Conn. Justices Order New Look At $17M Rate Dispute

By Elaine Briseño

The Connecticut Supreme Court on Tuesday revived a lawsuit by Eversource Energy against the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority over $17 million in infrastructure improvements, saying the parties must resolve ambiguities in the settlement agreement before proceeding.

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Feds Tell 9th Circ. They Have Last Word On Pipeline Restart

By Tom Lotshaw

A federal pipeline regulator told the Ninth Circuit on Monday it reasonably asserted jurisdiction over an oil pipeline system near Santa Barbara, California, and approved a Texas company's restart plan, saying challenges brought by California and environmental groups are unfounded.

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Southern Utes Secure First Tribal Energy Resource Agreement

By Crystal Owens

The Southern Ute Indian Tribe has signed the first ever tribal energy resource agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior that will allow the Indigenous nation to manage and develop energy resources on its own lands without having to obtain federal approval for each endeavor.

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Brief

Commerce Orders Triple-Digit Duties On Chinese Fencing

By Jack McLoone

The U.S. Commerce Department hit temporary steel fencing from China with triple-digit antidumping duties along with countervailing duties of varying rates Tuesday after the U.S. International Trade Commission found imports of the fencing were harming U.S. industry.

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Race, ADHD Claims Led To Firing, Ex-Oil Co. Staffer Tells Jury

By José Luis Martínez

A former employee for oil and gas company Apache Corp. told a Houston jury in Texas federal court Tuesday that she was fired after her requests for disability accommodations and race-related complaints were not resolved, while the energy company says her performance issues were to blame.

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ABB To Sink $200M Into Grid Tech Manufacturing In Europe

By Grace Dixon

ABB has announced plans to invest $200 million over the next three years in European manufacturing capabilities as the electrification technology company eyes grid modernization needs driven by higher electricity and data center demand.

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DOE Accused Of Stretching Emergency Power For Pa. Plant

By Elaine Briseño

A group of consumer and environmental advocates has told the D.C. Circuit that the U.S. Department of Energy illegally substituted long-term electricity planning reserved for states with its own emergency authority to keep open a Pennsylvania power plant.

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NextEra Cuts $9.5M Deal In Nuclear Power Wage-Fixing Case

By Hailey Konnath

NextEra Energy has agreed to shell out $9.5 million to put to rest proposed class action allegations it conspired with other nuclear energy producers to fix wages, according to a notice filed Tuesday in Maryland federal court.

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Assessing Material Adverse Event Clauses Amid Iran Conflict

As deals signed before the current Middle East conflict come under pressure, determinations over material adverse effect clauses are arising in real time, and whether an MAE has been wrongfully invoked may be as consequential as whether it was validly established in the first place, say Amran Nawaz and Ralph Stobwasser at Secretariat.

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Md. Justices' State Climate Tort Ban May Shape National Path

The Maryland Supreme Court’s recent ruling that federal law preempted state-level deceptive marketing tort claims brought by several municipalities could offer the U.S. Supreme Court a road map to use in the pending Suncor Energy v. Boulder County case to exclude states from the business of regulating global emissions, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

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4 Emerging Approaches To AI Protective Order Language

Over the last year, at least five federal district courts have issued or analyzed specific protective order provisions restricting the use of generative artificial intelligence platforms with protected materials, establishing that proactive AI-specific provisions are now standard practice and demonstrating that no single model works for every case, says Joel Bush at Kilpatrick.

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Murdaugh Murder Conviction Overturned By SC High Court

By Parker Quinlan

The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned a double murder conviction and ordered a new trial for disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh, finding the jury in his first trial was biased by a clerk of court who allegedly sought a guilty verdict in a ploy to juice sales of her book about the trial.

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Texas Atty Must Pay $5M For Groping Opposing Counsel

By Lynn LaRowe

A Texas state appellate court on Wednesday refused to disturb a $5 million jury verdict against a San Antonio lawyer for grabbing the buttocks of opposing counsel at the courthouse where they were arguing a family law proceeding in 2019.

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DOJ Goes After DC Bar, Courts For Discipline Of Ex-DOJ Atty

By Hailey Konnath

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday sued the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility, D.C. Court of Appeals and the District of Columbia, claiming that they were "punishing" a former Trump administration DOJ official and trying to "control the executive branch."

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DOJ Fraud Division Set To Shake Up White-Collar Enforcement

By Phillip Bantz

President Donald Trump's administration created the U.S. Department of Justice's National Fraud Enforcement Division with a narrow focus on combating government program fraud, but a move to retain federal prosecutors focused on other types of fraud could signal a wider scope with potential ripple effects across white-collar enforcement.

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Arbitrators See Global Stakes In Trump BigLaw EO Fight

By Caroline Simson

Ahead of a D.C. Circuit hearing on Thursday in the Trump administration's effort to revive executive orders imposed against four BigLaw firms, an official at the College of Commercial Arbitrators told Law360 this week there are several things arbitrators are going to be watching for.

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Apple Targets Hagens Berman 'Gamesmanship' In ICloud Suit

By Bryan Koenig

Apple has lashed out at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP for trying to withdraw a named plaintiff from an iCloud antitrust case in California federal court without discovery into any directions she received to preserve now-deleted emails, raising concerns that the withdrawal is meant to "paper over lost evidence."

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Michigan Federal Judge Gets Probation For Drunken Driving

By Susan Smiley

Michigan federal Judge Thomas L. Ludington was sentenced by a state judge on Wednesday to six months' probation and fined $1,175 after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge last month in Emmet County.

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6th Circ. Says Kentucky Judicial Hopefuls May Tout Ideology

By Emily Sawicki

Kentucky judicial hopefuls are cleared to discuss their political leanings on the campaign trail, according to a precedential ruling by the Sixth Circuit, which permanently enjoined the state's Judicial Conduct Commission from pursuing an enforcement action against two candidates who described themselves as "conservatives" and "Republicans" amid the 2022 election season.

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Judge Says LegalForce Must Pay $93K After Losing TM Suit

By Elliot Weld

A California federal judge on Wednesday ordered LegalForce RAPC Worldwide PC to pay nearly $93,000 in fees and costs to the company that operates LawFirms.com, finding the case to be exceptional because LegalForce alleged facts it knew were false and took steps to obscure other facts that showed its case was meritless.

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CORRECTED: Senate Advances 13 US Attorneys In En Bloc Vote

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 46-45, along party lines, to advance the nomination of 13 U.S. attorneys on Monday as part of a larger nominations package. Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the status of the nominees in the Senate.

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