Analysis

Calif. AI Guardrails Split From Feds, Other States May Follow

By Madeline Lyskawa

California Gov. Gavin Newsom's recent executive order directing state agencies to implement guardrails for contracting with artificial intelligence companies marks a rift with the Trump administration's deregulatory approach that could proliferate across other states.

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'Mark Of Autocracy': Court Says Pentagon Defied Press Order

By Lauren Berg

The U.S. Department of Defense has not complied with a court order barring the Pentagon from taking press passes away from journalists who report on matters not authorized by the government, a D.C. federal judge ruled Thursday, saying the department's revised rules "achieve that same unconstitutional result."

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FCC Plans To End '90s Framework For Satellite Power Limits

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission released details late Thursday of its plan to replace a 1990s-era framework for satellite power limits, saying the rules will be replaced with a system requiring space companies to coordinate to avoid signal disruption.

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Fed. Circ. Affirms Army Refund Over $73M Hangar Contract

By Ganesh Setty

A contractor must refund the U.S. Army roughly $494,000 under a nearly $73 million hangar contract after the Army deleted certain requirements, the Federal Circuit ruled Thursday, rejecting the contractor's position that performing the contract was already impossible.

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Rivera's Ex-Partner Kept Cut Of $50M Venezuela Contract

By Carolina Bolado

Real estate developer and convicted drug trafficker Hugo Perera told jurors Thursday he regretted "1,000%" getting involved with former U.S. Rep. David Rivera in a $50 million contract with a unit of Venezuela's state-owned oil company but admitted he kept his $5 million cut of the deal.

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Fuel Executive Gets 5 Years For $4.5M Navy Fraud Scheme

By Elaine Briseño

A Florida federal judge sentenced a former fuel executive to five years in prison after a jury found him guilty of defrauding the U.S. Department of Defense of more than $4.5 million.

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Australian Court Affirms India's Immunity In $112M Award Suit

By Caroline Simson

Australia's highest court has upheld that India has sovereign immunity in an enforcement case involving a $112 million arbitral award issued in a dispute over a terminated deal to deliver communications services in the country.

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6 Firms Steer Terra Quantum's Plans For $3.25B SPAC Merger

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Swiss quantum technology company Terra Quantum AG on Thursday unveiled plans to go public by merging with American special purpose acquisition company Mountain Lake Acquisition Corp. II in a deal that values it at $3.25 billion and was built by six law firms.

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Deals Rumor Mill

SpaceX Plans Record Retail Slice In IPO, And Other Rumors

By Al Barbarino

As SpaceX prepares what could be the largest initial public offering ever, executives reportedly told the company's bankers that it plans to allocate a record portion of shares to retail investors, drawing comparisons to the so-called meme stock frenzy of 2021. 

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'Made In America' Rules Raise Stakes For Gov't Contractors

The convergence of widely varying "buy American" requirements, increased enforcement efforts and continuing regulatory attempts to limit foreign sourcing suggests that government contractors should carefully review their supply chain and country-of-origin compliance to remain competitive, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

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Series

Alpine Skiing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Skiing has shaped habits I rely on daily as an attorney — focus, resilience and the ability to remain steady when circumstances shift rapidly — and influences the way I approach legal strategy, client counseling and teamwork, says Isaku Begert at Marshall Gerstein.

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DLA Piper Partner Rejects Pregnant Atty's Account Of Firing

By Pete Brush

The DLA Piper partner who fired a pregnant associate said she did so lawfully, telling a Manhattan federal jury her former employee was "in over her head" and disputing that the associate raised pregnancy bias concerns on a termination call.

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6th Circ. Won't Revisit EFAA Ruling Against Adams & Reese

By Patrick Hoff

The Sixth Circuit said it won't reconsider its ruling that a law barring mandatory arbitration of sexual harassment cases kept a former Adams & Reese LLP paralegal's sex harassment and disability bias suit in court, concluding that the firm's objections were already considered.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

The past week in London has seen the owner of an oil tanker stuck in the Strait of Hormuz sued by an energy company and an insurer, law firm Boodle Hatfield LLP and two Serle Court barristers sued by a group of Winston Churchill's great-grandchildren, and Welsh Water hit with a fresh class action over polluted rivers.

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Calif. Atty Avoids Sanctions For Filing Bogus Citations With AI

By Matt Perez

A California attorney has avoided sanctions over his use of artificial intelligence for a filing in a civil rights case, which resulted in false citations.

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Another Gov't Atty From Vt. Joins Stris & Maher's Team

By Jack Rodgers

A former civil chief of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Vermont has joined Stris & Maher LLP's practice as a partner, the firm announced Friday.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Other states might follow the lead of California and break with President Donald Trump's policies in implementing guardrails for state agencies to contract with AI companies. And after three individual indictments last month for selling banned tech to China, Supermicro has hired Munger Tolles & Olson LLP to conduct an independent investigation, assigned its general counsel to lead an internal compliance review, and shaken up its compliance leadership.

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NJ Justices Won't Review Beasley Allen's DQ From Talc Cases

By George Woolston

The New Jersey Supreme Court has declined to review a lower court's order booting the Beasley Allen Law Firm from multicounty litigation in the Garden State over Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder, according to an order made public Friday.

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Conn. Justices Block Agency's Bias Probe Into Atty Licensing

By Brian Steele

Because citizens blocked the legislature from reviewing court decisions when ratifying the state's 1818 constitution, a Connecticut human rights agency has no power to investigate alleged bias in attorney licensing decisions, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled Friday in a unanimous opinion.

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Airline Worker Asks To Expand Sanctions Row In Bias Case

By Emily Brill

A Southwest Airlines flight attendant who was fired after sending her union's president pictures of aborted fetuses is pushing for additional remedies in a sanctions dispute stemming from her long-running religious discrimination lawsuit against the airline, from which she received $800,000 after winning a jury trial in 2022.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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Trump Taps Personal Atty For 2nd Circ.

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump announced on Friday evening he's tapping Matthew Schwartz, his attorney in the New York hush money case, for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. 

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