Powell Says He Won't Make Fed Exit While Facing DOJ Probe

By Jon Hill

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday that he will stay on as a board member of the central bank if he remains under U.S. Department of Justice investigation when his term as Fed chairman runs out this spring.

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Investors Backed Off Accounting Suits In 2025, Report Says

By Jessica Corso

The number of new lawsuits alleging that publicly traded companies committed accounting errors fell to a 20-year low last year, according to a report released by Cornerstone Research on Wednesday.

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Lawmakers Commit To April Crypto Bill Markup, Or Else

By Aislinn Keely

Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told attendees of a Wasington, D.C., crypto conference Wednesday that she's confident the Senate Banking Committee will mark up a bill to regulate crypto markets after the Easter break now that compromises on key issues including stablecoin yield are in the final stages.

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Brief

CFTC Rescinds Request For Climate Risk Information

By Gautama Mehta

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Wednesday withdrew a request for information on climate-related financial risk published in 2022, on the grounds that President Donald Trump had revoked the executive order under which it was authorized.

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BofA Faces Suit Over Alleged $328M Crypto Ponzi Scheme

By Emilie Ruscoe

Bank of America NA is the latest financial institution to face claims it aided and abetted a $328 million Ponzi scheme allegedly operated by the now-criminally charged CEO of cryptocurrency investment firm Goliath Ventures.

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LA Driver Used $2M COVID Loan For Crypto, DOJ Says

By Jonathan Capriel

A Los Angeles man who allegedly took $2 million from federal COVID-19-related relief programs and used the money to fund cryptocurrency trading now faces money laundering, wire fraud and bank fraud charges, according to a Department of Justice announcement issued Wednesday.

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Wall Street Giants Challenge Chip Co. Stock Scheme Claims

By Sydney Price

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC and Interactive Brokers Group Inc. have asked a New York federal court to dismiss them from a stock manipulation suit filed by an investor in Israeli chipmaker Eltek Ltd., arguing the complaint's claims that they depressed the company's share prices are contradictory.

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Kyndryl Hid Cash Management Malpractice, Investor Claims

By Sydney Price

Information technology services company Kyndryl Holdings Inc. and a current and former executive were hit with a proposed shareholder class action accusing them of misleading investors with representations that the company had sufficient control over its cash management practices.

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SelectQuote Looks To Escape Investors' Kickback Probe Suit

By Sydney Price

SelectQuote has asked a New York federal judge to dismiss a proposed class action accusing it of harming investors by concealing a kickback scheme, which is currently the subject of a suit by the U.S. Department of Justice, arguing the existence of the government's suit is not enough to show the shareholders were damaged.

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FINRA Says Compliance Chief Took Part In Pre-IPO Fraud

By Sarah Jarvis

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority has alleged in a disciplinary proceeding that Spartan Capital Securities LLC, its CEO and chief compliance officer defrauded customers by liquidating their own pre-initial public offering shares of a pharmaceutical company more quickly and at a higher price than their customers.

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CyberLink Targets Former Unit Perfect Corp. In $198.6M Bid

By Al Barbarino

Beauty and fashion-focused artificial intelligence company Perfect Corp. said Wednesday it is weighing a roughly $198.6 million take-private offer backed by its CEO and CyberLink International Technology Corp. 

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How To Wield The Clarity Act As A Litigation Defense Tool

The Clarity Act is being discussed as a future compliance statute, but for litigators it can be used as a present-day defense tool to strengthen fair‑notice framing, argue for forward‑looking remedies rather than punitive ones and reprice settlement leverage as statutory clarity approaches, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

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What Texas Anti-Boycott Ruling Means For ESG Landscape

A Texas federal court's recent ruling in American Sustainable Business Council v. Hegar that Texas' anti-ESG law is unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds will likely embolden legal challenges to similar laws in other states that have adopted fossil fuel boycott statutes, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

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Series

Law School's Missed Lessons: The Human Element

Law school teaches you to quickly apply intellect and logic when handling a legal issue, but every fact pattern also involves a person, making the ability to balance expertise with empathy critical to the growth of relationships with clients, colleagues and adversaries, says Rachel Adcox at Adcox Strategies.

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Sitting Judges Take Stand Over Threats Growing 'Ordinary'

By Jake Maher

On the heels of an ethics opinion giving them wider latitude to speak publicly, sitting federal judges brought attention Thursday to the increasing threats against them and their family members, warning about the dangers of such threats becoming "ordinary."

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Anatomy Of A Citation Hallucination: AI Edit, Associate Review

By Rachel Riley

Counsel for consumers in a supplement labeling lawsuit against Amazon responded Wednesday to a Seattle federal judge's order to explain an AI-hallucinated citation, saying the error was introduced by a generative artificial intelligence tool used to "harmonize" drafts of a brief, then missed by a fifth-year Boies Schiller associate tasked with checking the citations.

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Jackson Walker, US Trustee Reach Deal On Fee Settlements

By Vince Sullivan

The Office of the U.S. Trustee and law firm Jackson Walker LLP on Wednesday resolved the bankruptcy watchdog's opposition to a series of settlements tied to a romantic relationship between a former Jackson Walker attorney and a now-retired bankruptcy judge.

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Judge Quashes Subpoena Of 5 Firms That Repped Twitter

By Rae Ann Varona

A Delaware federal court ruled Thursday that six former Twitter employees cannot subpoena five law firms that represented the social media company in connection with its acquisition by Elon Musk, rejecting the employees' "conclusory allegations" that the company and Musk used the firms to make false promises of severance benefits.

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Nomination For New DOJ Fraud Chief Heads To Senate Floor

By Courtney Bublé

The nomination of Colin McDonald for the new position of assistant attorney general for fraud was sent to the full Senate on Thursday, after the Judiciary Committee voted 12-10 along party lines to advance his nomination.

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Judge Digs Into Counsel Over 'Astronomically High' Fee Bid

By Nadia Dreid

Attorneys who represented classes of people who say they received harassing phone calls from real estate agents in violation of federal telemarketing laws are asking for way too much of the $20 million settlement, according to the California federal judge who tore into them Wednesday.

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DOJ Antitrust Head Tells Staff: Don't Worry About Criticism

By Bryan Koenig

The acting head of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division said Thursday that he pays no heed to criticism of the agency and tells staff to do the same, while asserting in Washington, D.C., remarks that there's no better time to come work for the DOJ.

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Ex-Judges Say Anthropic Case Doesn't Merit Court Deference

By Jared Foretek

Nearly 150 former judges are backing Anthropic's fight against its designation as a "supply chain risk" by the U.S. Department of Defense, telling the D.C. Circuit in an amicus brief that the judiciary shouldn't simply defer to the executive just because it invokes national security.

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Fired 'Arctic Frost' Agents Accuse FBI Of Political Retribution

By Dorothy Atkins

Two former FBI agents who worked on the "Arctic Frost" investigation into President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss have accused the government of abruptly firing them in an unconstitutional act of "political retribution."

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