New SEC Task Force Eyes 'Sensible' Crypto Regulations

By Elaine Briseño

A day after being appointed acting chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Mark T. Uyeda on Tuesday launched a cryptocurrency task force to develop "a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework" for such assets.

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Trump Pardons Silk Road's 'Dread Pirate' Ross Ulbricht

By Lauren Berg

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he granted an unconditional pardon to Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind behind the cryptocurrency-fueled online drug bazaar Silk Road, in return for the political support he received from the crypto and libertarian realms.

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10th Circ. Looks For Limits In Custodia's Master Account Suit

By Aislinn Keely

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City on Tuesday told a Tenth Circuit panel that the crypto-focused Custodia Bank is not entitled to a so-called master account that it has sued the Federal Reserve to get, while acknowledging that the Fed's own discretion to deny such an account has its limits.

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Coinbase Asks 2nd Circ. To Settle Crypto Securities Question

By Sarah Jarvis

Coinbase has urged the Second Circuit to settle how securities laws apply to its crypto transactions, saying "there is no more pressing issue in securities law today" than determining the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's ability to regulate digital assets.

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Crypto Firm To Plead Guilty In Market Manipulation Case

By Julie Manganis

A financial services firm based in the United Arab Emirates has agreed to plead guilty to a fraudulent "wash trading" scheme and will stop working in the U.S. cryptocurrency industry as part of a deal announced Tuesday by Boston federal prosecutors.

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Citi Can't Escape NYAG's Wire Fraud Protection Suit

By Jon Hill

A Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday declined to free Citibank NA from a lawsuit filed by New York's attorney general, who accuses the bank of failing to protect and reimburse customers who have lost money to online wire fraud.

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Trump Names Interim Top Prosecutors In Manhattan, Brooklyn

By Elliot Weld

President Donald Trump named two high-ranking prosecutors to be interim U.S. attorneys in the Southern and Eastern districts of New York while his long-term picks for the posts await Senate confirmation, spokespeople for the offices confirmed Tuesday.

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Asset Type Immaterial To Crypto Fraud Claims, SEC Says

By Emilie Ruscoe

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has argued that digital assets referenced in its fraud case in Texas against the principals of a purported cryptocurrency mining operation are "immaterial to the economic reality" of the allegedly fraudulent securities transactions at the heart of its action.

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SEC Says 'Hotspot' Crypto Miners Broke Registration Laws

By Emilie Ruscoe

Technology company Nova Labs Inc. faces U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it attempted an "end-run" around federal securities laws with its unregistered sale of investment contracts in the form of its "hotspot" crypto asset mining devices.

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DOJ Fights Visa's Bid To Duck Monopoly Case

By Matthew Perlman

The U.S. Department of Justice urged a New York federal court not to toss its case accusing Visa of illegally maintaining a monopoly over debit card networks, saying the company's dismissal bid misconstrues the law and wrongly tries to expand the market at issue.

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Block Hit With Shareholder Suit Over Cash App AML Protocols

By Lauren Berg

Jack Dorsey's fintech company Block Inc. touted its anti-money laundering protocols designed to prevent criminals from using Cash App and Square for illicit purposes, but in reality, the company's lack of even basic protocols created a "haven for criminal and illicit activities," a California federal lawsuit alleges.

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Payment Co. Says Okla. Tribe Lacks Jurisdiction In Fraud Suit

By Joyce Hanson

Two owners of a payment processor have asked an Oklahoma federal judge to toss a Native American tribal entity's lawsuit claiming they defrauded it out of $1.5 million, arguing that it isn't a citizen for the purposes of diversity jurisdiction under Tenth Circuit precedent.

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The Blueprint For A National Bitcoin Reserve

The new administration has the opportunity to pave the way for a U.S.-backed crypto reserve, which could conceptually function as a strategic asset akin to traditional reserves like gold markets, hedge against economic instability, and influence global crypto adoption, say attorneys at Duane Morris.

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The 2025 In-House Counsel Satisfaction Survey

Law360 Pulse asked in-house counsel about their jobs, workplace and career prospects. Find out how satisfied corporate lawyers are with their schedules, hours, work-life balance, opportunities for advancement and more.

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BigLaw Firms Report Record Lobbying Revenues For 2024

By Alison Knezevich

Several BigLaw firms pulled in record federal lobbying revenues in 2024, and now the change at the White House and in Congress has lobbyists gearing up for another busy year.

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Chutkan Says Trump's Pardon Can't 'Whitewash' Jan. 6 Terror

By Lauren Berg

President Donald Trump's pardon of defendants accused of participating in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol "cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake," U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan wrote Wednesday in an order dismissing one such case.

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Ex-Solicitor General Prelogar Joins Harvard Law

By Katie Buehler and Jeff Overley

Former U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar, acclaimed for her oral advocacy in the U.S. Supreme Court's biggest cases during the Biden administration, has temporarily joined Harvard Law School, where she will teach a class called "Changing Paradigms in the Supreme Court," Law360 confirmed Wednesday.

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DOJ Aims To Prosecute Local Officials Who Impede Removals

By Britain Eakin

The U.S. Department of Justice instructed its staff to investigate and take enforcement actions against state and local officials who interfere with the Trump administration's plans to deport unlawfully present immigrants, according to an internal agency memo.

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Kirkland Adds 5 Skadden Attys As Firm Plans Philly Launch

By James Boyle

National law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP has announced plans for a new Philadelphia office to be helmed by a civil litigator who is one of five attorneys moving their practices to the firm from Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.

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Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds Slam Baldoni Atty's 'Media Blitz'

By Rachel Scharf

Counsel for celebrity couple Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds told a New York federal judge that Justin Baldoni's attorney from Liner Freedman Taitelman & Cooley LLP has violated ethical rules with an "all-out media blitz" during their thorny litigation over the movie "It Ends With Us."

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Kentucky, New Mexico Federal Judges To Take Senior Status

By Lynn LaRowe

Chief U.S. District Judge Danny C. Reeves of the Eastern District of Kentucky and U.S. District Judge James O. Browning of the District of New Mexico announced this week that they are taking senior status over roughly the next year.

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Case Removal Rules Aimed At Fairness, Ex-Atty Tells 5th Circ.

By Catherine Marfin

Several Fifth Circuit judges seemed keen Wednesday to clarify what activity in state court would bar litigants from removing their cases to federal court, as the full appeals court reconsidered a remand order for a Houston firm's poaching suit.

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Committee's Trump Probe Subpoenas Are Moot, Willis Says

By Emily Johnson

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has urged a Georgia state court to quash a bid to enforce subpoenas from a state Senate committee investigating her handling of the prosecution of President Donald Trump, arguing the subpoenas are moot because "the old special committee no longer exists."

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