Honeywell's $46M LNG Award Survives Delay Challenge

By Joyce Hanson

A Manhattan federal judge has granted industrial conglomerate Honeywell's bid to confirm a $46 million arbitral award, including attorney fees, against a Mexican construction company over a dispute related to defective and delayed equipment for a liquefied natural gas plant in Louisiana.

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Merrill Lynch To Pay $39M Over Retirement Cash Sweep Rates

By Katryna Perera

Bank of America's Merrill Lynch unit has reached a $39 million settlement with account holders in a suit alleging the wealth management division swept idle funds in customers' retirement accounts into low-interest accounts instead of paying the proper market interest rates.

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Merrill, But Not BofA, Must Face Cash Sweep Rates Suit

By Lauren Berg

Bank of America escaped account holders' allegations that they were paid unreasonably low interest rates under automatic cash sweep programs, but its wealth management division, Merrill Lynch, must still face most of the proposed class claims, according to a New York federal judge's ruling.

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Analysis

Fate Of Patent Awards Over $1B Shows Hurdles In Apple Case

By Ryan Davis

Taction Technology Inc. has secured the largest patent damages verdict in history with a $5.7 billion win against Apple Inc., but it may face an uphill battle to collect, since nearly every previous patent judgment over $1 billion was later reduced or overturned.

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$16B Ruling Faces High Court Sovereign Immunity Challenge

By Caroline Simson

The U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to review an "egregiously wrong" Second Circuit decision that overturned a New York judge's $16 billion judgment against Argentina that arose from its nationalization of YPF SA, the country's largest oil and gas exploration company.

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FBT Gibbons Beats DQ Bid In Suit Over Cigna Payments

By George Woolston

A New Jersey state court judge has rejected a plastic surgery practice's bid to disqualify FBT Gibbons LLP from representing Cigna and a group of employer-sponsored health plans in its suit over the insurer's alleged underpayments, finding the bid appears more of an effort to gain an advantage rather than one to protect the interests of any client.

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Developer Bound By Emailed Settlement Offer, Court Says

By Julie Manganis

A three-sentence email with the subject line "settlement communication," which proposed a meeting followed by dismissal of a lawsuit over a real estate development, was a binding agreement to end the case, Massachusetts' intermediate-level appellate court said Thursday.

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DuPont, Corteva Accused Of $40B PFAS Asset Shielding

By Craig Clough

The company formerly known as DuPont and its parent Corteva Inc. were sued in Indiana state court Thursday by 15 states and Guam alleging a newly completed seeds business spinoff is nothing more than an illegal effort to place $40 billion in assets beyond the reach of creditors pursuing forever chemicals claims.

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Ambiguous Bond Terms Net FDIC Win In SVB Coverage Fight

By Danielle Ferguson

Two insurers must provide coverage to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., as receiver for Silicon Valley Bank, for the bank's claim for losses from a $73 million fraud scheme, a North Carolina federal judge ruled, finding ambiguity in bond contract language tipped the scales in the insured's favor.

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Construction Co. Says Insurance Broker Misled On Coverage

By Danielle Ferguson

A Connecticut construction company said an insurance brokerage neglected its responsibility to secure a policy and then later misrepresented why the construction company wouldn't receive coverage for a worker's personal injury suit.

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Fed. Circ. Backs Galderma In Injection Training IP Case

By Elliot Weld

The Federal Circuit on Thursday affirmed an order clearing Galderma SA of a medical training startup's accusations that it misappropriated trade secrets related to an injection training system and derailed what could have been a lucrative deal with Allergan PLC.

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Food Workers' Gear Pay Suit Against Campbell's Survives

By MJ Koo

Pepperidge Farm food production workers cleared a hurdle in a proposed class action accusing the snack-maker and its parent, Campbell's, of failing to pay for time spent donning and doffing required protective gear, as a New Jersey federal court found they adequately alleged federal and state wage claims.

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Judge 'Flummoxed' By Forum Claim In IQVIA's Poaching Suit

By Hayley Fowler

A North Carolina Business Court judge said Thursday that he was "flummoxed" by clinical research giant IQVIA Holdings Inc.'s argument for not enforcing its own forum selection clause against four top executives who decamped for a competitor.

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Mapping The Shifting Landscape Of Algorithmic Pricing Laws

As state legislative activity and federal developments abound in algorithmic pricing practice, companies steering through this regulatory patchwork should consider a number of key issues, including status, use and exemptions, say attorneys at Covington.

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The Patent Circuit: Marking Duties For Licensed Tech

The Federal Circuit's decision in VDPP v. Volkswagen provides clarity on how the patent statute's marking provision applies to licensed technology, but expressly leaves open the question of how exactly patentees can make reasonable efforts to ensure licensees' marking compliance, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.

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Testing AI's Promise For Large-Scale Document Review

Our document-review comparison of attorneys' responsiveness and issue coding decisions versus predictions generated by artificial intelligence across 1,600 documents suggests that these tools can offer a reasonable and reliable basis for improved discovery workflows, provided lawyers understand where guardrails are needed, say attorneys at Redgrave.

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UCLA Law Is Latest DOJ Target Over Race Bias In Admissions

By Dorothy Atkins

The U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division accused the UCLA School of Law of discriminating against white and Asian students in its admissions process in a letter sent to the school's counsel Thursday, following multiple other similar letters that the DOJ sent to other higher-education institutions.

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DOJ Outlines New Corporate Fraud Enforcement Priorities

By Phillip Bantz

Federal prosecutors "must place great weight" on a new list of factors when considering potential charges in corporate fraud cases, including whether the matters involve government programs, threats to national security or immigration offenses, according to a memo released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Trump Announces Judicial Noms For 5th Circ., NC

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he's nominating Todd Butler, a managing partner at Phelps Dunbar LLP, to serve as a judge on the Fifth Circuit. 

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Blackburn Holds Up White House's Tenn. Judge Pick

By Courtney Bublé

The White House is standing by its nominee for a federal judgeship in the Eastern District of Tennessee amid a holdup from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., a White House official confirmed to Law360 on Thursday.

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Richards Layton Atty Confirmed To Join Del. Chancery Bench

By Rose Krebs

Delaware's Senate on Thursday confirmed a Richards Layton & Finger PA director to a 12-year term as a vice chancellor on the Chancery Court.

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Roundup

The Top In-House Hires Of September

By Michele Gorman

Legal department hires during the past month included high-profile appointments at MSG Sports, Nestle and the Associated Press. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from September.

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Judge Reinstates Rogoff As Seattle US Atty After Trump Firing

By Rachel Riley

A Washington federal judge issued an order from the bench on Thursday reinstating Roger Rogoff as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington, finding that President Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he fired him in July.

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Trump Says Copyright Chief Can't Stay In Office Amid Appeal

By Adam Lidgett

The Trump administration is urging the D.C. Circuit to let it remove U.S. Copyright Office leader Shira Perlmutter, arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision protecting Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook for now does not entitle Perlmutter to remain in office while her firing challenge proceeds.

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Monthly Merger Review Snapshot

By Matthew Perlman

State enforcers settled their case challenging Paramount Skydance's planned $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, while the U.S. Department of Justice probes Fox's planned $22 billion deal for Roku and regulators review massive deals in the energy and railroad sectors.

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