Major Chipmakers Sued For Price-Fixing Amid 'RAMpocalypse'

By Lauren Berg

Artificial intelligence demands huge amounts of computer memory, causing Apple and other retailers to raise prices amid random access memory shortages, but a California federal lawsuit filed Thursday alleges Samsung Electronics Co., SK Hynix Inc. and Micron Technology Inc. have exacerbated this so-called RAMpocalypse by fixing memory supply and prices.

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Zillow, Redfin Tell Court Their Partnership Is Not Illegal

By Isaac Monterose

Property listing companies Zillow and Redfin urged a Virginia federal court not to presume that their $100 million partnership agreement, which is being challenged by the Federal Trade Commission and multiple states, is illegal before it holds an August trial for a consolidated antitrust suit.

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Attys Urged To Challenge Clients Who Demand AI Research

By Aaron Keller

A Connecticut federal judge urged attorneys during a Thursday sanctions hearing to push back against clients who demand lawyers use generative artificial intelligence tools to conduct legal research, saying the technology is no substitute for professional judgment and discretion because it "aims to please" and can misstate the law.

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Yelp Denied 'Improper Tactical Boost' Via Google Expert Docs

By Bryan Koenig

A California federal magistrate judge refused Thursday to let Yelp get a peek, at least for now, at expert reports prepared in the U.S. Justice Department's monopolization case against Google's search business, concluding that the "overbroad and premature" request could provide an unfair early advantage for Yelp's own antitrust lawsuit.

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AGs, Cable Orgs., Newsmax Back Nexstar Block At 9th Circ.

By Bryan Koenig

A bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general have filed one of three amicus briefs urging the Ninth Circuit to fully preserve a preliminary injunction blocking Nexstar's purchase of Tegna, arguing the states challenging the deal have standing to sue and that only a broad block is appropriate.

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Del. Shields Kroger Lawyers' Brainstorming In Albertsons Suit

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court on Thursday denied Albertsons Cos. Inc.'s bid to force The Kroger Co. to submit additional internal law firm communications in litigation over the companies' failed $24.6 billion merger, ruling that Kroger's waiver of attorney-client privilege does not extend to lawyers' brainstorming that was never communicated to the client.

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Otter Tail's $30M Deal In PVC Price-Fix Case Gets Initial OK

By Celeste Bott

An Illinois federal judge has granted preliminary approval to a $30 million deal Otter Tail has inked to resolve certain plaintiffs' claims in litigation alleging that two of its subsidiaries conspired with other polyvinyl chloride pipe producers to fix prices.

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Verizon Buy Shows Need For FCC Support, Trade Org. Says

By Nadia Dreid

Rural telecom carriers are going to keep disappearing if the Federal Communications Commission doesn't step in and provide more support for companies operating in rural areas, a trade group has said in the wake of Verizon's purchase of Carolina West.

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Google Must Disclose DOJ Probe Docs In £14B Class Action

By William Janes

A tribunal has ordered Google to hand over documents from an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, requiring it to disclose the information in a £13.6 billion ($17.9 billion) class action that alleges the technology giant abused its dominance in the advertising market.

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Apple Loses Bid To Decertify £785M App Store Class Action

By Sophia Dourou

Apple has failed in its bid to throw out a £785 million ($1 billion) class action by app developers, after the Competition Appeal Tribunal held Thursday that the claims may be "unusually strong."

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EU Eyes Gatekeeper Rules For Amazon And Microsoft Clouds

By Matthew Perlman

A preliminary investigation by European enforcers has found that Amazon and Microsoft should be designated as gatekeepers and subject to heightened rules under the Digital Markets Act for their cloud computing services, in addition to their other covered services.

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Robo-Surgery Co., FTC Urge 9th Circ. To Revive Antitrust Case

By Bonnie Eslinger

Surgical Instrument Service and the Federal Trade Commission urged the Ninth Circuit on Thursday to revive the company's case accusing Intuitive Surgical of blocking third parties from refurbishing components for its da Vinci surgery robot, saying a lower court erred in requiring the U.S. Supreme Court's Kodak factors to be proven.

