Senate Leaders Unveil Project Permitting Overhaul

By Keith Goldberg

U.S. Senate energy and environmental leaders on Wednesday unveiled bipartisan legislation aimed at speeding up the permitting of infrastructure projects, and said they hope to get the bill through the chamber during the lame-duck session following November's elections.

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Trump Says S. Korea Investing $54B In Alaska Gas Pipeline

By Jack McLoone

South Korea will invest about $200 billion in various U.S. energy projects, including $54 billion for a long-awaited Alaska liquid natural gas pipeline, as part of a deal trading investments in the U.S. for preferential tariff treatment, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday.

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11th Circ. Skeptical Of PACE Lenders' CFPB Rule Challenge

By Jon Hill

An Eleventh Circuit panel on Wednesday appeared poised to reject an industry challenge to Biden-era Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rules for providers of property-assessed clean-energy loans, repeatedly questioning claims that the agency overstepped its authority.

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Ex-DOJ Enviro Deputy AG Lands At Holtzman Vogel

By Keith Goldberg

A former top deputy in the U.S. Department of Justice's Energy and Natural Resources Division has landed at Holtzman Vogel Baran Torchinsky & Josefiak PLLC, the latest high-ranking DOJ attorney to join the firm.

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Brief

Commerce Finds Chinese, Indian Electrodes Being Stockpiled

By Jack McLoone

Imports of electrodes used for smelting from India appear to have surged in response to the opening of a countervailing duty investigation, the U.S. Department of Commerce preliminarily found Wednesday, setting up possible retroactive duties on the goods.

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Wyo. Asks To Intervene In Suit Over Lease Sales To Oil Cos.

By Rachel Konieczny

Wyoming urged a Colorado federal judge to allow the state to intervene in environmental nonprofit groups' lawsuit challenging the leasing of public lands in Colorado and Wyoming for oil and gas development, saying it could stand to lose millions of dollars in future revenue.

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Argentina Threatens UK With Arbitration In Falklands Oil Fight

By Joyce Hanson

Argentina President Javier Milei has told the British government to cease development of the Sea Lion oil drilling project off the coast of the Falkland Islands, threatening to initiate international arbitration proceedings over the "illegal plundering" of the archipelago of Atlantic islands also known as the Malvinas.

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NJ Co. Says PPE Stockpiling Was Chinese Sovereign Activity

By Carolina Bolado

A New Jersey company accused of helping China hoard personal protective equipment to create a monopoly at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic told the Eleventh Circuit that a lower court erred in finding that the allegations fall within the commercial activity exception to sovereign immunity.

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Norfolk Southern Investors Certified In Derailment Suit

By Sydney Price

Norfolk Southern investors can proceed as a class in a suit accusing the company of making misleading statements regarding its safety operations before a fiery train derailment in Ohio in 2023, though a Georgia federal judge did adopt the company's suggestion to narrow the class period.

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Kirkland-Led Data Center Infrastructure Firm Prices $540M IPO

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Data center power provider Accelevation Holdings hit the public markets Wednesday after raising $540 million in its initial public offering steered by Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP.

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DC Circ. Unsure Annulled $40M Award Is 'Repugnant'

By Nadia Dreid

The D.C. Circuit is set to decide whether it was "repugnant" of a Swedish court to retroactively cancel an arbitration agreement after a $40 million award had already been won, based on a finding that European Union law didn't allow it.

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PR Rebar Cos. Can't Duck Price-Fixing Claims

By Bryan Koenig

A Puerto Rico federal judge refused Wednesday to let steel rebar companies and one of their executives duck price-fixing claims from construction companies and consumers, citing instant messages discussing the alleged scheme and rejecting arguments that the island hasn't expressly allowed antitrust allegations from indirect buyers.

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Trump's Rationale On Forced Labor Tariffs Misses, CIT Told

By Dylan Moroses

The U.S. Trade Representative's report justifying President Donald Trump's latest round of global tariffs based on imports produced with forced labor should prove insufficient, counsel for small businesses told a panel of U.S. Court of International Trade judges during oral arguments Wednesday.

