The U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday that it will create a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" with the proceeds of a settlement between President Donald Trump and the IRS over the leaks of his tax information.
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2026 Law360 iOS App Law360 Android App Follow Law360 on Facebook Follow Law360 on LinkedIn Follow Law360 on Twitter

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Trump-IRS Deal To Create $1.8B 'Anti-Weaponization' Fund

By Jack McLoone

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday that it will create a $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" with the proceeds of a settlement between President Donald Trump and the IRS over the leaks of his tax information.

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OpenAI Beats Musk Suit Over For-Profit Restructuring

By Dorothy Atkins

In an advisory decision Monday, a California federal jury cleared OpenAI and executives Sam Altman and Greg Brockman of allegations they breached the nonprofit's charitable trust by converting to a for-profit, handing billionaire Elon Musk a defeat in a closely watched three-week trial that threatened to shake up the artificial intelligence industry.

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Spain To Pay Shakira €60M After Tax Fraud Acquittal

By Josh White

The Spanish government must pay Shakira over €60 million ($70 million), including interest, after a Madrid court acquitted the Colombian singer of allegations of tax fraud in a long-running dispute over her residency status, the court announced Monday.

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Game Co. Seeks Damages Boost To $1.4B In False Ad Case

By Elliot Weld

A mobile game company that won a $420 million jury verdict in April against a rival over its use of bots and representations that its games relied on skill has urged a New York federal judge to order an increased disgorgement of $1.4 billion, arguing it was "hard to imagine a civil case with a worse defendant."

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NYT, Tribune Say Perplexity Can't Fault Users For Bot Outputs

By Ivan Moreno

The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune on Friday urged a New York federal judge to reject Perplexity AI's bid to pare down their copyright and trademark lawsuits, arguing the company cannot blame users for allegedly infringing outputs generated by a system Perplexity itself built with copied news content.

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NYT Attacks Pentagon's Media Escort Policy In New Suit

By Gina Kim

The New York Times filed a second lawsuit in D.C. federal court on Monday challenging the Department of Defense's interim policy requiring reporters to be accompanied by an official escort while on Pentagon premises, arguing that it revives vacated prohibitions on newsgathering that were already found to be unconstitutional.

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DEALS

Wachtell Lipton Guides Publicis On $2.2B LiveRamp Deal

By Al Barbarino

France's Publicis Groupe has agreed to acquire data collaboration platform LiveRamp at an enterprise value of nearly $2.2 billion, in a deal steered by Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.

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INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

MLB's Cubs Seek Quick Win In TM Battle With Bar Owner

By Isaac Monterose

The Chicago Cubs told an Illinois federal court to grant them a quick win in the Major League Baseball team's trademark infringement suit against a bar owner who, among other things, allegedly kept using the team's trademarks even after his licensing agreement with it expired.

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Musk's XAI Opposes Anonymity In Deepfake Suit

By Mike Curley

Elon Musk's xAI is asking a California federal court to force the use of the real identities of a group of women suing over Grok-generated deepfake images of them in sexual situations, saying they haven't shown that proceeding under pseudonyms is necessary to protect their privacy.

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Calif. High School Athletes Say State's NIL Ban Exploits Them

By David Steele

High school athletes told a California federal judge that state regulations unfairly limit their name, image and likeness opportunities, contrary to the state governing body's claim that the rules exist to protect amateurism and keep transfers reasonable.

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P-Funk Founder Sues UMG For $1.1M In Frozen Royalties

By Susan Smiley

Parliament-Funkadelic frontman George Clinton filed suit Friday in Michigan federal court alleging that music industry giant UMG has illegally withheld more than $1.1 million in royalty payments because of a separate lawsuit pending between Clinton and the estate of Clinton's keyboardist in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court this past week handled a broad mix of celebrity estate litigation, merger disputes, investor suits, record demands, sanctions fights and questions over corporate moves away from Delaware.

