Paramount Skydance Corp. put a price tag Monday on waiting until next year to close its planned $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, asking a California federal judge to impose an approximately $1.9 billion bond requirement on the Democratic attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America challenging the deal.
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TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 2026 Law360 iOS App Law360 Android App Follow Law360 on Facebook Follow Law360 on LinkedIn Follow Law360 on Twitter

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Paramount Wants AGs, WGA To Pay $1.9B Merger Suit Bond

By Bryan Koenig

Paramount Skydance Corp. put a price tag Monday on waiting until next year to close its planned $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, asking a California federal judge to impose an approximately $1.9 billion bond requirement on the Democratic attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America challenging the deal.

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Analysis

Young Athletes Are Wising Up, But Attys Say They're Still Kids

By Theresa Schliep

As the name, image and likeness industry grows and billions of dollars pour into college sports, attorneys who represent student-athletes say that while they're not as green as their youth suggests, they're still vulnerable to bad actors and need to clear business decisions with mom and dad.

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Justices Again Deny Review Of $5M Carroll Verdict

By Cara Salvatore

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied President Donald Trump's request to rehear his challenge to a $5 million verdict finding he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll.

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DOI Settles 'Peanuts' Music Infringement Claim For $20K

By Hailey Konnath

The U.S. Department of the Interior has agreed to pay $20,000 to the steward of the "Peanuts" television and film music catalog to put to rest claims that the government used music from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on its social media pages without permission, according to an announcement made Monday.

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Ex-ABC Producer Accuses CBS Correspondent Of Harassment

By Craig Clough

A former ABC News producer accused CBS News chief correspondent Matt Gutman of sexual harassment in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court that also accuses her former network of wrongful termination. 

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Morgan & Morgan Sues Fla. Bar Over Celebrity Ad Ban

By Carolina Bolado

Personal injury giant Morgan & Morgan PA has sued the Florida Bar, claiming a bar rule that bans any use of a celebrity's voice or image in lawyer advertising violates the First Amendment.

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Apple Hit With Derivative Suit Over AI Copyright Infringement

By Hailey Konnath

Apple executives and directors are facing a stockholder derivative action claiming they've been knowingly using copyrighted materials to develop Apple's artificial intelligence services — an unlawful business strategy they knew could lead to litigation from copyright holders, the plaintiff told a California federal court.

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PRIVACY & CONSUMER PROTECTION

Pornhub To Pay $120M To End Child Abuse Content Cases

By Dorothy Atkins

The companies behind adult entertainment website Pornhub have agreed to make extensive policy changes and pay $120 million to end certified class claims in California and Alabama by child sex trafficking and sexual abuse material survivors who allege the website profited from crimes committed against them.

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Google To Pay $10M For Spirit Airlines Data To Help AI Models

By Alex Wittenberg

Technology giant Google LLC has won an auction for Spirit Airlines' emails, chats, spreadsheets and other data, offering $10 million for anonymized information it will use to improve its large language models and other products, according to a notice filed Friday in New York bankruptcy court.

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Meta Loses 'Hail Mary' Sanctions Bid On Eve Of AGs' Trial

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge Sunday denied Meta's request for spoliation sanctions against state attorneys general that would've barred a Meta whistleblower from testifying in the upcoming high-stakes social media addiction bellwether trial, ruling that Meta's request was an "obvious" "Hail Mary attempt to eliminate a strong witness" before trial.

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Meta Exec Can't 'Rule Out' Addiction But Doubts It, Jury Told

By Cara Salvatore

A Meta safety executive admitted Monday to a Tennessee jury that she cannot "rule out" that addiction may occur with Instagram but said she believes that so far there is no evidence to identify anything beyond "problematic use."

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Standing Flaw Sinks Chrysler Website Tracking Row, For Now

By Allison Grande

A California federal judge has tossed, with leave to amend, a proposed class action accusing automaker FCA of illegally divulging Chrysler website visitors' personal information to a data broker, finding that the plaintiff had failed to establish the type of concrete injury necessary to sustain her wiretap and privacy claims.

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Calif. AG Pans Bid To Pause Social Media Algorithm Limits

By Craig Clough

The California attorney general urged a federal judge to deny requests from TikTok, Meta and Google to block enforcement of a state law barring them from using algorithms to deliver feeds to children, saying the court already denied a preliminary injunction and should not grant one pending the companies' appeal.

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EMPLOYMENT

Fox Says News Anchor Fired Over Outbursts, Retained Laptop

By Susan Smiley

Detroit's WJBK-TV has responded to allegations of sex discrimination and retaliation by former news anchor Taryn Asher and filed a counterclaim alleging she never returned a company laptop despite repeated requests.

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Experts See Looming Legal Disputes Over FCC Party Balance

By Christopher Cole

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision to ditch case law shielding independent federal agency members from presidential removal is unlikely to resolve ongoing controversy over White House control of the Federal Communications Commission, experts said Monday.

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Justices Won't Reconsider Verizon's $47M FCC Fine

By Nadia Dreid

The U.S. Supreme Court is not interested in reconsidering how it worded its June opinion upholding the Federal Communications Commission's authority to issue monetary penalties, despite Verizon arguing that the ruling left it between a rock and a hard place concerning the $47 million fine it already paid.

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FCC Turns Down Bid To Revisit Campaign Ad Pricing Policy

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Communications Commission declined a petition asking it to reconsider guidance the agency put out earlier this year about political ads, saying the "central premise" of the request was "wrong many times over."

