fight In REIT Takeover Attempt
Activist investor Blackwells Capital LLC continued its campaign against hospitality executive Monty J. Bennett by separately urging shareholders of Braemar Hotels & Resorts Inc. and an advisory firm that Bennett controls to approve a board shake-up during upcoming annual meetings.
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May 02, 2024
Conn. Gaming Co., Bingo Supplier Settle Soured Deal Suit
A Connecticut gaming company and the bingo products supplier it accused of withholding assets it had promised to sell in a $1.2 million acquisition agreement settled their dispute the day before they began jury selection, according to a new notice filed in federal court.
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May 02, 2024
Investors Not Entitled To Info, Sequel Youth Tells Chancery
A once-thriving chain of youth treatment facilities that came under scrutiny after a private equity firm bought it in 2017 urged Delaware's Court of Chancery on Thursday to toss a lawsuit from two former executives who demanded financial information about their "eviscerated" investments, arguing that the company didn't have to provide it.
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May 02, 2024
USAA Wrongly Denied Fire Damage Claim, Wash. Couple Says
A Washington couple accused their homeowners insurer of unreasonably denying their fire damage claim despite their timely response to all of the insurer's claim inquiries and requests, further accusing the insurer of violating Washington's Consumer Protection Act and Insurance Fair Conduct Act.
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May 02, 2024
Calif. Justices To Review Gilead's HIV Drug Negligence Fight
The California Supreme Court has granted Gilead Sciences Inc.'s request to review an appellate court's holding that the drugmaker must face claims it held back a safer HIV drug to maximize profits on an older medication.
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May 02, 2024
2nd Circ. Skeptical About Ex-TD Bank Manager's Bias Suit
The Second Circuit appeared unwilling Thursday to wipe out TD Bank's win over a former manager's suit alleging he was ousted because he asked for parental leave and had anxiety, with an appellate panel seeming unconvinced that the bank's claim that unethical conduct got him fired was dishonest.
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May 02, 2024
DOL Hit With First Lawsuit Over New Investment Advice Regs
The U.S. Department of Labor was hit with a lawsuit Thursday in Texas federal court seeking to invalidate recently finalized regulations that broaden who qualifies as a fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, marking the first-filed legal challenge since the agency's late-April final release.
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May 02, 2024
Coverage Recap: Day 6 Of Trump's NY Hush Money Trial
Law360 reporters are providing live updates from the Manhattan criminal courthouse as Donald Trump goes on trial for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments ahead of the 2016 election. Here's a recap from day six.
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May 02, 2024
US Soccer Nets Ex-SXSW, Heineken Legal Chief As Top Atty
The U.S. Soccer Federation said Thursday it has recruited a former top attorney at South by Southwest and Heineken as its next chief legal officer.
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May 02, 2024
Snell & Wilmer Adds Armstrong Teasdale Tech Pro In Denver
Snell & Wilmer LLP's Denver outpost has added a new transactional partner to its corporate and securities team, bringing with him 18 years of experience including co-founding the technology transactions group for Armstrong Teasdale LLP and leading its technology industry group.
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May 02, 2024
DOL Fights Bid To Halt Prevailing Wage Rule
A group of construction groups didn't show how a final rule regulating prevailing wages hurts them, and halting the rule wouldn't be in the public's interest, the U.S. Department of Labor told a Texas federal court.
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May 02, 2024
FTC Clears $60B Exxon Deal With Pioneer Executive Ban
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday cleared the way for the close of the $60 billion mega-merger between Exxon Mobil Corp. and Pioneer Natural Resources, subject to an agreement barring former Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield from gaining a seat on Exxon's board.
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May 01, 2024
Autonomy CEO's Atty Says Judge 'One-Sided' Against Client
A Steptoe LLP partner representing former Autonomy CEO Michael Lynch in his criminal fraud jury trial accused the judge overseeing the case of making comments to the jury that are "one-sided" in a way that prejudices the defense.