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PRIVACY & CONSUMER PROTECTION

Calif. Kicks Off Rulemaking For Social Media Addiction Law

By Allison Grande

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is seeking public comment on a new set of proposed regulations for complying with the age determination and parental consent aspects of a looming law that restricts social media platforms from using algorithms to deliver addictive feeds to children.

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Fla. Court Tosses Pricing Suit Against Textbook Publishers

By David Minsky

A Florida court tossed a qui tam action alleging that McGraw Hill and another educational publisher billed Sunshine State schools for educational materials at disparate costs in violation of the "best pricing" statute, ruling that the law only applies to interstate sales. 

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Fla. Hospitals Seek $10.5M In Fees In Safety Rating Fight

By Danielle Ferguson

Community hospitals owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp. sought $10.5 million in fees they said were warranted in their successful Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act case against hospital ratings nonprofit Leapfrog, while the nonprofit called the request "grotesquely inflated" and premature.

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Disneyland Illegally Collects Visitors' Face Scans, Suit Says

By Gina Kim

Disneyland guests hit the entertainment behemoth with a proposed class action in New York federal court Friday alleging it gathered facial recognition data of children who enter its parks without a meaningful way for them to opt out, arguing "the onus of privacy rights should not be on the victim."

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Okla. AG Says Roblox Fails To Stop Child Predators

By Mike Curley

The Oklahoma attorney general is suing Roblox, saying the massive online gaming platform has failed to take steps to protect its minor users from sexual predation and exploitation from child predators.

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COMPETITION

Calif. AG Previews Live Nation Remedies At Democratic Forum

By Courtney Bublé

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, one of the state attorneys general of a coalition of states that recently won a jury verdict finding Live Nation illegally established a monopoly over the live music industry, said Monday the next step is a structural overhaul of the conglomerate.

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Ad Buyers Want To Depose Nexstar CEO In Price-Fixing Case

By Nadia Dreid

Nexstar's CEO can't skip out on being deposed by advertisers who claim that the broadcast behemoth and its competitors in the TV industry came together to fix the price of advertisements, those ad buyers have told the judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation.

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EMPLOYMENT

NY Times Editor Wants To Expand EEOC Race Bias Suit

By Patrick Hoff

The white New York Times editor at the center of a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sex and race discrimination case asked a federal court to let him enter the lawsuit, saying he wants to add state and local claims that can't be leveled by the bias watchdog.

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Brief

Celebrity-Owned NY Entertainment Venue Settles Wage Suit

By MJ Koo

Tiger Woods and Justin Timberlake's New York sports bar told a federal judge on Monday that it has agreed to settle a wage and hour lawsuit brought by two bartenders who alleged the celebrity-owned venue stole their tips and shorted them on overtime pay.

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Ex-FCC Official Urges Agency To Bring USF Billing In-House

By Christopher Cole

A former top Federal Communications Commission official says it's time for an overhaul of how the agency runs the Universal Service Fund with reforms that should include bringing the program's billions of dollars in yearly revenue collections in-house.

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FCC Told It's Obligated To Answer Petition On Fox Philly

By Nadia Dreid

The D.C. Circuit recently said that the Federal Communications Commission has a "non-discretionary obligation" to respond to applications for review, and an advocacy group that's spent almost three years pushing to strip a Fox affiliate station of its license on allegations it aired election conspiracy theories says that obligation applies to it as well.

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Brief

FCC Commish Focuses On Spectrum In Trips Around Globe

By Christopher Cole

Commissioner Olivia Trusty of the Federal Communications Commission has kept global spectrum policy at top of mind, and her travel schedule shows it.

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Brief

AT&T Seeks FCC's OK To Change Covered Routers

By Nadia Dreid

AT&T is asking the Federal Communications Commission to greenlight hardware changes to foreign-made routers, which the agency recently placed on the covered list, arguing the artificial intelligence boom has created a shortage that makes getting replacements difficult.

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PERSONAL INJURY & MEDICAL MALPRACTICE

Live Nation, Club Hit With $50M Suit Over Wrong-Way Death

By Julie Manganis

Employees of the House of Blues Boston over-served alcohol to a patron who subsequently hit and killed another driver in a wrong-way crash, a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit filed Monday in Massachusetts state court alleges.

