SEC To Settle Justin Sun Crypto Wash Trading Case

By Jessica Corso

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Thursday it has reached a settlement with Tron founder Justin Sun to end a closely watched, Biden-era enforcement action, with one of Sun's companies set to pay a $10 million penalty for allegedly facilitating wash trading of the cryptocurrency TRX.

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Tokenized Securities Get Same Capital Treatment, Feds Say

By Jon Hill

Federal banking regulators said Thursday that the capital treatment of so-called tokenized securities is the same as their traditional counterparts, emphasizing that bank capital rules are "technology neutral" and don't change when a security is recorded on a distributed ledger.

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Mich. AG Accuses Kalshi Of Unlicensed Gambling

By Katryna Perera

Michigan is the latest state to take action against prediction-market exchanges, accusing KalshiEX LLC of running an unlicensed online sports betting platform in a lawsuit removed to federal court on Thursday.

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Robinhood Sues Mich. AG Over Event Contracts

By Melanie Dorsey

Robinhood Derivatives LLC has filed suit against the Michigan attorney general and state gaming regulators, asking a federal judge to bar the state from using its gambling laws to target federally regulated sports event contracts.

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Mass., Polymarket Agree To Truce Amid Kalshi Appeal

By Carolyn Muyskens

Massachusetts enforcers agreed not to target Polymarket for now in exchange for the prediction market pausing its lawsuit against the state while rival Kalshi appeals a ban on offering sports-related wagers in the commonwealth.

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Fintech Sues Deutsche Bank, Pathward Over Pharma Flags

By Emilie Ruscoe

A self-described barter-based payment platform sued Deutsche Bank AG and Pathward NA, alleging it was improperly placed on an industry blacklist following the banks' assertions it was "transaction laundering" for companies selling gray-market peptides.

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SpaceX Taps Citigroup For Planned IPO, Plus More Rumors

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

SpaceX has added Citigroup to its lineup of banks leading its planned blockbuster initial public offering, Thrive Capital and Andreessen Horowitz are co-leading an investment in defense company Andural Industries that could value it at $60 billion, and Indian payments platform PhonePe is preparing plans for an initial public offering that would value it at $10.5 billion.

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King & Spalding Brings Back Business Atty To NYC Office

By James Boyle

A former trial attorney for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has left the public sector to return to his post as a litigator at King & Spalding LLP's New York City office.

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Opinion

3 Reasons We Need Digital Asset Market Structure Legislation

As bills to regulate the cryptocurrency industry risk stalling in Congress, policymakers and market participants must remember why a durable statutory framework, not governance by agency action, is key to unlocking the full potential of the U.S. digital asset ecosystem, say attorneys at Davis Polk.

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How CFTC Prediction Market Agenda Shifts The Playing Field

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Michael Selig recently signaled that a more welcoming regulatory landscape for prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket is coming soon, but we can expect a hotly contested regulatory and legal environment with important implications for the platforms, state regulators and market participants, say attorneys at Sidley.

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How Banks Can Apply FinCEN Beneficial Ownership Relief

A recent Financial Crimes Enforcement Unit order limiting the circumstances under which banks should identify and verify beneficial owners may allow banks to tailor their approach to verification compliance, but only after reviewing customer due diligence policies and evaluating alignment with their risk profiles, say attorneys at Cleary.

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Series

Volunteering With Scouts Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Serving as an assistant scoutmaster for my son’s troop reaffirmed several skills and principles crucial to lawyering — from the importance of disconnecting to the value of morality, says Michael Warren at McManis Faulkner.

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DOJ Forges Ahead With Law Firm EO Appeals At DC Circ.

By Lauren Berg

The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday moved ahead with filing appeals at the D.C. Circuit to defend executive orders issued by President Donald Trump targeting four law firms, just three days after the agency backtracked on its decision to drop the fight.

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Legal Jobs Up 19th Straight Month In 'Goldilocks' Economy

By Tracey Read

The legal sector continued its lengthy upward streak in February, with 2,600 more people employed in lawyer, paralegal and other law-related professional roles last month than in January, according to seasonally adjusted data released Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Ex-Girardi Keese Atty Pleads Guilty For Role In Client Scandal

By Dorothy Atkins

Former Girardi Keese attorney Keith Griffin pled guilty to criminal contempt in Illinois federal court on Thursday for his role in the firm's failure to pay millions ​in client settlement funds to relatives of victims killed in the crash of Lion Air Flight 610.

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Louisiana Atty Sanctioned Over AI Hallucinations In Filing

By Matt Perez

A Louisiana attorney was fined $1,000 Thursday for his use of artificial intelligence in drafting an error-riddled brief, while three co-counsel were spared penalty.

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Investors Accuse Alston & Bird Of Aiding $328M Crypto Fraud

By David Minsky

Several investors have brought a Florida federal proposed class action alleging legal malpractice against Alston & Bird LLP, accusing the law firm of drafting joint venture agreements that were used to aid a $328 million cryptocurrency scam. 

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Constantine Cannon Defends Handling Of Sutter $75M Fee

By Dorothy Atkins

Constantine Cannon LLP pushed back Thursday against Schneider Wallace Cottrell Kim LLP's allegations it unfairly reduced Schneider Wallace's share of a $75.4 million fee award in Sutter Health's $228.5 million antitrust deal, arguing in California federal court that the firm "sat on the sidelines" for most of the decadelong fight and isn't entitled to a bigger cut.

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NJ Talc Suit Will Proceed Amid Beasley Allen DQ Appeal

By Emily Sawicki

The New Jersey Supreme Court has declined to stay multicounty litigation over Johnson & Johnson's talc-based baby powder brought by hundreds of women who allege their ovarian cancer was linked to the product, while Beasley Allen appeals its removal as plaintiff's counsel over a firm partner's collaboration with the pharmaceutical giant's former outside counsel.

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Florida Bar Rescinds Claim Agency Is Investigating Halligan

By Jack Karp

The Florida Bar said Friday that it is not investigating controversial former interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Lindsey Halligan, walking back a previous assertion it had made in a letter to a nonprofit that it was probing Halligan's actions.

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Courts Aren't Ignoring Justices' TPS Orders, Ex-Judges Say

By Ganesh Setty

Over 175 former federal and state judges have slammed the Trump administration's claim that lower courts "flouted" interim orders from the U.S. Supreme Court in litigation involving the administration's revocation of foreign nationals' temporary protected status, saying they weren't binding.

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Dems Again Push For Independent Immigration Courts

By Courtney Bublé

Democrats have again introduced a bill that would shift the immigration courts from the executive branch to an independent judiciary, following concerns that the Trump administration has "weaponized" the system.

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Roundup

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

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen British American Tobacco sued by more than 100 investors, the government bring a claim against a COVID-19 supplier of personal protective equipment, Annington Funding sue its new corporate trustees on the Financial List, and Piers Morgan hit with a defamation claim from a pro-Israel barrister he interviewed on his YouTube channel. 

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Anthropic, the developer of Claude AI, says it will take the Pentagon to court over being designated a national security risk because it wants to impose ethical guardrails on Claude's use. And the Mideast war is making in-house legal teams across the country work long hours to protect employees trapped by the violence and to keep businesses running despite broken supply chains. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Winston & Strawn LLP, Sullivan Papain Block McManus Coffinas & Cannavo PC, Stanford's Supreme Court Litigation Clinic and attorney Olivia Gabriel lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that New Jersey cannot shield its public transit system from personal injury lawsuits by out-of-state plaintiffs under sovereign immunity.

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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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