Sentencing Judge Blasts Ex-Mars Exec's 'Entitlement'

By Aaron Keller

A former Mars Inc. risk executive was sentenced on Thursday to 63 months in prison and ordered to pay the candy company more than $28.4 million in restitution after pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud and one count of tax evasion surrounding a decadelong fraud scheme.

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EEOC Chair Decries 'Fearmongering' Amid Guidance Repeal

By Anne Cullen

The Republican members of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted Thursday to retract comprehensive harassment guidelines issued during the Biden administration after the agency's chair panned warnings from Democrats and civil rights advocates that the move erodes key worker protections.

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Trump Sues JPMorgan For $5B Over Account Closures

By Jon Hill

President Donald Trump on Thursday sued JPMorgan Chase in Florida state court for at least $5 billion in damages, alleging it unlawfully "debanked" him and an array of his business ventures shortly after the end of his first term.

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AGs Target Investor Advocacy Group As 'Climate Cartel'

By Carolina Bolado

A group of state attorneys general led by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier issued a warning letter Wednesday to climate advocacy organization Ceres claiming concerns about violations of antitrust and consumer protection laws.

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TikTok Seals Joint Venture Deal For US Operations

By Lauren Berg

TikTok's Beijing-based owner, ByteDance, has sold a majority stake in the video app's U.S. operations to a new U.S.-based joint venture managed by a group of non-Chinese investors in order to comply with a congressional mandate and avoid the app's shutdown, the company announced Thursday.

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FTC Cites 'Serious Concerns' With Epic-Google Play Deal

By Bryan Koenig

A settlement resolving Epic Games' antitrust lawsuit against Google that would replace the injunction Epic won against Google's Play Store controls has drawn pushback from the Federal Trade Commission, which is urging strict scrutiny of the agreement currently under the eye of an already skeptical California federal judge.

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SEC Approves Cuts To PCAOB Budget, Board Member Salaries

By Sarah Jarvis

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday approved a 2026 budget for the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board that includes a 9.4% decrease overall from the prior year and cuts upward of 42% for board members' compensation.

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FDIC Rolls Back Biden-Era Digital Signage Rule

By Sarah Jarvis

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Thursday finalized a rollback of its digital signage requirements, easing where and how banks must display FDIC-insured labeling online after industry criticized a prior Biden-era revamp as overly rigid and confusing for customers.

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Ford, GM Industrial Bank Bids Get FDIC Approval

By Jon Hill

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said Thursday that it has signed off on industrial loan company applications from Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co., clearing the two automakers to open federally insured banking units over objections from community bankers.

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10th Circ. Should Deny Interest 'Opt-Out' Rehearing, Colo. Says

By Katryna Perera

Colorado pushed back against calls for the Tenth Circuit to grant a full court rehearing of a challenge to the state's "opt-out" law on interest rates, arguing that a recent panel decision upholding the law does not merit review by the full appeals court.

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Marketers Who Sold Fraudulent StraightPath Funds Plead Out

By Pete Brush

Two New York men who hawked pre-initial public offering shares for fraud-ridden vendor StraightPath from "boiler room" sales floors pled guilty Thursday to fraud charges, after Manhattan federal prosecutors charged them with raising $185 million by duping customers.

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Mango Labs' 'Buyer's Remorse' Can't Undo SEC Settlement

By Aislinn Keely

Crypto project Mango Labs can't cancel the terms of a nearly $700,000 settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission just because the agency has pivoted away from crypto enforcement cases and left the project with "buyer's remorse," a Manhattan federal judge ruled.

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SEC Gets $900K Judgments In Bitcoin Miner CEO's Fraud Suit

By Emilie Ruscoe

The family and ex-wife of a former bitcoin miner CEO will pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission nearly $900,000 to exit the regulator's claims the CEO misappropriated $48.5 million from investors.