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TAX

Iowa Aligns With Boosted Fed. Tax Gambling Reporting Level

By Zak Kostro

Iowa aligned with a higher threshold under federal tax law for determining when state income tax must be withheld on gambling winnings as part of a bill signed by the governor.

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IMMIGRATION

Feds Want Research Coalition's Visa Censorship Suit Tossed

By Tom Lotshaw

The Trump administration told a D.C. federal judge that a technology research coalition's lack of injury should doom a suit challenging its new visa restriction policy targeting noncitizens who help foreign governments censor protected expression by American citizens and tech companies.

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PEOPLE

Holland & Knight Taps Wiley Leader As Telecom Chair

By Jack Rodgers

Holland & Knight LLP announced Monday it has hired the former co-chair of Wiley's wireless practice in Washington to take the reins of the Tampa, Florida-headquartered firm's telecommunications, media and technology team as chair.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

Nielsen Appeal Tests Antitrust Limits Of Pricing And Bundling

In Cumulus v. Nielsen, the Second Circuit is considering a structural pattern in which a monopolist exploits upstream market power to foreclose downstream competition, which could potentially offer broad insight into how courts will assess exclusionary bundling and pricing defenses under antitrust law, says Luke Hasskamp at Bona Law.

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Series

Judges On AI: How Courts Can Survive The Tech Revolution

Colorado Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter and Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Lino Lipinsky de Orlov discuss how artificial intelligence has already fundamentally altered the legal system and offer tips for courts navigating deepfakes, hallucinations and a gap in access to AI tools.

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LEGAL INDUSTRY

The 2026 Summer Associates Survey

By Daniela Porat

Law students hoping to land summer associate roles at their dream firms have to start applying earlier and earlier, forcing students to strike a difficult balance between focusing on academics and completing applications. Find out how students navigated the ever-competitive process and which firms topped students’ wish lists in the latest survey from Law360 Pulse.

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2nd Circ. Nixes $900M Suit Against Boies Schiller, Dentons

By Caroline Simson

The Second Circuit Tuesday refused to revive a racketeering lawsuit seeking up to $900 million in damages from Dentons and Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, in which the BigLaw firms were accused of misleading a former client in relation to a deal, and later arbitration, involving Senegal's state-owned energy company.

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Q&A

She Has A Point: Sheppard's Michelle Replogle

By Theresa Schliep

When Michelle Replogle of Sheppard and Nitika Gupta Fiorella of Fish & Richardson PC were opponents in a patent case, Fiorella said, Replogle stood out for her expertise and respect, which she showed to everyone regardless of their experience or whom they represented in the litigation.

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$1.8B IRS Deal Fund 'Not Slush Fund,' Blanche Tells Senators

By Courtney Bublé

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche argued before a Senate committee on Tuesday that the nearly $1.8 billion settlement fund announced on Monday as part of the president's settlement with the Internal Revenue Service over his leaked tax documents "is not a slush fund."

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Quinn Emanuel Owes More Sanctions In Guardant Fight

By Lauren Berg

Quinn Emanuel and its team representing medical testing company Natera will shoulder further sanctions on top of the $3 million already imposed over the firm's misrepresentations concerning an expert witness in Guardant Health's false advertising case, a California federal judge ruled Tuesday.

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Nelson Mullins Partner Confirmed To SC Federal Bench

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 52-38 on Tuesday to confirm Sheria Clarke, a partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, as a judge for the District of South Carolina.

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Brother May Pay Ex-BigLaw Atty's Legal Fees In Insider Case

By Julie Manganis

A former BigLaw associate charged with orchestrating a sweeping insider trading scheme can have his legal expenses covered by his co-defendant brother if the two waive potential conflicts, a Massachusetts federal magistrate judge said Tuesday.