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Players Say NCAA's New Eligibility Rules Freeze Them Out

By David Steele

A group of college basketball players claim in a suit in Ohio state court that the NCAA's newly approved eligibility rules unjustly exclude them by barring athletes who began college in 2022 from playing a fifth season.

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Sandoz Still Can't Escape Generics Claims From GM, Others

By Lauren Berg

A Pennsylvania federal judge on Thursday declined to rethink her decision forcing Sandoz's Swiss parent company to face generic-drug price-fixing claims from major employers like American Airlines Inc. and General Motors LLC, saying the pharmaceutical company "has no new evidence" backing up its argument that the court lacks personal jurisdiction.

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Chinese Container-Makers Facing Another Price-Fixing Suit

By Jack McLoone

A small group of Chinese companies said to control 95% of worldwide shipping container manufacturing colluded to keep prices high during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a proposed class action brought by a container purchaser in California federal court.

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CoStar Customers Say Antitrust Suit Must Stay In DC

By Isaac Monterose

Customers asked a D.C. federal court to reject CoStar's bid to transfer their proposed antitrust class action, which claims the company ran an anticompetitive scheme to protect its monopoly for commercial real estate information and property listing services.

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Software Exec Can Move To New Firm, Mass. Judge Says

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts state judge on Thursday rejected a software developer's bid to block a former executive from jumping to a purported rival, finding that the two companies offer different products that do not directly compete.

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5th Circ. Backs FDA's Block On Vape Marketing

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's decision to block two vape companies from marketing their menthol-flavored e-cigarette products after finding the benefits to adult smokers didn't outweigh the risk to minors.

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Customers 'Hoodwinked' By Wrong-Number Scam, ADT Says

By Hayley Fowler

A company that specializes in call center sales is using wrong phone numbers to trick home security customers into switching providers, ADT Security Corp. says in a North Carolina federal lawsuit claiming the company has intentionally registered phone numbers one digit off from ADT's customer service line to engage in a predatory telemarketing scheme.

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FCC Floats Rules To Preempt States On Wireline Approvals

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission moved ahead Thursday on a proposal to preempt reviews of wireline deployments if the agency finds that state and local authorities are unfairly delaying or denying permits.

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Series

Moshing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Entering a mosh pit is much like entering the practice of law — it is difficult, you have to know both the written and unwritten rules, and conduct yourself according to the expectations of each community, says Christopher Deubert at Constangy Brooks.

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Groombridge Wu Tops Milbank Pay Scale For Associates

By Kevin Penton

Groombridge Wu Baughman & Stone LLP is the latest firm to top the pay scale for associates announced earlier this month by Milbank LLP, with attorneys set to earn as much as $470,000.

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Senate Confirming Judges Faster Than In Trump's 1st Term

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate has confirmed 45 judges in the second Trump term, outpacing the rate of his first administration, Senate Republicans announced on Thursday.

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Lack Of Evidence Sinks Insurance Fraud Case, Atty Says

By Emily Sawicki

A Louisiana law firm and lawyer found guilty of criminal conspiracy and wire fraud for staging vehicle crashes as part of a scheme to defraud insurance carriers and trucking companies are seeking acquittal or a new trial, arguing that federal prosecutors failed to support their claims with evidence.

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SCOTUSblog Founder Goldstein Blasts 'Inflated' DOJ Tax Math

By Jared Foretek

Convicted SCOTUSblog founder Tom Goldstein and federal prosecutors are clashing again over their dramatically divergent sentencing recommendations, with the defense accusing the government of presenting a "one-dimensional caricature" of the famed lawyer in seeking an eight-year sentence, and prosecutors accusing him of potentially deleting "secret chats" with his gambling backers.

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Feds Say Would-Be Kavanaugh Assassin Was Let Off Easy

By Nadia Dreid

Both federal prosecutors and a Stephen Miller-founded public interest group believe that a Maryland federal judge let a woman accused of trying to kill U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh off too easy because of her gender identity and want the Fourth Circuit to order resentencing.

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Quinn Emanuel Says 3M Fee Proposal Undervalues Its Work

By Carolina Bolado

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP has objected to a special master's recommendation on the allocation of common benefit fees in the $6 billion settlement that ended multidistrict litigation against 3M over allegedly faulty combat earplugs, saying the amount doesn't value the "length, extent and impact" of the firm's work.

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