Justices Doubt Gov't Venue Theory In Twitter Employee Case

By Marco Poggio

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday appeared sharply skeptical that a former Twitter employee convicted of emailing a falsified document to FBI agents from his Seattle home could be prosecuted in San Francisco, with several justices questioning the federal government's justification for bringing the case where none of the charged conduct occurred.

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FTC's Meador Eyeing Platform Design In Kids' Safety Reviews

By Allison Grande

While the Federal Trade Commission isn't interested in "telling companies how to run their businesses," the agency will continue to police online hazards facing children and adults, including those that may be caused by the way that websites are designed, and could impose more "extreme" remedies when necessary, Republican Commissioner Mark Meador said Monday.

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Match, OkCupid Settle FTC Suit Over Info Sharing With AI Co.

By Gina Kim

Match and its dating platform subsidiary OkCupid settled a civil suit Monday by the Federal Trade Commission alleging they shared millions of users' photos and other data with an artificial intelligence company specializing in facial recognition technology, known as Clarifai Inc., without giving users the chance to opt out.

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US Judge Duo Urge Simplicity In Complex AI, Privacy Fights

By Allison Grande

A pair of U.S. district judges Monday implored litigants to take more time to walk those deciding their disputes through the complex data privacy, artificial intelligence and other technological issues underpinning claims, cautioning that acting otherwise is likely to result in bored juries and discarded legal briefs.

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5th Circ. Hesitant To Revive CrowdStrike Class Action

By Spencer Brewer

A panel of the Fifth Circuit wanted counsel for a group of passengers who sued cybersecurity company CrowdStrike Inc. after their flights were delayed or canceled during a crippling IT outage to explain who else could get sued under their liability theory, weighing Monday whether the Airline Deregulation Act bars the claims.

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Ill. Judge Keeps Coverage Fight Over $20M BIPA Deal Alive

By Celeste Bott

An Illinois federal judge on Friday rejected an insurer's bid for summary judgment in a suit seeking coverage for a $20 million settlement of biometric privacy claims, saying disputes remain over whether it waived an exclusion by failing to raise it in earlier litigation or if the company's change in strategy prejudiced the plaintiffs enough to bar its application.

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Newsom Tightens AI Contract Rules Over Safety Fears

By Rae Ann Varona

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday ordered state agencies to strengthen guardrails for all contracts connected to generative AI tools, highlighting what he sees as risks to free speech, voting rights and mass surveillance, and at the same time encouraging statewide adoption of safe forms of the technology. 

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Crypto Hacker Stole $53M For Pokemon Cards, DOJ Says

By Gina Kim

A Maryland man was charged with hacking cryptocurrency exchange Uranium Finance and taking $53 million, and using the money to buy rare Pokemon and Magic: The Gathering trading cards, as well as a piece of the Wright brothers' original plane that Neil Armstrong took to the moon.

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FINRA Sanctions Upheld At 6th Circ. Against Unregistered CEO

By Emilie Ruscoe

The Sixth Circuit won't reverse Financial Industry Regulatory Authority sanctions against the owner of a consulting company who argued he'd been unfairly ruled against by a self-regulatory organization he never joined, though the judges stopped short of weighing the petitioner's constitutional challenges to the FINRA findings.

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Ex-Yale Student's Defamation Suit Tossed, Misconduct Cited

By Brian Steele

An ex-Yale student suing the university and a sexual assault accuser engaged in "repeated and escalating" litigation misconduct including violating anonymity orders and withholding key information from numerous courts, warranting dismissal as a punishment, a Connecticut federal judge has ruled in tossing the case.

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Sanofi Claims IP Life Extension Needed For Double Patenting

By Dani Kass

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board rightly found a Sanofi patent application shouldn't be rejected for obviousness-type double patenting, as it doesn't improperly extend patent life, the French drugmaker and its allies have told U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires.

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J&J Unit Wants Forensic Exam Of Ex-Director's Devices

By George Woolston

A Johnson & Johnson subsidiary urged a New Jersey federal court to order a former associate director to submit to a court-supervised forensic inspection of any device or account in which she could have stored confidential information it claims she downloaded in order to start her own competing company.

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Pillsbury Asks To Toss Suit Over Nonclient Data Breach

By Matt Perez

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP sought dismissal of a consolidated data breach action in New York federal court Friday due to the plaintiffs' alleged lack of relationship with the firm and inability to identify any cognizable damages.

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Colo. Suit Says Data Brokers Listed Numbers Without Consent

By MJ Koo

A pair of Florida-based data-broker companies were hit with a proposed class action in Colorado state court, alleging they violated a state telemarketing privacy law by listing thousands of Colorado residents' cellphone numbers in their commercial people-search directories without consent.

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HPE Seeks Fix After States Expose Confidential Bidding Info

By Ben Adlin

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. urged a California federal judge to order a dozen states and Washington, D.C., to take corrective measures after they publicly filed thousands of pages of confidential documents related to the company's $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks Inc.

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Brief

Justices Won't Touch Ex-CTA Worker's Deleted Text Sanction

By Nadia Dreid

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up the appeal of a former Chicago Transit Authority employee whose retaliation lawsuit was dismissed by the Seventh Circuit as a sanction for spoiling evidence.

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How A High Court Music Piracy Ruling Shrinks ISP Liability

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent opinion in Cox Communications Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, which concerned the boundaries of contributory copyright infringement for internet service providers, dramatically lessens both the risk that an ISP will be held contributorily liable and, relatedly, the incentives an ISP may have to help combat online copyright infringement, say attorneys at Debevoise.

