Google Shakes Suit Over Search Engine Default Agreements

By Bonnie Eslinger

A proposed consumer class action accusing Google of monopolizing the online search market has been tossed by a California federal judge who said the plaintiffs didn't provide evidence showing that "better" options could have been available if Google hadn't struck default search engine deals with Apple and other companies.

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Patients' Texas Anesthesia Rollup Suit Trimmed

By Bryan Koenig

A Texas federal judge offered patients a mixed bag Wednesday in a proposed class action accusing U.S. Anesthesia Partners Inc. of anticompetitively buying up anesthesia practices in the state and fixing prices, dismissing claims based on ambulatory surgery center services while preserving allegations based on hospitals.

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Visa, Mastercard Hit With Antitrust Suit Over Post-2019 Fees

By Nadia Dreid

Even though Visa and Mastercard have paid out billions to escape litigation accusing them of plaguing merchants with predatory "swipe fees," the credit titans have not stopped inflating the fees businesses pay every time someone swipes their card, a new lawsuit alleges.

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Google Ad Tech MDL Teed Up For Trial Largely Intact

By Bryan Koenig

Gannett, the Daily Mail and a certified class of website publishers scored a major win with a New York federal court ruling largely refusing to let Google scrap antitrust allegations targeting its advertising placement technology business in sprawling multidistrict litigation.

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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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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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Brief

Customers Ask 9th Circ. To Halt Paramount-Warner Bros. Deal

By Nadia Dreid

Streaming service customers are asking the Ninth Circuit to step in and stop Paramount Skydance's planned $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery until a court can decide if their antitrust suit challenging the merger will be dismissed.

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UK Antitrust Watchdog Greenlights E.ON's Acquisition Of Ovo

By Irene Madongo

Britain's competition regulator said Thursday it has cleared the planned acquisition by E.ON SE of retail energy supplier Ovo after carrying out an initial probe into the transaction.

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DOJ's RealPage Deal Doesn't End States' Antitrust Claims

By Matthew Perlman

A North Carolina federal court has refused to toss antitrust claims from state enforcers accusing RealPage of providing software that allows residential building owners to inflate rents, despite RealPage's settlement in the case with the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Janssen Secures Temporary Block Against Arthritis Biosimilar

By Adam Lidgett

A Delaware federal judge has blocked Accord BioPharma from manufacturing a biosimilar version of Janssen's arthritis treatment Simponi while the Johnson & Johnson unit's patent lawsuit plays out.

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Google Beats Online Publishers' AI Overviews Antitrust Suit

By Craig Clough

A D.C. federal judge on Wednesday dismissed antitrust suits from Chegg Inc. and Penske Media Corp. against Google, finding that their central claims that the search engine giant coerces publishers into supplying free content for its artificial intelligence products "fail to get out of the starting gate." 

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Ex-Actavis Exec Escapes Some Drug Price-Fixing Claims

By Carla Baranauckas

A Connecticut federal judge has dismissed a swath of claims against a former executive of Actavis and Taro in the generic drug price‑fixing litigation brought by state enforcers, holding that evidence was insufficient to prove he joined several alleged single‑drug conspiracies.

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Kraft Wheat Traders Lose Class Status, Keep Antitrust Claim

By Lauren Berg

Kraft Foods has convinced a Chicago federal judge to decertify two classes of investors and toss most of their decade-old claims accusing the food conglomerate and its snack food spinoff of manipulating wheat market commodities, but a jury will have to decide if it ran afoul of antitrust law.

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AbbVie Gets Humira Antitrust Suit Trimmed, But Not Tossed

By Rae Ann Varona

An Illinois federal judge tossed all but one claim in a sheet metal worker health plan's putative class action against AbbVie for allegedly causing artificially inflated prices for the rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira, saying the plan sufficiently alleged AbbVie unlawfully stifled competition in the adalimumab market.

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Tennis Groups Can't Duck Players' Antitrust Suit

By Matthew Perlman

A New York federal court has refused to toss a lawsuit brought by tennis players and a players association accusing tournament operators and the sport's governing bodies of blocking competition from rival tournaments.

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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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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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Quince Gets Williams Sonoma's False Ad Suit Axed For Now

By Hailey Konnath

A California federal judge threw out Williams-Sonoma Inc.'s lawsuit accusing online retailer Quince of trying to dupe consumers into believing its goods are the same as Williams Sonoma's products at discounted prices, though the judge gave Williams Sonoma the opportunity to take another stab at its complaint.

