Kalshi Sports Offerings Appear On Shaky Ground At 6th Circ.

By Alex Lawson

A Sixth Circuit panel looked askance at Kalshi's push to have its sports event contracts shielded from state gambling regulators Thursday, pointedly questioning the prediction market giant about the difference between its offerings and traditional sports bets.

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Coinbase Beats Bulk Of Users' Unregistered Securities Suit

By Aislinn Keely

A Manhattan federal judge delivered a significant victory to Coinbase on Thursday with a split ruling that found the crypto exchange can't be held responsible as a "statutory seller" for the vast majority of transactions on its platform, though the proposed securities class action will continue over a smaller number of orders Coinbase fulfilled from its own inventory of tokens.

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2nd Circ. Judge Denies Kalshi Shield From NY Action, For Now

By Aislinn Keely

Kalshi faced a setback in its bid for a temporary shield against a potential New York enforcement action when a Second Circuit judge said she wouldn't rule on the request on her own, and sent the matter to a three-judge panel to decide.

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OCC, FDIC Say Ore. Opt-Out Law Threatens Interstate Lending

By Jon Hill

Top federal banking regulators have lined up behind the banking industry in a challenge to a new Oregon law aimed at capping interest rates on loans from out-of-state banks, warning in federal court filings that it threatens "confusion" and disruption for interstate lending.

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FTX Deal Would Route $160M To Victims Of Korean Fraudster

By Lauren Berg

The FTX Recovery Trust asked a Delaware bankruptcy judge to greenlight a settlement with the foreign representative of Junho Bang, a Korean citizen jailed over cryptocurrency fraud, that would return more than $160 million to the fraudster's victims.

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Mets Become 1st MLB Team To Partner With Prediction Market

By Elaine Briseño

Sports trading app Novig announced Thursday that it has become the exclusive, official prediction market partner of the New York Mets, marking the first time a Major League Baseball team has collaborated with such a company.

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Latham Secures SEC Relief For Data Center Securitizations

By Jessica Corso

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission staff have freed some types of data center financing from having to comply with Dodd-Frank Act rules on credit risk retention and conflicts of interest, agreeing with Latham & Watkins LLP attorneys' arguments that the financial instruments are not asset-backed securities.

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SEC Beats Fintech CEO's Suit Over Shutdown-Era Case

By Sydney Price

A D.C. federal judge dismissed a suit from the founder of Triterras Fintech alleging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission violated federal law by suing him during the government shutdown last year, holding that the founder has another avenue to fight the agency's claims.

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Polymarket Says Hidden Sports Bets Suit Must Be Arbitrated

By Hailey Konnath

Polymarket is urging a New York federal court to send to arbitration users' claims that the prediction market company disguises its sports gambling offers as sports event contracts to get around regulations, arguing that its terms of use include an arbitration provision.

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3 Firms Steer NYSE Owner ICE's $6B MarketAxess Deal

By Al Barbarino

The parent company of the New York Stock Exchange announced Thursday it has agreed to acquire MarketAxess Holdings Inc., a trading platform for fixed-income markets, for $6 billion, in a deal steered by three law firms.

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Deals Rumor Mill

Curium, Sazerac And Stripe Pursue Megadeals, And More

By Al Barbarino

Reports of potential multibillion-dollar deals were plentiful this week, with U.S. alcohol producer Sazerac steadfast in its $15 billion pursuit of the maker of Jack Daniel's; Curium reportedly in advanced talks to acquire fellow radiopharmaceutical firm Lantheus Holdings Inc. for up to $8 billion; and Nvidia, Stripe and Devon Energy all linked to sizable strategic bets of their own.

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3 Ways Tokenization Is Moving To Traditional Finance

Recent initiatives reflect efforts to integrate distributed ledger technology into existing regulatory frameworks for securities, banking and payments settlements while preserving the underlying rights and obligations of market participants, say attorneys at Hughes Hubbard.

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Key Post-Proposal Shifts Likely In CFPB Loss Mitigation Rule

Mortgage servicers, borrowers and consumer advocates should prepare for a likely narrowed version of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's loss mitigation rule, which is likely to permit sequential reviews, defer to investor guidelines, extend compliance timelines and preempt conflicting state standards, say attorneys at Goodwin.

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Series

Teaching SEC Investigations Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Instructing a law school course on U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigations has made me a more thoughtful, deliberate practitioner because it requires me to continually reassess and challenge what I know about securities law enforcement, how I know it and how best to explain it, says David Chase at Miami Law.

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Advocacy Group Says Law Firm Fellowship Program Biased

By Patrick Hoff

A legal advocacy group said Thursday it had lodged U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charges against a nonprofit and law firms including Jones Day, White & Case and Morgan Lewis, claiming Muslim and Middle Eastern students were getting unlawful preference in a fellowship program.

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ABA Eyes Nixing School DEI Standards To Sway Trump Admin

By Emma Cueto

The American Bar Association is poised next week to eliminate the first of multiple diversity-related law school standards, a controversial move that it hopes will allow it to remain an accreditor despite an uncertain outcome in the face of a Trump administration increasingly wary of the association's role in legal education.

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WilmerHale Sued Over Accidental Client Data Disclosure

By Andrea Keckley

A proposed federal class action filed Wednesday accuses WilmerHale of failing to protect clients' personal information after an employee allegedly disclosed sensitive data, including Social Security numbers, to an unauthorized person who misrepresented their identity back in May.

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2 Traders Admit Guilt In Stolen BigLaw Info Scheme

By Chris Villani

Two men pled guilty Thursday in Massachusetts federal court to their roles in a sweeping scheme to trade on inside information stolen from huge corporate law firms about upcoming deals.

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Ill. Atty Sanctioned For AI Slop In Starbucks Bias Suit

By Adrian Cruz

A unanimous Illinois appeals court sanctioned an attorney representing a former Starbucks employee in a workplace discrimination suit after determining that he submitted briefs using false citations and quotations hallucinated by artificial intelligence software.

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Trump May Renominate Blanche If GOP Holdouts Block Vote

By Courtney Bublé

With Sens. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Thom Tillis, R-N.C., still on the fence about acting Attorney General Todd Blanche's confirmation to be attorney general, President Donald Trump said Thursday he might renominate Blanche next year when the two senators are no longer serving in the Senate.

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DA Says Trump's NY Hush Money Conviction Must Stand

By Frank G. Runyeon

New York prosecutors told a state appellate court that President Donald Trump's 34-count felony conviction for falsifying business records is "unaffected" by the U.S. Supreme Court's watershed presidential immunity decision and should be upheld.

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Judiciary's Bid To Control Courthouses Gets Senate Push

By Courtney Bublé

A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill on Thursday that would create a pilot program for the federal judiciary to obtain direct authority to maintain its buildings, which the judiciary says is desperately needed.

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Bronx Legal Aid Organization's Union Rejects New Pay Offer

By Andrea Keckley

The Bronx Defenders' executive director said on Thursday that the union representing the organization's over 300 attorneys and staff has rejected an updated offer on wages, with both sides still at odds over the prospect of separate salary scales for lawyers and social workers.

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