Baldoni Atty Avoids Sanctions For Blake Lively Comments

By Pete Brush

A lawyer for Justin Baldoni will not face sanctions for public comments critical of Blake Lively because they came long enough ago that they are unlikely to influence the feuding Hollywood stars' upcoming trial, a Manhattan federal judge held Friday.

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Q&A

Wachtell Atty's Inside Look At $110B Paramount-WBD Deal

By Al Barbarino

The agreement behind Warner Bros. Discovery's $110 billion planned sale to Paramount Global set new benchmarks for transactions of its size, from record-setting regulatory break fees to unusual merger agreement provisions.

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ROSS Says Anthropic Case Supports 3rd Circ. IP Appeal

By Adam Lidgett

An artificial-intelligence-based legal search engine appealing a finding that its use of Thomson Reuters' Westlaw headnotes did not constitute fair use has pointed to arguments in a separate case it says supports the idea that AI training is connected to national security.

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W.Va.'s Privacy Law Flouts 1st Amendment, 4th Circ. Told

By Jared Foretek

News organizations and free speech advocates are backing major data brokers in their challenge to a West Virginia law prohibiting the publication of home addresses and phone numbers for judicial and law enforcement officers, telling the Fourth Circuit the law should be subject to — and fail under — strict scrutiny review.

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Vegas Paper Gets Temporary Reprieve After High Court Denial

By Matthew Perlman

A Las Vegas federal court has temporarily blocked the Las Vegas Review-Journal from ceasing to print and distribute rival daily newspaper the Sun, despite an appeals court invalidating the publications' long-standing joint operating agreement last year.

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NC Judge Says Ex-Trump Media Exec Must Sit For Deposition

By Abigail Harrison

An ex-executive of Truth Social's parent company must sit for a full six hours of deposition, after a North Carolina federal judge ruled that he failed to show why Trump Media & Technology Group Corp.'s six-hour time request is unduly burdensome or duplicative.

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Colo. Appeals Court Clarifies Law On Public Figure Criticism

By Rachel Konieczny

A speaker who accuses another person of a crime expresses a protected opinion if the speaker fully and accurately discloses the factual basis for that characterization, the Colorado Court of Appeals held in a defamation dispute.

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Snoop Dogg Can't Register 'Smoke Weed Everyday' As TM

By Mike Curley

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has rejected a bid from rapper and cannabis enthusiast Snoop Dogg to register the phrase "Smoke Weed Everyday" as a trademark, saying the phrase is too widely used to be linked to his products, and he can't register a phrase suggesting violations of federal law.

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Trump Executive Order Targets 'Made In America' Labeling

By Emily Field

President Donald Trump on Friday issued an executive order directing the Federal Trade Commission to draft regulations for online retailers to verify that goods advertised as "Made In America" are in fact made in the country, making it an enforcement priority for the agency.

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NYC's Angelika Film Center Wins Dismissal In Privacy Suit

By Joyce Hanson

An iconic Manhattan indie movie house's operator has won a New York federal court's dismissal of video privacy act claims brought by a website subscriber who used the site to watch film trailers and buy tickets to shows, then accused the business of sharing its information with Meta.

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Skullcandy Must Face Privacy Action Over Online Trackers

By Lauren Berg

Skullcandy Inc. cannot ditch a proposed class action accusing the headphone company of invading consumers' privacy with its use of online trackers on its website, a California federal judge ruled Thursday, saying the plaintiff adequately alleges her data was recorded without consent before being transmitted to third parties in real time.

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Court Rejects Puerto Rican Baseball League's Dismissal Bid

By Elaine Briseño

A federal judge has rejected a Puerto Rican baseball league's efforts to shift a former team owner's lawsuit back to local courts, saying the court is "duty-bound" to follow the First Circuit's instructions to reconsider the federal civil rights claims.

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Child Abuse Material Is Too Easy To Find On Meta, Jury Hears

By Cara Salvatore

Jurors in New Mexico's social media trial saw deposition testimony Friday in which counsel for Meta questioned an expert hired but not called by the state attorney general's office regarding his review of child abuse material on the company's platforms, which he said was "publicly available for anybody."

