DOJ Deal Bars OhioHealth From Blocking Patient Steering

By Bryan Koenig

OhioHealth swore off contract language inhibiting the ability of insurers to steer patients to cheaper healthcare providers, in a settlement resolving one of two U.S. Department of Justice antitrust lawsuits targeting alleged hospital network efforts to force insurers to cover their hospitals in all plans.

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MicroBilt Awarded $13M In Contract Fight With Bail Bondsman

By George Woolston

A New Jersey federal judge has adopted the recommendation of a special master to award more than $13 million to a credit reporting agency in its suit against a bail services company alleging a breach of contract over the provision of a mobile device verification service.

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Brief

Crypto Mining Firm Gets $11M Award Confirmed

By Spencer Brewer

A Texas federal court confirmed a crypto mining company's $11 million arbitration award after the opposing party failed to show up at an arbitration hearing and then failed to respond or appear before the federal court.

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IT Distributor Accused Of Withholding $27M In Tax Benefits

By Kat Lucero

An information technology distributor has refused to pay electronic components distributor Avnet at least $27 million of tax credits and refunds, breaching a 2016 acquisition agreement between the two companies, according to a complaint in a New York federal court.

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Lender Says Co. Defaulted On $5M Loan, Tanked Pot Site Value

By Jonathan Capriel

A cannabis real estate company and an affiliate gutted a $27 million cultivation facility, stopped paying taxes on it and defaulted on a $4.6 million clean-energy loan, according to a federal lawsuit by the lender, which seeks a court-ordered sale of the property.

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NC Biz Court Narrows Fight Over Flopped Development Deal

By Hayley Fowler

A private lender and its top brass have shaved a host of claims from a dispute with the part-owners of a real estate development project that never got off the ground, with a North Carolina Business Court judge finding that many of the allegations against them were too "thin" to advance.

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Niger Says Town House Off Limits In $7.6M Award Feud

By Joyce Hanson

The Republic of Niger told a New York federal judge on Wednesday that its $35 million town house on Manhattan's Upper East Side can't be seized by a United Kingdom aviation services company looking to enforce a $7.6 million arbitral award because the property is used for sovereign purposes.

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Grocery Chain Says Aon Put $40M In Opioid Coverage At Risk

By Gianna Ferrarin

Supermarket chain Giant Eagle on Wednesday hit insurance brokerage firm Aon with claims in Pennsylvania federal court that it jeopardized $40 million in coverage allegedly owed to the chain for settlement and defense costs in opioid litigation.

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Doctors Defeat Most Claims In Life Insurance Fraud Dispute

By Hope Patti

A life insurer failed to adequately allege that a pair of doctors were knowingly involved in a purported scheme to defraud the carrier into issuing $160 million worth of policies, a New Jersey federal court ruled, tossing all but one claim brought under the state's Insurance Fraud Protection Act.

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Aetna Can't Bring Its Own Claims In $20M Air Ambulance Fight

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut federal judge has agreed to throw out three Aetna entities' allegations that air ambulance operators misrepresented their services throughout an Independent Dispute Resolution award process, finding that the federal No Surprises Act bars the insurer's counterclaims.

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Brief

$8.8M Deal In State Farm 'Diminished Value' Suit Gets 1st OK

By Hope Patti

A Washington federal court granted preliminary approval of an $8.8 million settlement to resolve a class action claiming that State Farm failed to adequately pay for the diminished value of vehicles under its underinsured motorist coverage.

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Justices Asked To Review 'Headscratching' Copyright Ruling

By Ivan Moreno

A group of major music publishers has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rein in a "headscratching" Fifth Circuit ruling that the music publishers say transformed U.S. copyright termination rights into a worldwide reset button for ownership of foreign copyrights.

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Nasdaq Private Market Says Rival Poached Staff And Secrets

By Katryna Perera

A Nasdaq marketplace for pre-IPO stock has filed suit against a competitor, alleging that it has poached employees and clients, stolen trade secrets and other confidential information, and infringed its patented technology in an effort to acquire what Nasdaq has built without fairly competing.

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Luxottica, Ex-Worker End Pension Suit Over Annuity Benefits

By Kellie Mejdrich

Luxottica and a former worker who challenged the company's methodology for paying annuity benefits agreed Wednesday to resolve a proposed class action, a month after the nation's highest court declined the eyewear-maker's bid to review a Second Circuit ruling keeping some of her claims out of arbitration.

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Visa, Mastercard Say 'Old' Deal Bars 'New' Merchant Suit

By Bryan Koenig

Visa and Mastercard asked a New York federal court to shut down a new proposed class action from merchants seeking to get around the future claims release in the credit card companies' $5.6 billion transaction fees antitrust settlement, arguing the new merchants are clearly bound by the old deal.

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The Banking Issue Hiding In Justices' Freight Broker Ruling

While the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent liability preemption ruling in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport was front-page news for the transportation industry, the banking industry seems to have missed that the decision exposes freight broker lenders to credit, documentation and litigation issues, say attorneys at Barack Ferrazzano.

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Opinion

Rule Of Law Requires Gov't Engagement With Bar, Not Retreat

A federal agency's absence from national and local bar conferences, most recently illustrated by the U.S. Department of Justice's withdrawal from a New York City Bar Association white collar conference, disserves the bar, the government lawyers themselves and, ultimately, the administration of justice, says Muhammad Faridi at Linklaters.

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Full Fed. Circ. To Hear Immigration Judges' Firing Challenge

By Ganesh Setty

The Federal Circuit on Wednesday agreed to conduct en banc review over the firing of two immigration judges, after the Merit Systems Protection Board ruled that they constituted inferior officers who are subject to at-will removal by the president.

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No Discipline For DOJ Atty's 'Lapse Of Judgment' In ICE Case

By Emily Sawicki

A Rhode Island federal prosecutor who knowingly withheld information about a detainee's criminal history at the behest of immigration enforcement, leading to an "unfounded attack" against a federal judge by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the detainee's release, violated his duty of candor but will not face discipline, the district's chief judge determined.

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Trump Halts Clayton Director Hearing Over Blue-Slip Dispute

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump directed Jay Clayton, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, not to appear for his confirmation hearing Wednesday on his nomination to be director of national intelligence, in part over a blue-slip issue.

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Maya Kowalski Sues Ex-Atty Over Fees, Funding Loan

By Carolina Bolado

Maya Kowalski, the subject of the Netflix documentary "Take Care of Maya," filed a malpractice suit against her former attorney on Wednesday, accusing him of charging excessive fees and improperly orchestrating an advance funding loan after winning a $213 million judgment.

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Sanctioned IP Atty Tells Fed. Circ. 'Integrity' On The Line

By Elliot Weld

An attorney who was sanctioned in a trade dress infringement case due to what a judge said were his repeated misrepresentations has asked the Federal Circuit to lift the penalties against him and his client, saying his "professional and personal integrity, and my family, depends on it."

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Bosch Receives First DOJ Declination Under New Policy

By Sarah Jarvis

German technology company Bosch on Wednesday became the first company to avoid criminal prosecution under a new U.S. Department of Justice enforcement policy after it cooperated with the federal government and agreed to pay $36 million to settle allegations it improperly exported technology products to sanctioned Chinese company Huawei.

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DOJ's Pot Shift Leaves Key Questions For Cannabis Industry

By Sam Reisman

The Trump administration's recent moves to relax federal restrictions on marijuana through the administrative process will have unclear ramifications for all industry players unless Congress steps in to rewrite cannabis law, attorneys heard Wednesday.

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