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'Act Now' To Save FCC School Subsidy, Group Urges Public

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

School and library broadband advocates are urging communities that depend on the E-Rate subsidy that supports high-speed connectivity in learning environments to file public comments in support amid a push by the Federal Communications Commission to dismantle it.

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Broadband Co. Says It's Catching Up After Rural Fund Delays

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

Broadband provider Brightspeed told the Federal Communications Commission that it is on track to meet its obligations under a rural development fund despite ongoing delays.

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CRIMINAL LAW

2nd Circ. Says Public Can Film Police And Their Stations

By Brian Steele

The Second Circuit said Monday it has joined "a growing chorus of our sister circuits" in finding a constitutional right to record law enforcement activity in public, as well as police buildings, but still turned away a self-described First Amendment auditor's lawsuit over his arrest while filming the exterior of a Connecticut police station.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

Whiskey Business: Parsing The 9th Circ. Jack Daniel's IP Toss

The Ninth Circuit's recent ruling in VIP Products v. Jack Daniel's, holding a toy did not tarnish the whiskey maker's trademarks, gives fact-finders great latitude by showing that there may exist no categories of per se tarnishing content, says attorney Sara Gold.

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LEGAL INDUSTRY

Law Firms See Revenue, Demand Grow In First Half Of 2026

By Anna Sanders

Despite rising expenses driven by artificial intelligence and return to office mandates, the legal industry is performing well in 2026, with U.S. law firms recording a double-digit jump in revenue and strong growth in demand so far this year, according to new survey results from Citi Global Wealth at Work's Law Firm Group.

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3 NY Injury Firms Get Uber's RICO Suit Tossed

By Lauren Berg

A New York federal judge threw out Uber Technologies Inc.'s lawsuit accusing three personal injury law firms of conspiring with physicians and exploiting passengers to pursue fake or exaggerated injury claims in order to strongarm settlement payouts from the ride-hailing giant.

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Nussbaum-Linked Firms' Ch. 11s Tossed For Bad Faith

By Ben Zigterman

A New York bankruptcy judge has dismissed the Chapter 11 cases of two commercial real estate law firms headed by Mark J. Nussbaum, finding their petitions were filed in bad faith and that the cases instead belonged in an assignment for the benefit of creditors process in New York state court.

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Chattah Can't Serve As Acting Nevada US Atty, 9th Circ. Says

By Emma Cueto

The Ninth Circuit on Monday upheld a lower court ruling that Nevada's top prosecutor was not put in place lawfully and was barred from overseeing the criminal cases giving rise to the appeal, the latest state where courts have shut down attempts by the Trump administration to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation.

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Clifford Chance Pushes To Send Clawback Suit To Arbitration

By Ryan Boysen

Clifford Chance LLP wants a high-profile partner pay dispute sent to arbitration, accusing two ex-partners who claim they're facing a $6 million clawback demand of "gamesmanship" by filing suit in New York federal court.

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NYCBA Cautions Against Recording Nonclient Calls

By Emily Sawicki

New York City attorneys who have been granted permission may ethically use artificial intelligence to record, transcribe and summarize conversations with nonclients, according to the latest ethics guidance by the New York City Bar Association Monday, which added that just because they can doesn't mean they should.

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COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

ABC News

AT&T Inc.

Adobe Inc.

Amazon.com Inc.

American Civil Liberties Union

Apple Inc.

Buckle-Down Inc.

CBS Interactive Inc.

FCA US LLC

FedEx Corp.

George Washington University

Google LLC

Heritage Auctions Inc.

Instagram Inc.

Jack Daniel's Properties Inc.

JetBlue Airways Corp.

LiveRamp

Meta Platforms Inc.

Microsoft Corp.

National Collegiate Athletic Association

New York City Bar Association

Nike Inc.

OpenAI OpCo LLC

Opendorse Inc.

Otis Worldwide Corp.

Skydance Media LLC

Spirit Airlines Inc.

T-Mobile US Inc.

The Florida Bar

The Walt Disney Co.

TikTok Inc.

Uber Technologies Inc.

Verizon Communications Inc.

Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.

Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

Writers Guild of America East

YouTube Inc.

LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS

Anderson Kill

Ashurst Perkins

Cleary Gottlieb

Clement & Murphy

Clifford Chance

Cooley LLP

Covington & Burling

Cuneo Gilbert

Davis Polk

Debevoise & Plimpton

Duane Morris

Farmer Brownstein

Foley & Lardner

Foster Swift

Fried Frank

Gibson Dunn

Gold IP Law

Gupta Wessler

Husch Blackwell

Jenner & Block

Kellogg Hansen

Klein Thomas

Kobre & Kim

Latham & Watkins

Lavelle Law Firm

Milbank LLP

Mintz Levin

MoloLamken

Morgan & Morgan PA

Morgan Lewis

Nussbaum Lowinger

O'Melveny & Myers

Parness Law Firm

Pollock Cohen

Proskauer Rose

Quinn Emanuel

Reitler Kailas

Selendy Gay

Shegerian & Associates

Shinder Cantor

Sidley Austin

Simon & Simon PC

Sommers Schwartz

Spencer Fane

Steptoe LLP

Susman Godfrey

Tauler Smith

Wagstaff & Cartmell

Wilkinson Stekloff

Williams Mullen

Wingate Russotti

Winston Taylor

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

California Attorney General's Office

European Union

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Reserve System

Federal Trade Commission

Florida Supreme Court

Los Angeles Superior Court

Tennessee Attorney General's Office

U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Nevada

U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. District Court for the Central District of California

U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona

U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

U.S. Supreme Court

United States District Court for the District of Nevada

United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama