Ohio Voters Lead Data Center Pushback In Ballot Questions

By Nate Beck

Voters on ballot questions across the country Tuesday broadly opposed building new data center projects, with Ohio voters enacting roadblocks to projects pitched by Amazon, Meta and others, in an electoral test for the buildout of artificial intelligence infrastructure.

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Dems Win Control Of Georgia Public Service Commission

By Gautama Mehta

Voters in Georgia flipped Republican control of the state's Public Service Commission, which regulates investor-owned utilities, in a pair of races that attracted unusually high political spending amid rising electricity prices and a massive data center buildout.

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Ga. Adopts Farming Tax Break, Mich. Limits Utility Donations

By Gautama Mehta

Voters in seven states were set to decide closely watched environmental ballot measures, including whether California should speed up environmental reviews, if Colorado should codify a "right to natural gas," and if Michigan should tighten campaign finance restrictions on the utility industry.

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Mich. Voters Approve Limits On Utility Campaign Donations

By Melanie Dorsey

Michigan voters approved a statewide ballot proposal Tuesday restricting campaign contributions from certain regulated utilities and government contractors,while Ann Arbor voters opposed a separate measure establishing a municipal electric utility that could eventually replace DTE Energy as the city's electricity provider.

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Energy Co. Directors Sued Over China Supply Chain Claims

By Keith Goldberg

The top brass of Bloom Energy Corp. on Tuesday were hit with another lawsuit claiming they misled shareholders by understating the extent to which the renewable energy company depended on Chinese scandium, a critical raw material used in its fuel cells.

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Icahn-Backed Firm Paying $4.2B For Marathon Oil Assets

By Al Barbarino

Carl Icahn-backed CVR Energy said Tuesday it has agreed to buy two refineries and a related marketing business from Marathon Petroleum and its affiliates for approximately $4.2 billion in a deal that would nearly double its refining capacity.

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Latham-Led I Squared Wraps $2.4B Infrastructure Credit Fund

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Latham & Watkins LLP-advised infrastructure investor I Squared Capital on Tuesday revealed that it closed its second infrastructure credit fund with over $2.4 billion of committed capital.

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Tribe Says Pipeline Harm Statement Shouldn't Be Dismissed

By Joyce Hanson

A Native American tribe has asked a D.C. federal judge not to strike its natural resources director's statement about potential harm the Army Corps of Engineers will cause by allowing Enbridge Energy to reroute 41 miles of a pipeline around the tribe's lands.

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Brief

China, Peru Modernize Free Trade Agreement

By Jack McLoone

China and Peru have updated their bilateral trade treaty to both update existing provisions and add new ones aimed at addressing changes in commerce and global trade since the deal was first reached in 2009, the two countries said.

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Brief

Oil Pipes From Austria, Taiwan, UAE Face Duties

By Jack McLoone

Pipes known as oil country tubular goods imported from Austria, Taiwan and the United Arab Emirates could be hit with double-digit antidumping duties after the U.S. Department of Commerce preliminarily found on Tuesday that they are being sold at less than fair value.

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Shell Selling North West Shelf Stake To XRG For $1.45B

By Al Barbarino

Shell PLC's Australian subsidiary has agreed to sell its 16.67% stake in Western Australia's North West Shelf liquefied natural gas project to United Arab Emirates-based XRG PJSC for $1.45 billion, the companies said Tuesday. 

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Nonprofits Seek To Halt Texas Data Center Support Projects

By Isaac Monterose

Public Citizen and the Sierra Club urged a Texas federal court to pause the construction of power plants and backup diesel generators for two data center campuses in the state, claiming their members will be harmed if the work continues.

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Trade Court Finds US Solar Coalition's Duty Challenge Moot

By Jack McLoone

The U.S. Court of International Trade dismissed as moot a suit brought by U.S. solar manufacturers challenging U.S. International Trade Commission determinations regarding harm caused by Cambodian and Thai solar cell imports because the at-issue entries have already been processed. 

