2nd Circ. Hints Bankman-Fried's $11B Forfeiture Is Overkill

By Elliot Weld

The Second Circuit suggested Tuesday that the government's $11 billion forfeiture order against Sam Bankman-Fried may be unconstitutionally large, noting that the staggering amount tops the raft of cases tasking the court with determining if such money judgments pass Eighth Amendment muster.

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Banking Groups Push Back On Coinbase's Trust Charter Bid

By Aislinn Keely

Two banking industry groups have opposed crypto exchange Coinbase's bid for a national trust company charter, warning in comment letters to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency that granting the crypto firm's application could lead to systemic risks.

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Ex-Beneficient CEO Stole $150M From GWG, Feds Say

By Bonnie Eslinger

The former CEO of Texas financial services firm Beneficient allegedly created a fraudulent scheme to loot more than $150 million from now defunct GWG Holdings, a publicly traded company for which he served as chairman, according to a New York federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday.

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Jury Told $25M Crypto Win Was Fraud, MIT Bros Call It Legit

By Stewart Bishop

Manhattan federal prosecutors on Tuesday told jurors that two MIT-educated brothers pulled off a meticulously planned $25 million crypto heist by ripping off other traders they didn't like, while defense counsel argued that the government is trying to take a legitimate "sharp-edged" trading strategy and turn it into a crime.

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Winston & Strawn Fights 'Anti-Woke' Fintech $1.7B Crash Suit

By Lynn LaRowe

Winston & Strawn LLP is asking a Texas bankruptcy court to toss a lawsuit from the trustee of self-styled "anti-woke" financial technology startup GloriFi, saying that holding the law firm responsible for the company's failure would set "extraordinary and dangerous precedent."

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Clippers Owner, BakerHostetler Named In Fintech Fraud Suit

By Elaine Briseño

Nearly a dozen investors have filed an amended lawsuit in California state court alleging Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and others, including BakerHostetler, helped financial technology company Aspiration Partners Inc. defraud them by propagating a false narrative that the business was financially solvent.

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CFPB's Information Security 'No Longer Effective,' IG Says

By Sarah Jarvis

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's information security program has weakened under the Trump administration and is "no longer effective" amid staff departures and loss of contractor resources, according to a new inspector general report.

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OCC's Gould Pledges 'Multifaceted' Defense Of Preemption

By Jon Hill

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's top official said Tuesday that his agency will be taking steps to defend and promote federal preemption in banking, pledging a "multifaceted" effort to stem what he described as weakening support for the principle.

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CFPB's Retreat Isn't Moving Needle For Banks, Ex-Chief Says

By Jon Hill

The Trump administration's hollowing out of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau hasn't changed how banks are approaching compliance, former agency Director Kathleen Kraninger said at a Tuesday industry conference.

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Fiserv Faces Investor Suit Over 2025 Strategy Revisions

By Sydney Price

Digital banking services company Fiserv was hit with a proposed shareholder class action on Tuesday accusing it of basing its 2025 financial guidance on misguided "assumptions," causing shares to plummet by nearly half their value last week.

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Judge To Allow Crypto Landlord To Begin Evictions In Detroit

By Carolyn Muyskens

A Detroit judge said Tuesday she will modify her court order barring a cryptocurrency real estate investment company from collecting rent to make clear its tenants must, in the meantime, pay their rent into escrow accounts held by the city of Detroit — and allow evictions of tenants who fail to do so.

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Brief

Crypto Mining Rivals Settle Patent Dispute Over Gas Wells

By Zach Dupont

Two cryptocurrency mining companies have reached a settlement to conclude the Canadian company's patent infringement suit against its Colorado rival in federal court.

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Bankruptcy Judge Taken Off GWG Case Amid Scandal Fallout

By Hailey Konnath

The federal judge overseeing GWG Holdings' bankruptcy case has been removed because of his professional relationship with embattled former U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David R. Jones, a decision the chief bankruptcy judge attributed not to the GWG judge's "own actions," but to Jones's "abuse" of judicial authority.

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What May Be Ahead In Debanking Enforcement

President Donald Trump's executive order on politicized or unlawful debanking has spurred a flurry of activity by the federal banking regulators, so banks should expect debanking-related complaints submitted by consumers to increase, and for federal regulators to look for more enforcement opportunities, say attorneys at Bradley Arant.

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Attys Beware: Generative AI Can Also Hallucinate Metadata

In addition to the well-known problem of AI-generated hallucinations in legal documents, AI tools can also hallucinate metadata — threatening the integrity of discovery, the reliability of evidence and the ability to definitively identify the provenance of electronic documents, say attorneys at Law & Forensics.

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Mamdani Taps Ex-FTC Chief Lina Khan For NYC Transition

By Lauren Berg

New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday named an all-women transition team, including former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, who attracted the ire of tech giants and corporations by spearheading the Biden administration's aggressive antitrust enforcement.

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Fired E-Biz Execs Sue Jackson Walker Over Judge's Romance

By Adrian Cruz

A pair of former executives at e-commerce company Volusion LLC have hit Jackson Walker LLP with the latest in a series of suits accusing the firm of legal malpractice stemming from the undisclosed romance between a former partner and a Texas bankruptcy judge.

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Senate Confirms Jones Day Partner To 9th Circuit Bench

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 52-45 on Wednesday to confirm Eric Tung, a partner at Jones Day, as a judge on the Ninth Circuit.

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Judge Slams DOJ's 'Indict First' Strategy In Comey Case

By Jared Foretek

Federal prosecutors were given just over 24 hours to hand over all of the grand jury materials and anything seized under years-old warrants in the James Comey case when a Virginia federal judge said Wednesday that the government appeared to be pursuing an "indict first, investigate last" strategy.

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Robbins Geller's 'Eye-Watering' $28M Fee Bid Cut To $10.4M

By Katryna Perera

A California federal judge has rejected a $28 million attorney fee request from Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd as part of a $150 million investor settlement with Zoom, calling it an "eye-watering figure," and saying the firm can collect about $10.4 million instead.

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Fed. Judiciary Tackles Design, Need For AI Evidence Rules

By Jack Karp

Federal judiciary members wrestled Wednesday with the appropriate parameters of a proposed rule that would govern machine-generated evidence, while questioning the need for another proposed rule dealing with so-called deepfake evidence.

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After Spending Blitz, Pa. Judicial Election Turnout Booms

By James Boyle

Months of focused campaigning and an unprecedented blitz of spending on television ads helped serve to double the number of Pennsylvania voters who turned out on Tuesday to cast ballots over whether to grant new 10-year terms to three Democratic members of the state's Supreme Court.

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Mass. Justices Consider Raises To Address Counsel Shortage

By Julie Manganis

Justices on Massachusetts' highest court grappled at a hearing Wednesday with its ability to address an ongoing shortage of attorneys willing to represent indigent defendants, after lawyers in two of the state's busiest counties stopped taking cases in May in protest over the low pay compared with other states.

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