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FERC Commissioners Back Fed-State Push For PJM Changes

By Keith Goldberg

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Thursday backed plans from the Trump administration, state governors and PJM Interconnection to address escalating power prices amid data center-fueled increases in electricity demand, and encouraged the nation's largest grid operator to promptly submit policy proposals.

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Judge Expands Block On Trump's Grant Restrictions

By Isaac Monterose

A Washington federal judge agreed to broaden a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration over its political restrictions for using over $12 billion worth of federal grants, expanding the block to cover additional plaintiffs who were added to the suit.

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Feds Given More Time To Revisit School Grant Cancellations

By Rachel Riley

A Washington federal judge agreed Thursday to extend a deadline for the Trump administration to make fresh determinations as to 138 public school mental health grants that the court has found were illegally canceled, but admonished the federal government for previously understating how long those reassessments would take.   

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Brief

Designer Akris Settles FCA Claim Over Pandemic Loan

By Julie Manganis

The U.S. subsidiary of Swiss designer Akris AG has agreed to pay $1.8 million to settle a False Claims Act complaint alleging the company improperly obtained a pandemic relief loan for which it was not eligible, the U.S. attorney's office in Boston announced Thursday.

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Brief

Washington Drops $9M Climate Fund Suit Against NOAA

By Elaine Briseño

Washington state dropped its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Commerce after a federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from withholding more than $9 million meant to shore up the state's resiliency to climate change.

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House Report Claims Evidence of CVS Antitrust Violations

By Bryan Koenig

House Judiciary Committee staffers said Wednesday that they'd uncovered "a pattern of anticompetitive activity" in CVS Health tactics aimed at coercing independent pharmacies into avoiding working with online services the company saw as a threat to its own pharmacy and pharmacy benefit manager businesses.

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Drugmakers May Dodge Disgorgement In States' Antitrust Suit

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut federal judge probed the limits of his equitable powers Thursday in a sprawling generic drug antitrust enforcement action, expressing doubt that he could order the drugmaker defendants to hand over their profits while also awarding multiplied damages and imposing civil penalties.

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Ethanol Biz Loses Bid To Overturn €48M Price-Fixing Fine

By William Janes

A Swedish ethanol producer failed on Thursday to overturn a €47.7 million ($55.9 million) fine for colluding to maintain high prices by market manipulation after a European appeals court ruled that a competition watchdog did not presume it was guilty.

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FTC Defends BOTS Act Case Against Live Nation

By Matthew Perlman

The Federal Trade Commission urged a California federal court not to toss its case accusing Live Nation of deceiving customers and artists, saying the live events and ticketing giant failed to disclose the actual price of tickets and turned a blind eye to scalpers on its platforms.

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Google, Epic Fight Uphill To Tweak App Antitrust Injunction

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge indicated Thursday that he's unlikely to grant Epic and Google's request to modify a permanent injunction issued after a jury found Google monopolized the distribution of apps on Android devices, saying they have to show changed circumstances, and "I haven't seen anything change, other than a deal" between the companies.

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Transportation Cases To Watch In 2026

By Linda Chiem

Clashes over the scope of federal preemption in personal injury cases involving freight brokers and motor carriers, the Trump administration's gutting of Biden-era vehicle emissions standards and cuts to states' transportation and infrastructure funding are among the court battles that transportation attorneys are monitoring in 2026.

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10th Amtrak Worker Cops To Role In $11M Fraud Scheme

By P.J. D'Annunzio

A former Amtrak employee has admitted to participating in a scheme that prosecutors claim defrauded the rail carrier out of $11 million in health benefits, making him the 10th defendant in a year to plead guilty in the case, the U.S. attorney's office in New Jersey said on Thursday.

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How SEC Civil Penalties Became Arbitrary: The Data

Data regarding how the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has adhered to its own civil penalty rules over the past 20 years reveals that awards are no longer determined in accordance with the guidelines imposed on the SEC by the securities laws, say David Slovick at Kopecky Schumacher and Phil Lieberman at Vanderbilt Law.