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Rivian Brass Reaches Deal To End Post-IPO Price Hike Suit

By Sydney Price

Rivian Automotive Inc. executives and the company's investors Tuesday filed a notice telling a California federal court they reached a settlement to end derivative claims Rivian hid the true price of manufacturing its electric vehicles ahead of its initial public offering.

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W.Va. Coal Mine Opponents Defend Permit Vacatur At 4th Circ.

By Tom Lotshaw

Environmental groups told the Fourth Circuit that a West Virginia federal judge was right to scrap a Clean Water Act permit that allowed Republic Energy LLC to bury 20,000 feet of valley streams with fill from surface coal mining.

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Consistency Is Key In Pipeline Incident Investigations

A pipeline release that causes worker injury does not trigger one investigation, but five or more, running on different timetables, under different statutes, and new federal procedures may soon add more complexity — but companies must maintain one centralized record to ensure consistency throughout, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

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Patent Suits Highlight Risks Across Data Center Supply Chain

Recent patent disputes involving technologies that support artificial intelligence data centers showcase the growing litigation risks that data center suppliers and operators face, and raise questions about how litigation responsibilities may be allocated between them, say attorneys at Katten.

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10 Ways AI Labs Can Limit Antitrust Risks Of Safety Pacts

The OpenAI CEO’s recent call for artificial intelligence laboratories to collectively slow development to allow safety research to catch up invites antitrust scrutiny, but the risks to coordinating competitors can be managed by carefully structuring pacing agreements and layering their approach to compliance, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

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Approach The Bench: Judge Wilson On Trial By Zoom

By Cara Bayles and Kelley Marcano

Before she became a state court judge in Washington, Judge Coreen Wilson worked as a trial attorney litigating hundreds of cases, including the country's first binding virtual civil jury trial during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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DOJ Says Trump Adviser Needn't Answer ABA Subpoenas Yet

By Jared Foretek

The U.S. Department of Justice is arguing that Trump attorney Boris Epshteyn shouldn't have to respond to subpoenas from the American Bar Association in its challenge to the Trump administration's campaign against law firms until the presiding judge rules on the administration's preexisting motion to quash them.

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Judge Questions Federal Role In Ed Martin Ethics Case

By Jared Foretek

A D.C. federal judge struggled Tuesday to see how he could preside over a state attorney ethics proceeding if U.S. pardon attorney Ed Martin gets his way and keeps the case in federal court, as the city's ethics board fought to have it sent back to state court.

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Brownstein Hyatt Faces Suit Over Flawed Cannabis Co. Deal

By Rachel Konieczny

A Colorado real estate developer and his company alleged that Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck LLP negligently drafted their settlement agreement in a dispute with members of cannabis dispensary chain Native Roots over a sale of the chain's entities, resulting in a roughly $100 million arbitration award against the developer's company.

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Texas Atty Seeks Release In Cyberstalking Case

By Lynn LaRowe

A Texas lawyer who is expected to plead guilty in a cyberstalking case involving BigLaw firm attorneys is asking a federal court to free her, saying circumstances are "materially different" because of mental health treatment she has received while behind bars.

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Adult Daycare Pushes To Revive Suit Against Fox Rothschild

By Rose Krebs

An adult daycare company is asking a New Jersey state court to undo the toss of its suit against Fox Rothschild LLP and one of its attorneys, saying the dismissal was in error because the business had sought more time to respond to a dismissal motion.

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Volunteer Exits Malicious Prosecution Suit Naming DLA Piper

By Craig Clough

A Los Angeles judge on Tuesday tossed a malicious prosecution claim against a former volunteer for Breaking Code Silence on free speech grounds, even as he called the broader case against DLA Piper and the nonprofit "stronger than most."

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Ashurst Perkins ICap Suit Stayed Amid Bankruptcy Fight

By Ben Adlin

A Washington state judge has agreed to freeze a lawsuit accusing law firm Ashurst Perkins Coie of aiding and abetting a nearly $230 million Ponzi scheme, ordering the King County Superior Court litigation be put on hold pending an outcome in a related bankruptcy dispute.

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Roundup

The Top In-House Hires Of October

By Michele Gorman

Legal department hires during the past month included high-profile appointments at Fox, Dell and LinkedIn. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from October.

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