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May 01, 2024
Monsanto Gets $185 Million Wash. PCB Verdict Overturned
A Washington state appeals court sided with Monsanto on Wednesday, undoing a $185 million jury verdict for three teachers who claimed they were sickened by PCBs at a Washington school site and ruling the case could be limited by the Evergreen state's 12-year statute of repose for product liability claims.
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May 01, 2024
NLRB Dings Amazon CEO Over 'Better Off Not' Unionizing Talk
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated federal labor law by making public predictions that workers looking to unionize would be "better off not doing so," a National Labor Relations Board judge ruled Wednesday, but determined Jassy's comments that unionization would change workers' relationship with the company were lawful.
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May 01, 2024
Trader Joe's Must Pay Fees To Union After 'Meritless' TM Suit
A California federal judge ordered Trader Joe's to pay $112,622 in attorney fees to a union of its employees in a suit alleging the union's logo infringes the grocer's name and trademarks, saying Trader Joe's claim that the suit is unrelated to a labor dispute "cannot be taken seriously."
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May 01, 2024
Amazon Can't Sanction Atty In Chinese Seller Award Case
Amazon can't sanction a Manhattan lawyer for her alleged history of using "frivolous" legal arguments to try to send back to state court litigation to vacate arbitral awards involving Chinese sellers, a New York federal judge ruled Wednesday.
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May 01, 2024
Dental Supply Co. Must Face Suit Over COVID-Era Woes
Dental health products supplier Dentsply Sirona Inc. failed to get a suit dismissed accusing it of misleading investors about the extent of its pandemic-era woes, with a New York federal judge finding the suit identifies dozens of actionable misleading statements and plausibly pleads knowledge of wrongdoing by Dentsply's former executives.
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May 01, 2024
USPTO Outlines Plan To Boost Diversity In Innovation
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Wednesday unveiled a plan aimed at increasing innovation among young people and those from underrepresented backgrounds, calling on companies, governments and schools to make efforts to diversify and broaden their ranks.
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May 01, 2024
JPMorgan Says It's Paying $100M More In Trade Penalties
JPMorgan Chase & Co. said Wednesday that it expects to pay $100 million to yet another U.S. regulator to resolve alleged deficiencies with its program for monitoring employee and client trading activities, a fine that comes on the heels of an additional $350 million in penalties stemming from its trade surveillance.
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May 01, 2024
Chancery Nixes Amazon.com Investor's Antitrust Docs Probe
An Amazon.com stockholder on Wednesday lost a Delaware Court of Chancery suit seeking court-ordered access to company records to probe claims that the online retailing giant engages in anti-competitive practices, with a court magistrate finding the evidence insufficient to justify the demand.
Expert Analysis
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Legal Considerations For Circular Economy Strategies
As circular economy goals — generating revenue at multiple points in a product's life cycle — become nearly ubiquitous in corporate sustainability practices, companies should reassess existing strategies by focusing on government incentives, regulations, and reporting and disclosure requirements, say Rachel Saltzman and Erin Grisby at Hunton.
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Decline In Same-Industry M&A Tells A Nuanced Policy Story
In light of newly available Hart-Scott-Rodino Act data suggesting that intraindustry mergers are down overall and pharmaceutical and hospital intraindustry transactions tend to face greater antitrust scrutiny than in the past, attorneys at Morgan Lewis explore whether Biden administration enforcement policies may be curbing pro-competitive strategic M&A.
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SEC's Final Climate Disclosure Rules: What Cos. Must Know
While the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's scaled-back final rules requiring public companies to disclose certain climate-related information still face challenges in court, companies should begin preparing now to comply with the rules, say Celia Soehner and Erin Martin at Morgan Lewis.
