Roundup

Defamation Litigation Roundup: 'The Rip,' Lively, Justin Sun

By Theresa Schliep

In this month's review of defamation fights, Law360 details a suit by a pair of Miami-Dade police officers over a movie starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck that they said makes them seem like sleazy cops, as well as a case by a Trump family-backed cryptocurrency firm against Justin Sun.

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Exclusive

Facing Scrutiny, 'Schedule A' Suits Grow Beyond Chicago

By Ivan Moreno

Federal lawsuits that target dozens or even hundreds of online sellers at once kept climbing in 2025 and spread beyond their Chicago stronghold, even as new data shows more friction for brand owners' mass anti-counterfeiting strategy.

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Universal Music Rejects $65B Pershing Square Proposal

By Al Barbarino

Universal Music Group said Friday it has rejected an unsolicited takeover proposal from Pershing Square Capital Management, saying the offer worth roughly $65 billion fundamentally undervalues the music company.

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Trump Ordered To Respond To Claims IRS Deal Was Fraud

By Jack McLoone

President Donald Trump must respond to allegations made by a group of former federal judges that his settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice resolving his $10 billion suit against the Internal Revenue Service defrauded the court, the Florida federal judge who presided over the case said Friday.

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Megan Thee Stallion Wins Back $75K Defamation Verdict

By David Minsky

A Florida federal judge reinstated a $75,000 verdict for Megan Thee Stallion, finding Friday that a Texas-based blogger wasn't entitled to a presuit notice required for media defendants because she engaged in a financially motivated campaign to defame the rapper. 

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CNN Strikes Tentative Deal To End Breastfeeding Bias Case

By Kelcey Caulder

CNN America and a former worker who claimed she was unlawfully denied a proper place to pump breast milk on the job told a D.C. federal court they had agreed on the broad strokes of a deal to resolve her suit.  

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Spotify Says Class Suit Over Bots Lacks 'Special Relationship'

By Craig Clough

An attorney for Spotify urged a California federal judge Friday to dismiss a proposed class action from the rapper RBX alleging the streaming service allows billions of fraudulent bots to elevate some performers at the expense of others, saying no "special relationship" exists between the parties to support the negligence claim.

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Roundup

Taxation With Representation: Latham, White & Case, Vischer

By Zak Kostro

In this week's Taxation With Representation, Fertitta Entertainment acquires Caesars Entertainment, Eli Lilly and Co. buys three companies involved in vaccine development, and nuclear energy company Newcleo Ltd. says it plans to go public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, NewHold Investment Corp. III.

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Fed. Judge Rips Altice, Touchstream For Patent Case Delays

By Bonnie Eslinger

A New York federal judge denied broadband and video provider Altice's request for judgment on the pleadings in patent litigation brought by Touchstream Technologies, calling it "a delayed, misfiled, hyper-technical and largely meritless motion," while criticizing Touchstream as "also responsible for tactical decisions which led to significant delays."

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Nielsen Patent Survives Alice Invalidation Bid Before Trial

By Elliot Weld

A Delaware federal judge on Friday declined to invalidate a patent held by The Nielsen Co. covering audio recognition software under the U.S. Supreme Court's Alice test, saying the language of the patent was not abstract.

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AI Voice Co. Files Ch. 7 Amid Actors' Copyright Suit

By Vince Sullivan

Artificial intelligence-enabled voice generating software company Lovo Inc. has filed for Chapter 7 protection in New York in the midst of an ongoing putative class action brought by voice actors alleging their voices were used by the company without permission.

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Vermont Data Privacy Bill Poised For Signing Despite Doubts

By Allison Grande

Vermont is poised to become the latest state to enact comprehensive consumer data privacy legislation, after the legislature on Friday approved a framework that consumer advocates have criticized for being significantly weaker than a proposal for regulating companies' handling of personal information that the governor vetoed two years ago.

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5th Circ. Lets Texas Enforce App Age-Check Law

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

The Fifth Circuit has temporarily allowed enforcement of a state law that restricts app downloads by age and requires app stores to display age ratings in Texas, lifting a court order blocking the law while an appellate panel considers the litigation on its merits.

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SeatGeek Ditches Site User's Data Tracking Suit, For Now

By Gina Kim

A California federal judge shut down a proposed class action alleging that SeatGeek deployed tracking pixels that share information about website users for targeted advertising, ruling Thursday that it didn't plead that the information was embarrassing or that its disclosure would be highly offensive, but she gave the plaintiff the opportunity to try again.

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NewsGuard Wants Appeal Over FTC 'Retaliation' Fast-Tracked

By Matthew Perlman

News rating organization NewsGuard Technologies is asking the D.C. Circuit to expedite its appeal in a case accusing the Federal Trade Commission of retaliating against the group for its reporting on disinformation.

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Streamers Deemed NJ Employees, Contractors Under FLSA

By Benjamin Morse

A New Jersey federal judge ruled Friday that adult entertainers who perform on a streaming service are independent contractors under federal wage law but employees under New Jersey law, handing both sides partial wins in a wage class and collective action over the platform's pay practices.

