CFTC Sues Utah To Widen Prediction Market State Brawl

By Aislinn Keely

Utah on Tuesday became the latest state to catch a suit from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission when the agency accused the state of treading on its "exclusive jurisdiction" over the prediction markets by bringing an enforcement action that branded Kalshi's sports contracts as bets.

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Soldier Can't Slip Charges Over Maduro Raid Polymarket Bet

By Aislinn Keely

A U.S. Army soldier must face charges that he profited from insider knowledge of the raid that captured deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro after a Manhattan federal judge ruled that whether his prediction market trades ran afoul of commodities laws is a question for trial.

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Singapore Fintech Hit With Suit Over 'Illegal Activity' In China

By Katryna Perera

An investor is suing UP Fintech Holding Ltd. in New Jersey federal court, alleging the fintech company and its top brass misrepresented and understated its legal and regulatory risk "as a result of continued illegal activity in China."

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IRS Asks 1st Circ. To Toss Shuttered Bank Owner's Claims

By Zak Kostro

The IRS asked the First Circuit to dismiss unlawful property seizure and due process claims against former IRS Criminal Investigation officers in a dispute related to a shuttered online bank suspected of facilitating tax evasion and money laundering, saying the bank's former owner failed to establish plausible allegations.

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6 Firms Advise On Ares' $2.6B MidCap Financial Buy

By Al Barbarino

Ares Capital Corp. said Tuesday it has agreed to acquire middle-market lender MidCap Financial Investment Corp. in a stock-and-cash transaction for an enterprise value of about $2.6 billion, with six law firms advising on the transaction.

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SEC Counsel Joins Venable Team, Former Boss In DC

By Jack Rodgers

Venable announced Tuesday it has hired a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer who spent the past 10 years in myriad legal roles at the agency and most recently had a senior position in the SEC Division of Trading and Markets' legal review office.

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Key Risk Assessment Gaps To Note From NY Cyber Guidance

Covered entities should take a fresh look at the compliance gaps flagged in recent New York State Department of Financial Services guidance on "deficient cybersecurity programs," particularly around scope, asset inventories and documentation, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.

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Where SEC's Transfer Agent Plan Would Change Compliance

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent proposal to update the federal regulatory framework for transfer agents would comprehensively modernize the old task-specific regime by centering speed, operational resilience, compliance governance and technology-neutral recordkeeping, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

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DOJ Directive Gives Contractors A Fraud Risk Road Map

For government contractors, the 10 factors described in the U.S. Department of Justice's recent corporate fraud enforcement directive function as a de facto scoring rubric for internal audits that mirrors what prosecutors will prioritize, say attorneys at Spencer Fane.

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Judge Hellerstein, Gruff Moderator Of Major Cases, Dies At 92

By Pete Brush

Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, a former litigator and sometimes impatient Manhattan federal jurist who presided over decades of high-profile cases that often came under close appellate scrutiny, died Wednesday at the age of 92.

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Texan Claims Austin Firm Hasn't Alerted Him To Data Breach

By Andrea Keckley

Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson LLP, an Austin, Texas-based law firm focused on collecting debts and taxes for public-sector clients, failed to protect its clients' personal information from a data breach, the plaintiff in a proposed class action claimed in Texas federal court Tuesday.

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BakerHostetler Malpractice Case To Expand With RICO Claim

By Emily Johnson

A Georgia federal judge has allowed a trustee who has accused BakerHostetler and an Atlanta-based attorney of legal malpractice to file an amended complaint after the trustee asked to add claims of Georgia RICO Act violations.

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Weil To Wind Down As Top Attorneys Abandon Firm

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson, Alex Wittenberg and Aebra Coe

Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, the restructuring powerhouse that led Lehman Brothers, Enron and General Motors through bankruptcy, told Law360 Pulse Wednesday that the firm is preparing to wind down operations.

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NJ Atty Mishandled Property Damage Dispute, Court Told

By Hope Patti

A man told a New Jersey federal court that he was forced to pay excessive and avoidable fees to an attorney hired to represent him in a property damage dispute after the attorney mishandled the case by failing to advise him to tender the claim to his homeowners insurer.

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BigLaw Tip Middleman To Admit Role In $3.5M Trading Scheme

By Chris Villani

An alleged middleman in a sweeping scheme to trade off of deal information stolen from major law firms has agreed to plead guilty and potentially faces a prison term of nearly a decade, according to a plea agreement filed Wednesday in Massachusetts federal court.

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Mich. Judge Weighs Toshiba Legal Bills Discovery Fight

By Melanie Dorsey

A Michigan federal judge on Wednesday questioned whether she needs to review specific objections to DTE Electric Co. and Consumers Energy Co.'s multimillion-dollar attorney fee request before deciding whether Toshiba Corp. must disclose its own legal bills and litigation expenses following a nearly $394.4 million jury verdict over a botched power plant overhaul.

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Proskauer, Reddit Attys Called To Testify In Data-Scraping Suit

By Bryan Koenig

A New York federal judge on Wednesday called for live testimony from two Proskauer Rose LLP attorneys and Reddit's deputy general counsel as he weighs the law firm's bid to represent Perplexity AI in a lawsuit from Reddit, the firm's former client, over alleged data scraping.

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SC Gov.'s Counsel Still In The Running For Federal Judgeship

By Courtney Bublé

The chief legal counsel for South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster is "being actively considered" for a federal judgeship, according to the White House, but it's not a done deal yet.

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