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What To Know About DOL's New FLSA, FMLA Opinion Letters

The U.S. Department of Labor kicked off 2026 by releasing several opinion letters addressing employee classification, incentive bonuses and intermittent leave, reminding employers that common practices can create significant risk if they are handled inconsistently or without careful documentation, say attorneys at Woods Rogers.

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Opportunities Amid The Challenges Of Trump's BIS Shake-Up

The Trump administration’s continuing overhaul of the Bureau of Industry and Security has created enormous practical challenges for export compliance, but it potentially also offers a once-in-a-generation opening to advocate for simplifying and rationalizing U.S. export controls, say attorneys at Gibson Dunn.

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How Payments Law Landscape Will Evolve In 2026

After a year of change across the payments landscape, financial services providers should expect more innovation and the pushing of regulatory boundaries, but should stay mindful that state regulators and litigation will continue to challenge the status quo, say attorneys at Troutman.

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Key False Claims Act Trends From The Last Year

The False Claims Act remains a powerful enforcement tool after some record verdicts and settlements in 2025, and while traditional fraud areas remain a priority, new initiatives are raising questions about its expanding application, says Veronica Nannis at Joseph Greenwald.

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Opinion

It's Too Soon To Remove Suicide Warnings From GLP-1 Drugs

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's decision this month to order removal of warnings about the risk of suicidal thoughts from GLP-1 weight-loss drugs is premature — and from a safety and legal standpoint, the downside of acting too soon could be profound, says Sean Domnick at Rafferty Domnick.

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Series

Hosting Exchange Students Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Opening my home to foreign exchange students makes me a better lawyer not just because prioritizing visiting high schoolers forces me to hone my organization and time management skills but also because sharing the study-abroad experience with newcomers and locals reconnects me to my community, says Alison Lippa at Nicolaides Fink.

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Ex-Baker McKenzie Atty Alleges Assault In New DC Lawsuit

By Alison Knezevich

A former Baker McKenzie associate who was sued for defamation over a series of social media posts accusing the firm's Washington, D.C., managing partner of sexual assault has brought her own lawsuit, marking the first time she publicly detailed her allegations in court records.

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Trump Calls For Prosecution Of Jack Smith Post-Hearing

By Courtney Bublé

Shortly after former special counsel Jack Smith gave his first public congressional testimony on the Trump cases, in which he warned the rule of law should not be taken for granted, President Donald Trump said he should be prosecuted.

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Goldstein Prosecutors Unveil Conflicting Cash Source Claims

By Jared Foretek

A former lawyer at SCOTUSblog founder Thomas Goldstein's firm said Thursday that Goldstein told coworkers that the more than $960,000 in cash he brought off a flight from Hong Kong — the source of which is integral to the government's case — had come from a client.

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ABA Outlines Limited Atty Duty To Give Info To Former Clients

By Lynn LaRowe

The American Bar Association said attorneys have a limited responsibility to convey information to former clients or successor counsel that was not within the client's file, when doing so is necessary to protect a client's interests and reasonably practicable, according to a new ethics opinion.

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Proposed Subpoena Rule Change Raises Victim Privacy Fears

By Brandon Lowrey

A proposal to loosen restrictions on the use of federal criminal subpoenas would endanger and further traumatize victims of crime, most of whom lack legal representation to fight the invasive demands, victims' rights advocates told a federal rules advisory committee on Thursday.

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Pa. Justices Say Judge's Partisan Posts Warrant Suspension

By Hayley Fowler

Pennsylvania's highest court has adopted a balancing test for restricting a sitting judge's free speech outside the context of an election and, in doing so, affirmed the suspension of a state court judge who it said damaged the court's appearance of impartiality by making political posts on social media.

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Brief

Courthouse News Drops Access Suit Against DC Court Clerk

By Emily Sawicki

National litigation news outlet Courthouse News Service has voluntarily and permanently dropped claims against a Washington, D.C., Superior Court clerk and the executive officer of the D.C. courts over filing delays, with both sides agreeing to pay their own costs.

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