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Key Target In NBA Betting Scandal Pleads Guilty

By Alex Lawson

A Mississippi man who billed himself as a sports betting influencer has pled guilty in New York federal court to aiding a massive NBA betting scandal and admitted to bribing an active player to aid the plot.

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House Panel To Consider Ideas For New Navigation Systems

By Christopher Cole

A U.S. House subcommittee will hold a hearing June 4 on proposals to deploy new Earth-based systems that would buttress the GPS in case of sabotage and signal disruptions.

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EchoStar, FCC Reach Deal To Settle Auction Defaults

By Christopher Cole

EchoStar inked a deal Friday with the Federal Communications Commission to settle debt claims from spectrum auction defaults for up to $2.9 billion, depending on how much money the FCC brings in from a new round of license sales.

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Roundup

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

By Megan Norcott

The past week in London has seen the billionaire who donated £5 million ($6.7 million) to Nigel Farage sue Ben Habib, the leader of far-right party Advance UK, for defamation; Mashreqbank bring claims against three subsidiaries of dissolved private equity giant Abraaj Group for commercial fraud; and the property and investment vehicle of the State of Kuwait be targeted by four real estate figures who filed a miscellaneous claim. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Your Next Litigation Hold Should Cover AI Chat Logs

The Delaware Chancery Court’s recent decision in Fortis Advisors v. Krafton to treat a CEO’s artificial intelligence chats as substantive evidence is being read as a discovery warning to litigators, but there is a second duty-to-preserve lesson that is especially pertinent to in-house counsel, say attorneys at Faegre Drinker.

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Double Shooting Renews Courthouse Safety Fears In NC

By Hayley Fowler

The shooting of two Fox Rothschild LLP attorneys outside a courthouse in Raleigh, North Carolina, ahead of Memorial Day weekend has renewed calls to protect the safety of judges and lawyers in an increasingly volatile justice system.

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Baker McKenzie Asks Judge Not To Toss Suit Against Ex-Atty

By Alison Knezevich

A lawyer for Baker McKenzie on Friday urged a Washington, D.C., judge not to dismiss the BigLaw firm's defamation suit against a former tax associate who accused a firm office leader of sexual assault, telling the court the accusations were false and made with "malice."

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Bonus Spotlight

Selendy Gay Doles Out Spring Associate Bonuses

By Aebra Coe

New York litigation boutique Selendy Gay PLLC paid its associates spring bonuses of as much as $25,000 this week, according to the firm.

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Akin Gump Owes Fees For Winebow's 'Self-Indulgent' Appeal

By Dorothy Atkins

The Ninth Circuit on Thursday ordered an importer's Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP attorneys to pay a European winemaker fees for having to defend against the importer's "spurious objections" to the winemaker's valid arbitral award, ruling that the importer's "self-indulgent" appeal warrants sanctions in the form of fees.

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Calif. Panel Reverses Order For Citing Atty's Bogus Case Law

By Dorothy Atkins

A California appellate panel on Thursday reversed a judgment in favor of a man accused of abusing his son, finding that "without doubt" the trial judge abused her discretion by incorporating the man's bogus legal citations into her ruling, despite being alerted to the mistakes in advance.

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NY Judge Doubts Nussbaum-Linked Firms Belong In Ch. 11

By Emily Lever

A New York bankruptcy judge on Friday questioned whether his court was the proper venue to wind down two commercial real estate law firms headed by Mark J. Nussbaum as the debtors sought to ditch an assignment for the benefit of creditors process in New York state court.

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Dems Say DOJ Blocked Bondi On Trump Questions

By Courtney Bublé

Democrats were incensed on Friday that the U.S. Department of Justice attorneys who accompanied former Attorney General Pam Bondi to her committee interview stopped her from answering questions about President Donald Trump.

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Civil Rights Icon Clarence B. Jones Dies At 95

By Andrea Keckley

Civil rights icon Clarence B. Jones, a speechwriter and personal attorney to Martin Luther King Jr., died May 22 at an assisted living facility in the Santa Clara County city of Cupertino, California, his family confirmed earlier this week. He was 95.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Kirkland & Ellis says it's investing a half billion dollars into developing its own artificial intelligence platform to better serve clients. And Law360 looks at the general counsel who is guiding BP through its latest leadership crisis after the company abruptly dismissed its board chair.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Phillips Black Inc., Hogan Lovells and Watkins & Eager PLLC lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Black Mississippi death row prisoner who argued racial discrimination tainted his jury selection is entitled to habeas corpus relief.

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Titan Of The Plaintiffs Bar: Boies Schiller's Matthew Schwartz

By Sarah Jarvis

Matthew L. Schwartz oscillated among many career aspirations as a kid, from astronaut to mayor of New York. When it was time to head off to college, the man who would go on to handle the prosecution of employees tied to Bernie Madoff and become chair of Boies Schiller Flexner LLP set his sights on science, earning an undergraduate degree in physics.

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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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