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Tips For Orgs Facing AI Data Privacy Compliance Challenges
Regulators around the world are actively seeking to enforce data privacy and consumer protection laws against companies providing artificial intelligence-related services, raising complex compliance questions in areas like transparency, data minimization, lawfulness of processing, data subject rights and higher risk activities, say attorneys at Hogan Lovells.
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Caremark 2.0 Lends Shareholders Agency Against Polluters
The Caremark doctrine has been liberalized by recent Delaware court decisions into what some have termed a 2.0 version, making derivative cases against corporations far more plausible and invigorating oversight duty on environmental risks like toxic spills and air pollution, say Joshua Margolin and Sean Goldman-Hunt at Selendy Gay.
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Behind The 'CVR Spin' Method Of Unlocking Assets In M&A
The spinoff of contingent value rights, or the CVR spin, can unlock secondary and noncore assets in public mergers and acquisitions, while resolving the market dislocation of some traditional divestitures, say attorneys at Gibson Dunn.
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2nd Circ.'s Nine West Ruling Clarifies Safe Harbor Confusion
The Second Circuit’s recent ruling in Nine West’s Chapter 11 suit clarifies that courts in the circuit will apply a transfer-by-transfer analysis to determine the applicability of Section 546(e) of the Bankruptcy Code, and that to be safe harbored, a financial institution must act as an agent with respect to the specific transfer at issue, says Leonardo Trivigno at Carter Ledyard.
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Insurance Implications Of Trump's NY Civil Fraud Verdict
A New York state trial court’s $450 million judgment against former President Donald Trump and affiliated entities for valuation fraud offers several important lessons for companies seeking to obtain directors and officers insurance, including the consequences of fraudulent misrepresentations and critical areas of underwriting risk, says Kevin LaCroix at RT ProExec.
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Opinion
European Union Criticisms Of The FCPA Are Misguided
Some in the European Union have criticized U.S. enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for what they perceive as jurisdictional overreach, but this appears to overlook the crucial fact that jurisdiction is voluntary, and critics should focus instead on the lack of equivalent laws in their own region, say John Joy and YuTong Wang at FTI Law.
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Del. Dispatch: How Moelis Upends Stockholder Agreements
The Delaware Court of Chancery's Moelis decision last month upended the standard corporate practice of providing governance rights in stockholder agreements and adds to a recent line of surprising decisions holding that long-standing, common market practices violate Delaware law, say attorneys at Fried Frank.
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Business Litigators Have A Source Of Untapped Fulfillment
As increasing numbers of attorneys struggle with stress and mental health issues, business litigators can find protection against burnout by remembering their important role in society — because fulfillment in one’s work isn’t just reserved for public interest lawyers, say Bennett Rawicki and Peter Bigelow at Hilgers Graben.
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Understanding Insurance Is Key To Limiting Antitrust Liability
As regulators signal their intent to continue last year's aggressive campaign of corporate antitrust litigation, businesses must make active management of their liability insurance policies, along with a firm knowledge of the limits of their coverage, central to their strategies for limiting the enormous financial risks of enforcement, say attorneys at Nossaman.
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Takeaways From USPTO's AI-Assisted Invention Guidance
Recently issued guidance from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office clarifies how patent inventorship is to be determined when AI is involved, and while the immediate risk of prosecution for failing to meet the new standards appears low, the extent of examiners’ scrutiny remains to be seen, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.
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What FTC's 'Killer Acquisition' Theory Means For Pharma Cos.
The Federal Trade Commission's recent lawsuit to block Sanofi's acquisition of a pharmaceutical treatment developed by Maze Therapeutics builds on previous enforcement actions and could indicate the agency's growing willingness to use its so-called killer acquisition theory against perceived attempts to eliminate nascent competition, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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Under The Hood Of The SEC Securitization Conflict Rule
Elanit Snow and Julia Vitter of Proskauer consider the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recently finalized rule that prohibits conflicts of interest in certain securitization transactions, uncovering what the new regulation does and doesn’t entail, why it was adopted, and how commenters' remarks affected the process.