Brief

Feds' E-Verify System Resumes Operation During Shutdown

By Tom Lotshaw

The federal E-Verify system for employers to check people's eligibility to work in the U.S. has resumed operation, a little over a week after it went offline with the start of the ongoing government shutdown.

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Calif. Enacts Law To Boost Pay Parity Protections

By Grace Elletson

A California law aimed at increasing the accuracy of the compensation estimates that state employers are required to include in job postings and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom makes clear that perks such as stock options are considered wages and expands the limitations window for pursuing pay bias claims.

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GOP Sen. Joins Dems On Bill To Nix Trump's Global Tariffs

By Dylan Moroses

Several Senate Democrats and one Republican introduced legislation Thursday to eliminate the national emergency associated with President Donald Trump's so-called reciprocal tariff regime.

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2 NLRB Picks Advance, 1 Member Nom Stalls

By Braden Campbell

The U.S. Senate labor committee on Thursday cleared two of the president's nominees to the National Labor Relations Board — including the general counsel pick whose nomination appeared stalled — but withheld a third whose ties to Boeing drew criticism at his confirmation hearing last week.

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China Widens Export Controls On Rare Earth Minerals, Tools

By Kevin Pinner

China will begin requiring licenses next month for the export of dozens of products containing rare earth minerals, tools used to process them and artificial diamonds, the country's Ministry of Commerce said Thursday, including items used to make lasers, semiconductors and fiber optics.

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Shopify Elevates Former Facebook, Biden-Harris Atty To COO

By Sue Reisinger

Shopify has promoted its general counsel, whose previous roles include working for the Biden administration, Facebook and Jenner & Block LLP, to chief operating officer.

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Senate Crypto Bill Weakens State Fraud Protection, Experts Say

By Aislinn Keely

State regulators and legal experts are urging leaders of the Senate Banking Committee to overhaul their draft crypto market structure legislation on the grounds that the current text would weaken state power to police fraud and protect investors in crypto markets and beyond.

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Colgate-Palmolive's $332M Pension Settlement Gets Initial OK

By Kellie Mejdrich

A New York federal court granted initial approval to a $332 million settlement between Colgate-Palmolive and a class of pensioners who claimed the household products company shorted them on lump-sum retirement payouts, which comes after the parties mediated their dispute earlier this year.

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Musk's X Posts Trigger Disclosure In NYT Suit, Judge Rules

By Lauren Berg

The government must produce a list of any security clearances granted to Elon Musk in response to The New York Times' Freedom of Information Act request, a Manhattan federal judge ruled, saying the billionaire waived his privacy interest by posting about his top secret clearance, drug use and foreign contacts.

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6th Circ. Says Facebook Posts About Firm Not Defamation

By Emily Sawicki

The Sixth Circuit has declined to revive a defamation suit over social media posts alleging an unethical connection between a New Jersey-headquartered law firm and members of the Flint, Michigan, city council.

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Fla. High Court Hears Ex-Marvel CEO's Punitive Damages Bid

By David Minsky

The former CEO of Marvel Entertainment on Thursday urged the Florida Supreme Court to revive his punitive damages claim over the secret collection of his wife's DNA in connection to a hate letter campaign, arguing his client was wrongfully held to a higher burden in order to establish the claim. 

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Mobile Game Co. To Pay $25M To End Chancery Investor Suit

By Jarek Rutz

A China-based mobile gaming company has agreed to pay $24.75 million to settle a Delaware Chancery Court class action accusing it of engineering a $600 million share buyback that unfairly cemented its control of the company.

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Whistleblower Asks High Court To Revive NASA Fraud Case

By Madeline Lyskawa

A whistleblower is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to revive a False Claims Act suit accusing a NASA contractor of overbilling, arguing that the Sixth Circuit wrongly let the government dismiss the case without considering the whistleblower's time and money commitment.

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X, XAI Say Texas Best, Fastest Court For OpenAI-Apple Suit

By Bryan Koenig

X Corp. and xAI urged a Texas federal judge not to transfer from the Northern District of Texas' Fort Worth Division their suit accusing Apple and OpenAI of anticompetitively edging out other artificial intelligence companies through a deal integrating ChatGPT into iPhones, stressing the speed of their chosen forum.

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Fintech Exec May Claim Double Jeopardy Amid Judge Shuffle

By Julie Manganis

A former executive of payment processor Allied Wallet has filed a double jeopardy motion after the initial Massachusetts federal judge overseeing the fraud case recused himself, a second declared a mistrial and exited due to a family emergency, and a third flagged a potential conflict with a prosecutor.

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Vestis Shareholder Alleges Deception Before Aramark Spinoff

By Sydney Price

Executives and directors of uniform supplier Vestis Corp. were hit this week with a shareholder's derivative suit accusing them of concealing Vestis was underfunded prior to being spun off by food services giant Aramark in 2023, leaving Vestis unable to grow its revenue and retain customers.