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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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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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Justice Alito Says He's Weighing The Best Time To Retire

By Katie Buehler

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has confirmed that he considered retiring at the end of the high court's latest term, and that he will continue to weigh that decision "every term." 

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Munger Tolles Announces Clerkship Bonus Increases

By Matt Perez

Munger Tolles & Olson LLP announced Thursday that it is increasing its clerkship bonuses to $180,000 for one qualifying clerkship and $200,000 for two or more qualifying clerkships.

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Roberts Wants Less Talk. Supreme Court Attorneys Disagree.

By Katie Buehler

Near the end of last term, Chief Justice John Roberts voiced his frustration with the U.S. Supreme Court's lengthening oral argument sessions and suggested the justices might tweak their format over the summer. But as the new term begins Monday, the court has yet to announce any changes, and advocates see little need for improvement.

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5 Supreme Court Cases To Watch This Fall

By Katie Buehler

The U.S. Supreme Court will convene Monday to begin its 2026 October term, which includes several cases that could determine the future of climate change tort litigation, expand religious freedoms and parental rights, and grant states authority to require proof of citizenship when individuals register for presidential elections using state forms. 

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Analysis

DOJ Envisions 'Full-Fledged Law Firm' To Combat Gov't Fraud

By Phillip Bantz

The National Fraud Enforcement Division was created less than six months ago, but it is rapidly reshaping the U.S. Department of Justice and spurring an uptick in internal corporate investigations, white collar experts say.

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Legal Sector Adds 2K Jobs, For 6th Straight Month Of Growth

By Tracey Read

While the overall U.S. economy's unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% last month, the legal industry was in the midst of a six-month hot streak.

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Judge Clevenger Retires After 36 Years On Fed. Circ.

By Dani Kass

U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond C. Clevenger III has retired from the Federal Circuit, 20 years after taking senior status, the court said Friday.

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Jackson Walker May Face New Sanctions Over Old Romance

By Rick Archer

A Texas bankruptcy judge Friday threatened Jackson Walker LLP with sanctions over yet another bankruptcy case where the firm's retention was approved by a judge in a relationship with a former attorney at the firm.

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Keesal Young Owes Duty To Safeguard 316K People's Data

By Matt Perez

A California federal judge has kept negligence and consumer privacy claims intact against law firm Keesal Young & Logan over a 2024 data breach that exposed the personal information of more than 316,000 people, finding the plaintiffs have standing because their data apparently landed on the dark web.

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Trump Asks 9th Circ. To Pause Seattle US Atty Reinstatement

By Rachel Riley

The Trump administration called on the Ninth Circuit Friday to suspend a federal judge's Thursday order reinstating Roger Rogoff as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington, seeking to keep Charles Neil Floyd as acting head of the Seattle office pending the government's appeal.

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Thomson Reuters Hit With Antitrust Case Over 'Killer' AI Deal

By Matthew Perlman

A California law firm has accused Thomson Reuters of violating antitrust law when it purchased artificial intelligence research tool Casetext for $650 million and then shuttered the platform to extinguish a rising competitor to its Westlaw service.

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Amazon Seeks Records Around Lawyer's USPTO Suspension

By Ben Adlin

An attorney Amazon has accused of furthering a scheme to fraudulently register thousands of trademarks and use them to report infringement by rival Amazon merchants must hand over documents related to her discipline in California and Washington, the retail giant argued in a Washington federal court filing Thursday.

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Tenn. High Court Keeps ABA As Law School Accreditor

By Emma Cueto

The Tennessee Supreme Court on Friday declined to follow other conservative states in dropping the American Bar Association as the state's law school accreditor, though it indicated it is open to approving other accreditors in addition to or instead of the ABA in the future.

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Analysis

3rd Circ. AI Ruling May Reach Beyond Westlaw Content Fight

By Ivan Moreno

The Third Circuit went out of its way to say its ruling against a defunct legal research startup was not a generative artificial intelligence case, but copyright lawyers expect the reach of its reasoning to be tested almost immediately in pending AI litigation.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

The Department of Justice has unveiled new corporate fraud enforcement priorities, and a report found that more than four out of five legal departments have adopted artificial intelligence. 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

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions after a California federal jury said Apple owes $5.7 billion to headphone-maker Taction for infringing two vibration technology patents, issuing the largest patent verdict in U.S. history.

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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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