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Philadelphia Sues Glock For Marketing Guns As 'Fun'

By P.J. D'Annunzio

Austrian firearms manufacturer Glock was sued by the city of Philadelphia on Friday for allegedly fueling gun violence within its borders by promoting the use of illegal "switches" to turn its semi-automatic handguns into fully automatic weapons.

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Roundup

Conn. Statehouse Catch-Up: AI, Social Media, Private Equity

By Aaron Keller

Connecticut lawmakers are one-third of the way through the state's three-month legislative session, and already, bills targeting social media, artificial intelligence, prediction markets, private equity and hospital ownership are stacking up at the statehouse.

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Amazon Wins Bid To Void €746M Luxembourg Privacy Fine

By Allison Grande

A Luxembourg appeals court Friday threw out a €746 million ($854.3 million) fine imposed on Amazon for allegedly violating the European Union's privacy rules through its handling of personal data, finding the country's data protection regulator failed to properly consider two key elements and needed to rethink the penalty.

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Adobe Inks $150M Deal In DOJ Suit Over App Subscriptions

By Ben Adlin

Adobe Inc. will pay $75 million in civil penalties and offer customers $75 million in free services under a tentative deal to resolve the U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit over the company's software subscription practices, including an early termination fee that prosecutors had described as "a bit like heroin" for the company.

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Ex-FTC Staff Urge Full 9th Circ. Review Of Apple Injunction

By Gina Kim

A group of former antitrust enforcement officials threw their support behind Apple's request for the Ninth Circuit to reconsider its decision blocking the company from charging developers "prohibitive" commissions on iPhone app purchases made outside its systems, arguing the decision tries to "micromanage Apple's dealings."

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States To Head Live Nation Antitrust Trial After Feds Settle

By Stewart Bishop

Over two dozen states and the District of Columbia are forging ahead with monopolization claims against Live Nation in Manhattan federal court after the federal government unexpectedly agreed to settle with the live entertainment giant after a week of trial.

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Dorsey Defends Twitter Bot Count In Trial Over Musk Takeover

By Bonnie Eslinger

Ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey stood by 2022 company statements that bots made up less than 5% of accounts on the platform during video depositions shown Friday in a California federal trial over investor claims that Elon Musk deliberately tanked the company's stock with misstatements about fake accounts to renegotiate the $44 billion deal.

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EchoStar Must Put Away $40B To Pay Builders, Group Says

By Nadia Dreid

EchoStar should have set aside some of the $40 billion it plans to make from spectrum sales to AT&T and SpaceX to repay the companies who were supposed to be building Dish Network's 5G network, which EchoStar and Dish have now abandoned, a think tank has told the FCC.

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Mobile Co. To Pay $60K For Breaking FCC Int'l Carrier Rules

By Christopher Cole

A mobile provider will shell out $60,000 and set up a compliance plan after acknowledging it violated the Federal Communications Commission's international common carrier rules by not securing an FCC authorization before selling services.

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Tort Report: Uber Won't OK Bigger Jury At 2nd Bellwether

By Y. Peter Kang

Trial strategy by Uber ahead of a second bellwether trial in sexual assault multidistrict litigation and a $4 million injury verdict against Publix in Florida lead Law360's Tort Report, which compiles recent personal injury and medical malpractice news that may have flown under the radar.

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Robinhood Denied A Second Try At Mass. Gaming Shield

By Julie Manganis

Robinhood on Friday lost a second attempt to convince a Massachusetts federal judge to preemptively rule that sports event contracts are not subject to state gaming regulations.

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IRS Seeks To Dismiss Meta's Claim On Interest, Penalty

By Molly Moses

The IRS did not erroneously assess interest and penalties against Meta Platforms during 2020, when the company said it was protected under a diaster-relief provision, the agency argued as it urged the U.S. Tax Court to throw out the social media giant's challenge of such an assessment.

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Philly Music Venue Hits Ch. 11 With Tax Liens, Lawsuits

By Emily Lever

World Cafe Live, a nonprofit live performance venue in Philadelphia, got a Pennsylvania bankruptcy judge's permission Friday to fund its Chapter 11 proceeding for two weeks after it filed for bankruptcy protection due to a looming closure for unpaid taxes.

