Analysis

4 Key Questions On Tariff Investigations

By Dylan Moroses

The U.S. announced a bevy of new trade investigations this month to underpin a tariff regime intended to replace duties struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, but questions remain about the fate of deals struck with trading partners and whether importers will face higher tariffs. Here, Law360 examines four questions on the implications of those investigations.

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Ga. Utility Board Sued Over $15B Power Capacity Deal

By Chart Riggall

A group of environmental and faith-based organizations have sued Georgia's elected utility regulators challenging a more than $15 billion deal with Georgia Power approved last year to increase the capacity of the state's largest electricity provider by nearly 50%.

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Ohio AG Advances Bid For Constitutional Data Center Ban

By Nate Beck

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on Thursday advanced a petition for a constitutional amendment to prohibit the construction of data centers in the state, in one step toward seeing the question listed on the ballot.

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Maduro Judge Hints US Should Reconsider Legal Fee Refusal

By Pete Brush

A Manhattan federal judge suggested Thursday that the Trump administration should revisit its refusal to allow former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to access his country's funds to pay for his defense against narco-terrorism and trafficking charges.

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Economists Applaud Colombia's Exit From Investor Treaties

By Joyce Hanson

American think tank the Center for Economic and Policy Research on Thursday congratulated President Gustavo Petro of Colombia for his decision to break ties with the investor-state dispute settlement system that lets corporations sue governments over lost future profits.

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Texas Jury Awards $1.1B To Child Abused By Oil Scion

By Spencer Brewer

A Texas jury on Thursday slapped a descendant of an original Humble Oil investor with a $1.1 billion verdict — thought to be one of the largest individual-child abuse verdicts in U.S. history — in a suit over abuse of his 2-year-old stepson that caused severe brain injuries.

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Ex-InterOil Exec Faces $210M Ruling, Seeks Appeal Bond Cut

By José Luis Martínez

A former executive of long-acquired oil company InterOil must pay a Swiss investor $210 million in damages and interest under a final judgment entered Thursday in Texas federal court, affirming a jury's findings last year that the executive breached agreements between the two.

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Venezuelan Leader Says Ex-Fla. Rep Couldn't Get US Meetings

By Carolina Bolado

A Venezuelan political opposition leader told jurors Thursday that he connected with former Florida congressman David Rivera to try to secure meetings with high-level U.S. officials in the first Trump administration, but Rivera — who is on trial for allegedly failing to register as a foreign agent — failed to deliver.

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Brief

Exxon Settles Suit Over Cleanup Of Seattle Gas Station Site

By Ben Adlin

Exxon Mobil Corp. has reached a settlement with a Seattle property owner who sought to hold the company liable for cleanup costs at the site of a former gas station, according to a motion approved Thursday by a Washington federal judge.

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Eos Energy Execs Hid Issues Before Raising $1B, Suit Says

By Sydney Price

Directors and officers of zinc battery manufacturer Eos Energy have been hit with a shareholder's derivative lawsuit accusing them of allowing the company to raise about $1 billion while concealing negative information about revenue and production issues from the market.

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'I Don't Know': 9th Circ. Presses Verrilli On Boeing Venue Issue

By Rachel Riley

A Ninth Circuit judge rehearing an appeal involving a $72 million trade secret verdict against Boeing on Thursday pressed the company's counsel Donald B. Verrilli Jr. of Munger Tolles & Olson LLP to explain why the aerospace giant never previously argued the case belongs in the Federal Circuit, and Verrilli conceded he didn't know the reason.

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Creditors, US Trustee Protest Jones Day In Vanderbilt Case

By Alex Wittenberg

The U.S. Trustee's Office and a group of creditors have urged a New York bankruptcy judge to reject mining company Vanderbilt Minerals' bid to retain Jones Day as counsel, arguing the law firm is conflicted because it represented the debtor's parent company prior to Vanderbilt's Chapter 11 case.

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Deals Rumor Mill

Musk's SpaceX Eyes $75B IPO Raise, Among Other Rumors

By Al Barbarino

The market is anticipating what could be one of the largest initial public offerings ever, after reports this past week indicated that Elon Musk's SpaceX is looking to imminently raise as much as $75 billion.

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Keys To Federal Carbon Compliance In Data Center Siting

Recent statements from the White House and state governors about making data centers pay for their own power infrastructure have underlined the importance of choosing locations, generation technologies and deal structures to optimize carbon, permitting and compliance costs, say attorneys at Davis Graham.

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Nippon Case Illustrates Challenges Of Proving Antitrust Injury

A recent California federal court decision dismissing challenges to Nippon Steel's purchase of U.S. Steel underscores the longtime antitrust precedent that while the limitations of injury are critical for defendants sued under U.S. antitrust laws, showing that the harm is real is the key, says Cameron Regnery at Freeman Mathis.

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BigLaw Races To Capture Expanding Fund Finance Market

By Kevin Penton

Debt financing work at the fund level has long been dominated on the lender side by attorneys from Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP, Haynes Boone and Mayer Brown LLP, but other firms are increasingly crafting formal practices and poaching fund finance stars from the more established players.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

The Lanier Law Firm, Kiesel Law LLP, Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP, Wagstaff & Cartmell LLP and Beasley Allen Law Firm lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a California state jury in a bellwether trial found Meta and Google liable for harming the mental health of a woman who says she became addicted to their social media platforms as a child.

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NJ Federal Judge DQs Beasley Allen In J&J Talc MDL

By Emily Sawicki

A New Jersey federal judge has disqualified the Beasley Allen Law Firm from representing hundreds of plaintiffs in sprawling multidistrict litigation over Johnson & Johnson's talc-based baby powder, holding that the firm violated ethics rules by collaborating with former outside counsel for J&J, a ruling the law firm has vowed to appeal.

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Atty Sanctioned For AI Hallucinations In Workers' Comp Row

By Gianna Ferrarin

A New Jersey appellate court on Friday ordered an attorney to pay $1,000 in sanctions for failing to rectify AI-hallucinated case citations pointed out to him in an appeal concerning reimbursement sought by a workers' compensation carrier.

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UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

The past week in London has seen Apple hit back at a tech company's wireless charging patent claim, a flurry of businesses bring COVID-19 pandemic insurance claims as a key deadline draws closer and Ipulse Partners LLP file a claim against a luxury yacht company it represented in a trademark dispute. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Polsinelli Hires Practice Head From McDermott In NY

By Andrea Keckley

Polsinelli PC said Thursday that it has hired a longtime McDermott Will & Schulte LLP attorney to co-lead its special situations and alternative investment practice, saying the move "further advanc[es] the firm's strategic focus on private credit, distressed investing, and complex restructuring matters."

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Apollo, BlackRock Deny Asking Kirkland To Abandon Optimum

By Tracey Read

Apollo, Ares, BlackRock and other major financial companies have denied Optimum Communications' claims accusing them of "bullying" Kirkland & Ellis LLP into withdrawing as the telecommunications company's transaction counsel to get revenge for a collusion lawsuit filed in New York federal court.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

A federal judge has stopped the Pentagon from dropping AI giant Anthropic from the government's supply chain, and Latham & Watkins ranked first in a survey of in-house legal leaders on which law firms are most helpful in developing business, followed by King & Spalding, Jones Day and Ropes & Gray.

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Firms Targeted By Trump Urge DC Circ. To Uphold EO Rulings

By Alison Knezevich

Four law firms targeted last year by President Donald Trump urged the D.C. Circuit on Friday to affirm lower court rulings that struck down executive orders restricting their ability to practice law, saying the directives blatantly violate the Constitution.

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Brief

Amazon Swaps MoFo In, Perkins Coie Out In Cooker Suit

By Ben Adlin

Amazon.com LLP switched counsel Friday in a customer's product defect suit accusing the retail giant of selling a faulty pressure cooker that allegedly malfunctioned and caused her severe burns, substituting two Morrison Foerster LLP attorneys in place of an outgoing Perkins Coie LLP lawyer.

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Mich. Judge Signals No Stay If Attys Exit Retaliation Suit

By Melanie Dorsey

A Michigan federal judge said Friday she is not inclined to pause a long-running sexual harassment suit again if counsel for an attorney who is suing her ex-mentor and former firm are allowed to withdraw, telling the parties, "We've been here. We've done this," as she heard arguments over a motion to exit the case.

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Judiciary Nixes Amicus Disclosure Reform Over Potential Chill

By Emily Sawicki

The federal judiciary has been asked not to move forward with a plan to add to amicus brief disclosure requirements designed to curb "dark money" groups from bankrolling amicus briefs, after rules committee chairs pulled the recommendation over concerns of a possible chilling effect.

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Ex-Williams & Connolly Clerk Accused Of Posting Client Info

By Hailey Konnath

A former Williams & Connolly LLP clerk has been posting confidential firm information — including client information and work email exchanges — and he's threatening to "keep leaking" the materials, which he called "a fun read," according to a suit filed in District of Columbia Superior Court.

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Mayer Brown's $21M Fee Bid In RI Truck Tolls Suit Rebuffed

By Linda Chiem

A Rhode Island federal judge on Friday rebuffed Mayer Brown LLP's bid for $21 million in attorney fees for representing the commercial trucking industry's lead trade group in long-running litigation over the state's truck tolling program, saying the American Trucking Associations ultimately was not the "prevailing party."

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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FCC Told It Can't Make Foreign Call Centers Speak English

By Nadia Dreid

The National Creditors Bar Association is not pleased with the Federal Communications Commission's plans to pass new rules that would require companies to make sure their foreign call center operators speak "American Standard English," saying the agency has no power over foreign employees.

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