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Del. Blackbaud Ruling Signals A New Era For Cyberinsurance

The recent Delaware Supreme Court ruling in Travelers v. Blackbaud shows that cyberinsurance is moving into a second maturity phase, in which insurers will increasingly attempt to recover their payments from vendors and insureds will face new pressure to justify cyber incident reimbursements, say Steven Teppler at Mandelbaum Barrett and Jade Davis at Shumaker.

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AI And Threats To Privilege In Financial Sector Probes

The recent spotlight on the potential for artificial intelligence platforms to serve as a source for discoverable information is especially important for financial institutions to understand, as the industry navigates increasingly complex regulatory expectations and AI tools become embedded in investigative efforts, say attorneys at Jackson Lewis.

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'A-C-T' Agenda Signals New Regulatory Era At SEC Speaks

At this year's SEC Speaks, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins unveiled his ambitious A-C-T agenda — advance, clarify and transform — to align the federal securities regulatory regime with modern markets, illustrating that the conference was not merely a status update but an action plan, say attorneys at Perkins Coie.

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Opinion

AI Presents A Make-Or-Break Moment For Outside Counsel

The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence by corporate legal departments is forcing a long-overdue reset of the relationship between inside and outside counsel, and introducing a significant opportunity to shed frustrating inefficiencies and strengthen collaboration for firms willing to embrace the shift, says Intel Chief Legal Officer April Miller Boise.

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Feature

Rats, Vapes And Vodka: Strange But True Cases For April Fool's

By Emily Field

A dead rodent in a burrito bowl delivery, a mix-up with vodka seltzer in the wrong cans and the Toys R Us brand taking on a Connecticut vape shop are among Law360's list of strange cases suitable for April Fool's Day.

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Analysis

'Best Judicial System In The World': Alsup Reflects On Career

By Bonnie Eslinger

Before taking inactive status late last year, U.S. District Judge William H. Alsup presided over historic litigation in California's Northern District for 26 years, arriving at his San Francisco chambers every weekday before dawn to prepare for the day's work.

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FTC Backs Florida's Move To Kill ABA's Accreditation Monopoly

By Hailey Konnath

The Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday that it supports the Florida Supreme Court's recent decision to end the American Bar Association's longstanding accreditation monopoly, agreeing with the finding that it is "not in Floridians' best interest for the ABA to be the sole gatekeeper" in deciding who sits for the bar exam.

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NC Attys Oppose DOJ Interference In State Ethics Complaints

By Hayley Fowler

A group of North Carolina lawyers is opposing the U.S. Department of Justice's proposed rule allowing the attorney general to review state-level ethics complaints against the department's attorneys, saying such a change would undercut the Tar Heel State's ability to regulate government lawyers.

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Blumenthal Presses DHS Chief To Scrap ICE Warrant Memo

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a top Democrat on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, is looking for assurances from the newly installed secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin, that he will honor his apparent pledge to rescind a policy that allows immigration agents to enter private property without a judicial warrant.

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Habba, Ex-Firm Get Defense Redo In Suit Over Divorce Advice

By Jake Maher

A New Jersey appeals court gave former acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba another chance to pursue an anti-abusive litigation motion against an attorney suing her for malicious prosecution on Tuesday.

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7th Circ. Scolds Ex-Judge For Citing Fake Cases In Brief

By Celeste Bott

A Seventh Circuit panel admonished an attorney and former chief federal immigration judge for submitting a brief citing two nonexistent cases and a false quotation, saying while such errors can be "tell-tale signs" of AI hallucinations, her denial she used AI is "plausible" and the court won't consider further sanctions.

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'Construction Has To Stop!': Judge Blocks Trump's Ballroom

By Dorothy Atkins

A Washington, D.C., federal judge Tuesday granted a historical preservation nonprofit's request for a preliminary injunction halting President Donald Trump's plans to turn the White House's East Wing into an "enormous" 89,000-square-foot ballroom, saying "unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!"

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Beasley Allen Seeks Stay Of DQ In Federal J&J Talc MDL

By Jake Maher

The Beasley Allen Law Firm asked a New Jersey federal court on Monday to hold off on disqualifying it from talc litigation against Johnson & Johnson while it appeals the disqualification order which it called "unprecedented and incorrect."

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Senate Dems Probe Musk's Alleged Role In CTA Retreat

By Sarah Jarvis

Three Democratic senators have asked U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to provide information on Elon Musk's possible involvement in the rollback of the Corporate Transparency Act, saying the department's moves allow entities tied to the billionaire to operate in obscurity.

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Analysis

Defamation Litigation Roundup: Unilever, Afroman, Musk

By Theresa Schliep

In this month's review of defamation fights, Law360 highlights a new suit against Unilever by an ousted member of a Ben & Jerry's board, as well as Afroman's defeat of a case by Ohio police officers after a raid of the comedic rapper's home.

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FBI Fired Agents Over Trump 2020 Election Inquiry, Suit Says

By Bonnie Eslinger

Former FBI agents who say they were illegally fired for working on the investigation into President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss filed a proposed class action in D.C. federal court Tuesday accusing the government of unconstitutional "political retribution."

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Brief

Moye White, Ex-Landlord Settle $4M Denver Lease Dispute

By Zach Dupont

Days before the start of a bench trial between a Denver landlord and defunct law firm Moye White LLP in state court, the two parties reached a settlement, ending the litigation where the landlord accused the firm of owing almost $4 million.

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