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Have Iconic Twitter Trademarks Been Abandoned?

A set of lawsuits concerning the status of X Corp.'s "Twitter" and "tweet" trademarks, which will potentially be considered abandoned in July, will provide instructive insights into how trademark owners can defend against abandonment claims, say attorneys at Bradley Arant.

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Google's Scraping Suit Asks How Far DMCA Protections Go

A California federal court's decision in Google v. SerpApi will spotlight a long-developing judicial split over how to apply Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s ban on circumventing a copyright holder’s access controls, an increasingly important point in litigation over web scraping and artificial intelligence training, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.

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Conservative Groups Back DOJ As Amici In Law Firm EO Suits

By Emily Sawicki

Conservative groups are backing the Trump administration's attempts to revive executive orders targeting BigLaw firms, arguing in an amicus brief to the D.C. Circuit that Perkins Coie LLP had "unclean hands" for its part in what they called the "Russiagate hoax."

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Winston & Strawn Sanctioned For Trying To 'Make Up Facts'

By Dani Kass

A California federal judge sanctioned Winston & Strawn LLP on Monday for making up facts and otherwise misrepresenting the record in contract litigation over its client's app being removed from Apple's platform, then separately dismissed the case on the merits.

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Don't 'Grimace, Nod, Laugh': Judge Breyer Slams Musk's Attys

By Bonnie Eslinger

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer scolded Elon Musk's Quinn Emanuel counsel during a hearing Monday ahead of closing arguments in California litigation alleging that Musk tanked Twitter's stock to get out of his $44 billion acquisition deal, saying he wouldn't "sit here and watch lawyers grimace, nod, laugh in court."

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SEC Enforcement Head Resigns After 7 Months

By Sarah Jarvis

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Monday that its enforcement director, Margaret "Meg" Ryan, has resigned from the agency after nearly seven months on the job.

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Analysis

Excitement, Tinged With Skepticism, Over AAA's AI Arbitrator

By Caroline Simson

The American Arbitration Association caused a stir last fall when it introduced its AI Arbitrator for documents-only construction cases, and even though lawyers say they're excited about the tool's possibilities — and that of artificial intelligence in arbitration in general — so far, many have been reluctant to be the first to take that plunge.

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Boris Epshteyn Targeted Over Trump Bid To 'Coerce' BigLaw

By Lauren Berg

Lawyers, law professors and retired judges led by two nonprofits urged the New York state courts' ethics committee on Monday to investigate Boris Epshteyn's involvement in President Donald Trump's efforts to "intimidate and coerce" BigLaw firms into pro bono agreements with the administration.

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Trump To Get 5th North Carolina Federal Court Vacancy

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump will get another judicial vacancy to fill in North Carolina with U.S. District Judge William L. Osteen Jr. of the Middle District of North Carolina recently announcing he will take senior status.

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Paralegal Calls Full Lewis Brisbois Arbitration Unenforceable

By Adrian Cruz

A former Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP paralegal has told a Florida state judge that the firm shouldn't be able to force her into arbitrating her claims against it because a number of the alleged actions took place after she was terminated from her job.

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Democrats Push DOJ To Investigate Noem For Perjury

By Courtney Bublé

Democrats have referred the departing U.S. secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem, to the Department of Justice for a perjury investigation following her recent congressional testimony.

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Mass. Justices Won't Boost Pay For Court-Appointed Attys

By Julie Manganis

Massachusetts' highest court on Monday declined a request to let state judges offer higher hourly rates to induce attorneys to accept court-appointed cases, a proposal meant to alleviate a shortage of appointed counsel in two of the state's busiest counties.

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Ga. Panel Says Minister Can't Rep His Church In Tax Case

By Chart Riggall

The Georgia Court of Appeals said Monday that nonattorneys can't be allowed to represent unincorporated associations in court, backing a trial court's dismissal of a minister's bid to represent his church in a property tax dispute with his home county.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court's docket last week featured disputes including an $83.75 million settlement tied to a renewable energy merger, fraud claims in a fertilizer company acquisition and a developer's fight for control of a major Philadelphia redevelopment project.

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