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BeFrugal Marketing Firm Says Exec Steered Clients To Rival

By Julie Manganis

Affiliate marketing firm BeFrugal said in a lawsuit this week in Massachusetts state court that a senior vice president secretly co-founded a competing company, then steered major clients, including DirecTV and Samsung, to the new business.

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Brief

Big Lots Gets OK For $6.5M Deal On Exec Claims

By Rick Archer

A Delaware bankruptcy judge on Thursday approved a $6.5 million settlement between retail chain Big Lots and its directors and officers, resolving claims by unsecured creditors that the company's board bungled an attempt to sell the company last year.

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Deals Rumor Mill

Paramount Eyes $60B Warner Bid, And Other Rumors

By Al Barbarino

Paramount Skydance is in talks with private equity firms including Apollo Global Management as it mulls a potential $60 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. Another mega-deal that's further along its path to closing — Mars' $36 billion bid to acquire Kellanova — is set to win European antitrust approval. And Armani has approached potential buyers to sell a minority stake in the first phase of late designer Giorgio Armani's wishes.

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Roundup

Q3 Notches Biggest Megadeal Quarter In Three Years

By Al Barbarino

The value of global mergers and acquisitions worth $10 billion or more hit $289.5 billion in the third quarter, the highest since the second quarter of 2022, according to a report provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence on Thursday.

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Reflection AI, Backed By Nvidia, Raises $2B In Series B Round

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Artificial intelligence company Reflection AI on Thursday announced that it has raised $2 billion in a Series B funding round, with media reports saying the latest round has caused the company's valuation to soar to $8 billion.

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Preparing For What DOD Cybersecurity Audits May Uncover

Defense contractors seeking certification under the U.S. Department of Defense's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program that begins implementation on Nov. 10 may discover previously unknown violations, but there are steps they can take to address any issues before they come to the attention of enforcement authorities, say attorneys at Troutman.

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Series

Painting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Painting trains me to see both the fine detail and the whole composition at once, enabling me to identify friction points while keeping sight of a client's bigger vision, but the most significant lesson I've brought to my legal work has been the value of originality, says Jana Gouchev at Gouchev Law.

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Sullivan & Cromwell Impersonators Hit With NY Fraud Claims

By Emily Sawicki

New York Attorney General Letitia James is attempting to take down a slew of businesses whose names are variants of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, accusing them of attempting a scheme to fraudulently redirect checks meant for the global corporate law firm.

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Analysis

False-Statement Case Puts Comey In Rare Company

By Phillip Bantz

Former FBI director James Comey is the latest addition to the relatively short list of government officials who have been criminally charged over the past several decades with making false statements to Congress.

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NY Atty General Indicted Following Pressure From Trump

By Lauren Berg

New York Attorney General Letitia James was indicted in Virginia federal court Thursday on charges related to mortgage fraud, three weeks after President Donald Trump wrote a social media post encouraging U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to take action because James and two other political opponents were "guilty as hell."

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Tort Report: Nuked 'Nuclear Verdict' Stays, Texas Justices Say

By Y. Peter Kang

The fate of a "nuclear verdict" that was used to jump-start tort reform campaigns across the country and a settlement of a suit over a Kiss guitar technician's death lead Law360's Tort Report, which compiles recent personal injury and medical malpractice news that may have flown under the radar.

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Jenn Mascott Of WH Counsel's Office Confirmed To 3rd Circ.

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 50-47 on Thursday to confirm Jenn Mascott, currently serving in the White House Counsel's Office, to the Delaware seat on the Third Circuit.

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7th Circ. Nominee Taibleson Advances To Full Senate

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced on party lines the nomination of Rebecca Taibleson, a federal prosecutor in Wisconsin, to serve on the Seventh Circuit, as well as four district judicial nominees and five U.S. attorney nominees.

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Baldoni Atty Faces LA Malpractice Suit Over Client 'Betrayal'

By Emily Sawicki

Entertainment attorney Bryan Freedman has been accused in Los Angeles County Superior Court of turning his back on a former client, allegedly convincing him to sign an unfavorable settlement on trademark claims against "It Ends With Us" star Justin Baldoni, only to later begin representing the actor and director.

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Calif. Supreme Court Justice Martin Jenkins To Retire

By James Mills

California Supreme Court Justice Martin J. Jenkins, the first openly gay man and the third African American man to sit on the bench, will retire at the end of October, the court announced Thursday.

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Weinstein Says Jurors Traded Threats, Tainting Verdict

By Cara Salvatore

Harvey Weinstein's legal team said his June sexual assault convictions were tainted by juror misconduct, including physical threats and an unfounded bribery claim, arguing in a motion for a new trial that a judge refused to properly investigate.

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