Expert Analysis

• Opinion

  Exxon Shareholders Were Right To Save New Voting Program

  

  Following Exxon shareholders’ recent vote that rejected a bid to dismantle the company’s new retail voting program, other companies should replicate it as a way to lower the friction for shareholders who already vote with the board to keep doing so without wrestling a ballot every spring, says J.W. Verret at the Antonin Scalia Law School.

• Series

  Choral Singing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

  

  Singing in the New York City Bar Chorus — a hobby partly inspired by the late U.S. District Judge Richard Owen, who infused my clerkship year with opera music — has improved my legal career by refining my abilities to listen, exude confidence and develop emotional intelligence, says Bonnie Baker at Friedman Kaplan.

• Attorney Mental Health Is An Ethical Obligation In The AI Era

  

  As attorneys cope with the increasing unpredictability that artificial intelligence and constant policy changes have created, particularly in practice areas where they carry the emotional weight of clients’ most consequential life events, otherwise soft discussions about self-care are a matter of professional competence, says attorney Jack Jrada.

• Tariff Refunds May Reshape Loan Covenant Calculations

  

  Tariff refunds issued after the U.S. Supreme Court's Learning Resources decision may complicate borrowers' covenant calculations depending on accounting treatment, the timing of recognition, customer reimbursement obligations and credit agreement language, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.

• Agentic AI And Securities Law: Evolving Risk Disclosures

  

  The U.S. disclosure regime is built on the premise that management can describe the material facts and risks facing its business, but, with the advent of agentic artificial intelligence, the question is whether the regime can accommodate decision-making systems whose behavior is not fully predictable, says Joseph A. Hall at Davis Polk.

• DOJ China Container Indictments Signal Global Cartel Risk

  

  The U.S. Department of Justice's recent announcement that it had indicted Chinese manufacturers for conspiring to drive up the price of shipping containers sold in the U.S. illustrates the Antitrust Division's interest in pursuing overseas cartel conduct, especially in China, signaling that multinational companies with employees abroad should strengthen antitrust compliance to avoid running afoul of U.S. national security policy, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

• More Cos. Will Copy SpaceX's Shareholder Proposal Opt-Out

  

  For more than 80 years, the shareholder proposal looked like a federal right guaranteed to all public company investors, but after SpaceX opted out before its recent initial public offering, other companies are likely to follow, says Mohsen Manesh at the University of Oregon School of Law.

• How DOJ Is Approaching Monitorship After Signaling Limits

  

  As the U.S. Department of Justice keeps more monitors in place than expected, a look at the matters in which prosecutors are maintaining oversight reveals the sort of companies enforcers might trust to self-remediate, and also those that may receive independent supervision, say attorneys at Kendall Brill.

• Prediction Market Case Will Test US Insider Trading Reach

  

  The insider trading case recently brought against Google employee Michele Spagnuolo may help clarify the extraterritorial reach of the Commodity Exchange Act and U.S. agencies' ability to police foreign trading in prediction markets, say attorneys at Akin.

• Series

  Power To The Paralegals: Burnout As A Structural Problem

  

  Law firm leadership can best retain their paralegals not by encouraging self-care, but by seeking top-down structural solutions for the quiet proliferation of responsibilities and the vicarious exposure to client trauma that particularly drive burnout in this vital role, says Erika Sneeringer at Brockstedt Mandalas.

• Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: June Lessons

  

  In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses five recent rulings from cases involving allegations of internet data misuse, consumer fraud claims, immigration, insurance and First Amendment violation claims.

• 2 Prediction Market Cases Will Test Insider Trading Theory

  

  Prosecutors in two recent Southern District of New York cases have filed separate charges against two defendants who used confidential information gathered from each employer to place prediction market bets, but each prosecution must overcome different legal hurdles established by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Second Circuit, says John Siffert at Lankler Siffert.

• Takeaways From 1st Del. Ruling Applying Moelis Amendments

  

  Delaware corporations should carefully review contractual arrangements and governance documents following the Court of Chancery's recent enforcement of a non-Delaware forum selection clause in a CEO's employment agreement under 2024 amendments to the state's General Corporation Law, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

• Ill. Law Firm MSO Bill Clashes With Court Power, Ethics Rules

  

  An Illinois bill prohibiting law firms from certain business arrangements with management service organizations, sent to the governor for signature last week, encroaches upon the courts' constitutional powers and goes beyond the Illinois Rules of Professional Conduct in regulating investment in law-related services, says Matthew O’Hara at Smith Gambrell.

• 3rd Circ. Decision Sheds Light On BIPA Bank Exemption

  

  The Third Circuit's recent decision in McGoveran v. Amazon illuminates how courts are extending the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act's financial institution carveout beyond banks and insurers to technology vendors and other businesses handling biometric data, a defendant-friendly shift that still casts uncertainty around BIPA's enforcement, say attorneys at Dorsey & Whitney.