Google To Face Publishers' Class Claims Over AdX Exchange

By Rae Ann Varona

A New York federal judge Friday granted class certification in a multidistrict antitrust litigation over Google's advertising technology to publishers who sold ad space through the search giant's AdX ad space marketplace, but denied certification to publishers who used Google's AdSense platform and to a proposed class of advertisers.

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Live Nation Consumers Get Class Certified In Antitrust Case

By Hailey Konnath

A California federal judge Friday certified a class of consumers accusing Live Nation of monopolizing the live entertainment industry, rejecting the company's argument that there aren't common issues that predominate over individual ones and adopting a tentative ruling he issued earlier this month.

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Dropped FTC Complaint: Pepsi Gave Walmart A 'Price Gap'

By Bryan Koenig

The Federal Trade Commission's newly unsealed New York federal court complaint confirms that the agency had accused Pepsi of favoring Walmart, until the newly Republican-controlled FTC abandoned the lawsuit alleging the soda giant both gave Walmart discounts denied others and actively sought to raise Walmart's rivals' own prices.

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Duke Energy Pushes Back On DOJ's View Of 'Monopoly Broth'

By Matthew Perlman

Duke Energy told the U.S. Supreme Court the government is backing a rival's antitrust claims accusing the power giant of squeezing it out of the North Carolina market simply to help enforcers' own cases accusing Big Tech companies of using a "monopoly broth" to thwart competition.

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Shipbuilders, Naval Engineer Spar Over Witness Statements

By Tom Lotshaw

Shipbuilders and design consultants accused of illegally conspiring to suppress industry wages are clashing with a former naval engineer over what various witnesses told her in support of her proposed class action against the companies.

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Merchant Orgs. Fight Latest Visa, Mastercard Swipe-Fee Deal

By Katryna Perera

The National Association of College Stores, Energy Markets of America and other industry groups objected Friday to a proposed new settlement between Visa, Mastercard and a class of potentially millions of merchants to resolve two decades of antitrust litigation, claiming the deal "does not come close to fixing the swipe fee challenges" faced by merchants.

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MVP: Winston & Strawn's Jeffrey Kessler

By Matthew Perlman

Winston & Strawn LLP's Jeffrey Kessler helped student athletes reach a landmark multibillion-dollar settlement with the NCAA in long-running litigation over the use of name, image and likeness, earning him a spot as one of the 2025 Law360 Competition MVPs.

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Roundup

Taxation With Representation: Cravath, Skadden, Debevoise

By Zak Kostro

In this week's Taxation With Representation, Paramount Skydance Corp. launches a hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, challenging Netflix's deal to acquire the studio and streaming business, IBM acquires data streaming company Confluent, and natural gas company Antero Resources Corp. expands via a deal with HG Energy.

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Microsoft Says £2B Class Action Fails To ID Viable Legal Test

By Ronan Barnard

Microsoft said at a London antitrust tribunal on Friday that a claim potentially worth £2.1 billion ($2.8 billion) should not be given clearance to continue, arguing the competition lawyer proposing to bring it had not identified a route for it to go to trial.

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1st Circ. Affirms Ex-ADI Engineer's Trade Secrets Conviction

By Julie Manganis

The First Circuit has affirmed a former Analog Devices Inc. engineer's trade secrets conviction, ruling that the indictment's reference to a specific microchip model did not preclude a guilty verdict based on his possession of schematics for its prototype.

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Navigating A Sea Change In Rent Algorithm Regulation

The U.S. Department of Justice's proposed settlement of the RealPage lawsuit represents a pivotal moment in the regulation of algorithmic rent-setting, restraining use of these tools amid a growing trend of regulatory limits on use of algorithmic data and methodologies in establishing housing rental prices. say attorneys at Wilson Elser.

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Opinion

Supreme Court Term Limits Would Carry Hidden Risk

While proposals for limiting the terms of U.S. Supreme Court justices are popular, a steady stream of relatively young, highly marketable ex-justices with unique knowledge and influence entering the marketplace of law and politics could create new problems, say Michael Broyde at Emory University and Hayden Hall at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

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Bonus Spotlight

Axinn Veltrop's Bonuses Reach Up To $240K

By Andrea Keckley

Axinn Veltrop & Harkrider LLP is giving out bonuses of up to $240,000 for its associates, according to an in-house memo seen by Law360 Pulse.

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Watchdog Sues White House For Records On Law Firm Deals

By Emily Sawicki

A Washington-based nonprofit watchdog has sued the Trump administration, seeking records related to deals BigLaw firms struck to provide an estimated nearly $1 billion worth of pro bono legal services to further the administration's priorities, following the president's executive orders to withhold security clearances and investigate the firms.

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Analysis

2025 Sees State Courts Diverge From Federal Criminal Norms

By Brandon Lowrey

Some of this year's most notable criminal appellate rulings homed in on differences between state and federal constitutional protections against the most serious punishments, with movement in Michigan, bucking the trend in Wyoming, and an ambiguous but potentially earthshaking decision out of Texas.

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US Atty Nominee For Wyo. Was Outside Capitol On Jan. 6

By Courtney Bublé

One of President Donald Trump's U.S. attorney nominees, who was on the U.S. Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, 2021, and recently told senators he still thinks "there were imperfections" in the 2020 election process, has been advanced toward Senate confirmation.

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Del. US Atty Resigns Citing 'Politics,' Successor Appointed

By Rose Krebs

The acting U.S. Attorney for Delaware said Friday that she is resigning, citing "a highly politicized, flawed blue-slip tradition" for nominees and saying she "fully" supports her first assistant, who has been appointed by a federal judge to succeed her.

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Dems Demand Release Of 2nd Jack Smith Report

By Courtney Bublé

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday demanding she release the second volume of former special counsel Jack Smith's report on President Donald Trump's retention of classified documents after he left office the first time.

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Alex Jones Atty's Pared-Down Suspension Upheld On Appeal

By Aaron Keller

A Connecticut appeals court on Friday upheld the two-week suspension of former Alex Jones lawyer Norm Pattis, agreeing that a trial court judge was within her discretion to bench the attorney over his law firm's handling of Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre victims' medical records.

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DOJ Shake-Up Keeps Criminal Tax Meetings, Ex-Official Says

By Kat Lucero

The U.S. Department of Justice — despite recently eliminating its Tax Division as part of a broad restructuring — continues to meet with practitioners representing clients who may face federal criminal tax charges, the former division chief said Friday.

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Wash. Justices Retroactively Lower Bar Exam's Passing Score

By Ben Adlin

As Washington state is preparing to transition to a new bar exam, its Supreme Court has ordered a retroactive adjustment to the current exam's minimum passing score, making an estimated hundred-plus law school graduates who narrowly failed in recent years newly eligible for admission to practice law.

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Roundup

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

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen Shell hit with a climate change claim from 100 survivors of a typhoon in the Philippines, London Stock Exchange-listed Oxford Nanopore bring legal action against its co-founder, and the editors of Pink News sue the BBC for defamation following its investigation into alleged sexual misconduct at the news site.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

President Donald Trump issued an executive order to review the influence that proxy adviser firms have, and law firms saw a 9.8% increase in compensation expenses along with a similar increase in billable rates. ​These are among 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

Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP and Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the Ninth Circuit handed Epic Games Inc. a partial win by mostly affirming an injunction blocking Apple Inc. from charging developers "prohibitive" commissions on iPhone app purchases made outside its systems.

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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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