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Joby Air Taxi Trade Secrets Suit Against Archer Trimmed

By Linda Chiem

A California federal judge has cleared Joby Aviation to advance a slimmed-down lawsuit alleging rival electric air-taxi developer Archer Aviation misappropriated its trade secrets, but again rejected Archer's counterclaims alleging Joby unfairly jockeyed for government contracts and concealed its pervasive China ties.

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Ariz. Land Swap Survives Despite 11-Judge 9th Circ. Dissent

By Crystal Owens

The Ninth Circuit won't rethink a decision to allow a 2,500-acre land exchange within Arizona's Tonto National Forest that tribal nations and conservation groups say will destroy a sacred Apache worship site, with 11 judges arguing in a dissent that a 2025 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the dispute was wrong.

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Opinion

Colo. Climate Suit Defies Limits Of State Power

In Suncor Energy v. Boulder County, the U.S. Supreme Court must not allow a single Colorado county to penalize pollution occurring across the country and around the globe, because the U.S. Constitution forbids states from exercising power beyond their borders, says Michael McGinley at Dechert.

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AI Meeting Recaps Pose New Discovery And Privilege Risks

The New York City Bar Association’s recent ethics opinion, cautioning attorneys not to record nonclient conversations with artificial intelligence tools, reflects an emerging view that AI meeting recaps are now a distinct business record category, meaning counsel should set meeting-level controls and apply framework-level updates, says William Wright at Faegre Drinker.

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UCLA Law Is Latest DOJ Target Over Race Bias In Admissions

By Dorothy Atkins

The U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division accused the UCLA School of Law of discriminating against white and Asian students in its admissions process in a letter sent to the school's counsel Thursday, following multiple other similar letters that the DOJ sent to other higher-education institutions.

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DOJ Outlines New Corporate Fraud Enforcement Priorities

By Phillip Bantz

Federal prosecutors "must place great weight" on a new list of factors when considering potential charges in corporate fraud cases, including whether the matters involve government programs, threats to national security or immigration offenses, according to a memo released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Trump Announces Judicial Noms For 5th Circ., NC

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he's nominating Todd Butler, a managing partner at Phelps Dunbar LLP, to serve as a judge on the Fifth Circuit. 

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Blackburn Holds Up White House's Tenn. Judge Pick

By Courtney Bublé

The White House is standing by its nominee for a federal judgeship in the Eastern District of Tennessee amid a holdup from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., a White House official confirmed to Law360 on Thursday.

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Richards Layton Atty Confirmed To Join Del. Chancery Bench

By Rose Krebs

Delaware's Senate on Thursday confirmed a Richards Layton & Finger PA director to a 12-year term as a vice chancellor on the Chancery Court.

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FBT Gibbons Beats DQ Bid In Suit Over Cigna Payments

By George Woolston

A New Jersey state court judge has rejected a plastic surgery practice's bid to disqualify FBT Gibbons LLP from representing Cigna and a group of employer-sponsored health plans in its suit over the insurer's alleged underpayments, finding the bid appears more as an effort to gain an advantage rather than one to protect the interests of any client.

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Roundup

The Top In-House Hires Of September

By Michele Gorman

Legal department hires during the past month included high-profile appointments at MSG Sports, Nestle and the Associated Press. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from September.

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Judge Reinstates Rogoff As Seattle US Atty After Trump Firing

By Rachel Riley

A Washington federal judge issued an order from the bench on Thursday reinstating Roger Rogoff as U.S. attorney for the Western District of Washington, finding that President Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he fired him in July.

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Trump Says Copyright Chief Can't Stay In Office Amid Appeal

By Adam Lidgett

The Trump administration is urging the D.C. Circuit to let it remove U.S. Copyright Office leader Shira Perlmutter, arguing that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision protecting Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook for now does not entitle Perlmutter to remain in office while her firing challenge proceeds.

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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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