Roundup

ERISA Recap: 6 Notable Decisions From September

By Kellie Mejdrich

The Tenth and Seventh circuits issued published opinions in two union retirement disputes, while the Sixth Circuit found that the Commonwealth of Kentucky's lawsuit against pharmacy benefit managers does not belong in state court, citing colorable federal preemption arguments. Here's more on those decisions and three other notable rulings involving the Employee Retirement Income Security Act that came down in September.

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States Fight DOL's Ax Of Unemployment Insurance Grants

By Madeline Lyskawa

Fourteen states sued the federal government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on Friday, alleging the U.S. Department of Labor wrongfully terminated grants intended for modernizing their unemployment insurance programs.

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Alight Seeks To Nix Investors' Deceptive Growth Claims Suit

By Patrick Hoff

Employee benefits and human resources provider Alight urged an Illinois federal court to toss a suit alleging its executives misled investors about the company's ability to hit financial targets, arguing it repeatedly warned about the risks of its strategic overhaul.

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Workers Say Waste Co. Shouldn't Escape 401(k) Suit

By Grace Elletson

Two workers of a waste collection company urged a Texas federal judge to keep their case in court, claiming the business burdened its $800 million retirement plan with an underperforming stable value fund, arguing the retention of the fund itself demonstrates the company's imprudence.

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Brief

Logistics Cos. Can't Pause Tobacco Fee Suit

By Grace Elletson

A Connecticut federal judge on Friday shut down two logistics companies' bid to stay discovery in a case claiming they didn't properly reimburse employees who paid a health plan fee for tobacco use, ruling a pause wasn't warranted given the suit's history.

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Health Plan Takeaways After 2nd Circ. No Surprises Act Ruling

While the Second Circuit's recent ruling in East Coast Advanced Plastic Surgery v. Cigna gives health plans breathing room in finding that healthcare providers cannot enforce out-of-network billing dispute resolution awards in court, sponsors should not assume that declining to pay awards will go unaddressed by regulators, say attorneys at Thompson Hine.

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Squire Patton, Holland & Knight Report Data Breaches

By Jake Maher

Squire Patton Boggs LLP and Holland & Knight LLP were hit with cyberattacks exposing sensitive information, according to disclosures filed this week.

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Up Next At High Court: Criminal Sentences & Video Privacy

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court will close out its October sitting by hearing oral arguments in two cases that ask what level of deference federal district courts should give to commentary interpreting the federal sentencing guidelines, and what purchases are protected under a video consumer privacy statute.

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DOJ Aims To 'Attack Fraud From All Angles' Via New Division

By Sarah Jarvis

The U.S. Department of Justice's new fraud division has issued fresh guidance on its prosecution methodology, with the division's head directing prosecutors to seize assets before indictments and pursue upward variances in sentencing guidelines in some cases as part of a stated push to use the division's "full arsenal of criminal statutes" in combating fraud.

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Ill. Judge Lays Out Doc Demands For DOJ Misconduct Probe

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois federal judge asked the government Friday to turn over six months of communications and certain other records as she investigates in-court inaccuracies Chicago prosecutors offered while prosecuting six anti-immigration protesters, rejecting its request to seal a filing in the process.

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Atty With False AI Citation Filings Ordered To Pay $39K

By Bonnie Eslinger

A New York federal judge who imposed case-terminating sanctions on an attorney who submitted filings with false citations generated by artificial intelligence ordered him on Friday to pay nearly $39,000 to lawyers who uncovered the problematic AI use, noting he had given them the "runaround" when they tried to collect directly.

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Grassley Attacks Dems' Claims Of Rule-Breaking Over Hearing

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, clapped back at Democrats for their accusations that Republicans broke Senate rules during a hearing last week at which former special counsel Jack Smith appeared.

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Calif. Jurists' Atty Tips: 'Emulate Lincoln,' 'Don't Be Boring'

By Bonnie Eslinger

Three current and former Northern California federal judges and one Morrison Foerster LLP partner during a Federal Bar Association panel discussion Thursday gave attorneys tips on "courtroom persuasion," including knowing the judges, keeping things interesting and, like the nation's 16th president, getting quickly to the winning point.

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Brief

Legal Services NYC Gets $2.5M To Build Novel Resource Hub

By Tracey Read

Legal Services NYC announced Friday that it has been awarded a $2.5 million grant from the New York State Interest on Lawyer Account Fund to create a first-of-its-kind statewide knowledge-sharing platform to help legal advocates spend more time seeking justice for low-income clients.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

The new federal fraud division is threatening faster action and broader targets under a new enforcement policy announced recently. And the SEC warned shareholder advocacy groups that join forces could face legal scrutiny in the future. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and Alston & Bird LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Sixth Circuit overturned a pivotal decision in multidistrict opioid litigation that had dramatically expanded claims against the nation's largest pharmacy benefit managers.

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Roundup

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

By Megan Norcott

The past week in London has seen PrivatBank sue its former oligarch owner, building materials provider Kingspan face a €100 million ($112 million) claim over Grenfell Tower cladding and energy giants VaroPreem and Viaro Energy become embroiled in an intellectual property row.

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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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