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Seeborg's Term As Calif. Northern District Chief Judge To End

By Bonnie Eslinger

Chief District Judge Richard Seeborg is expected to conclude his time as the top judge for the Northern District of California in July, according to a spokesperson for the judiciary, to be succeeded by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.

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Ex-Trader Says Crypto Co.'s Bid For Sanctions Is 'Unfounded'

By Hayley Fowler

A former trader said a cryptocurrency company is using an "unfounded" characterization of his deposition conduct to seek sanctions and lend credence to facts it hasn't otherwise been able to prove in its suit accusing him of usurping $8.1 million in digital assets.

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Promo that reads Law360 Pulse 2026 AI Survey

COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

AT&T Inc.

Abbott Laboratories

Allergan PLC

Amazon.com Inc.

AngioDynamics Inc.

Anthropic PBC

Apple Inc.

Binance Holdings Ltd.

C.R. Bard Inc.

Charlesbank Capital Partners LLC

Chicago Cubs Baseball Club LLC

Churchill Downs Inc.

Clario

Coinbase Global Inc.

CorMedix Inc.

Cox Communications Inc.

Cumulus Media Inc.

Drummond

Google LLC

Gray Media Inc.

Guardant Health Inc.

HTC Corporation

Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.

Houlihan Lokey Inc.

Johnson & Johnson

Juniper Networks Inc.

Kentucky Derby

LinkedIn Corp.

Live Nation Entertainment Inc.

LiveRamp

Major League Baseball Inc.

Meta Platforms Inc.

Microsoft Corp.

Mid Penn Bancorp

Motorola Mobility LLC

NBCUniversal Media LLC

Natera Inc.

Nexstar Media Group Inc.

Nielsen Holdings PLC

Occidental Petroleum Corp.

OpenAI OpCo LLC

Protect Democracy Project Inc.

Publicis Groupe SA

Publicis Sapient

Quotient Technology Inc.

Roblox Corp.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.

Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc.

Sony Music Entertainment Inc.

Steward Health Care System LLC

Suneva Medical Inc.

Tenet Healthcare Corp.

Tesla Inc.

The Associated Press

The New York Times Co.

The Walt Disney Co.

Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc.

TripAdvisor Inc.

Trump Organization Inc.

USG Corp.

Ultimate Fighting Championship Ltd.

Universal Service Administrative Co.

Walt Disney Parks & Resorts Worldwide Inc.

World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.

YouTube Inc.

LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS

A&O Shearman

Alston & Bird

Arnold & Porter

Aronberg Goldgehn

Bayko Prebeg

Berger Montague

Bernstein Litowitz

Boies Schiller

Bona Law PC

Brito PLLC

Cahill Gordon

Carroll Hartigan

Consovoy McCarthy

Covington & Burling

Dechert LLP

Dentons

Elman Freiberg

Finnegan

Fish & Richardson

Foshee & Yaffe

Fox Rothschild

Gibson Dunn

Goodwin Procter

Hausfeld LLP

Holland & Knight

Joseph & Kirschenbaum

Keller Anderle

King & Spalding

Kirkland & Ellis

Latham & Watkins

Looper Goodwine

Martin G. Weinberg PC

MoloLamken

Morrison & Foerster

Nachawati Law Group

Nelson Mullins

Patterson Belknap

Porter Hedges

Proskauer Rose

Quinn Emanuel

Rivero Mestre

Rothwell Figg

Salahi PC

Sawyer & Labar

Scharf Appellate Group

Schenk & Bruetsch

Scott&Scott

Shinder Cantor

Sidley Austin

Spinelli Donald

Stearns Weaver

Sullivan & Cromwell

Tidrick Law Firm

Toberoff & Associates

Wachtell Lipton

Wade Kilpela

Wilder Pantazis

Wiley Rein

Winston & Strawn

Womble Bond

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

California Attorney General's Office

California Department of Justice

Colorado Supreme Court

Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Delaware Court of Chancery

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Trade Commission

Florida Department of Education

Internal Revenue Service

International Chamber of Commerce

International Telecommunication Union

Mesa County, Colorado

National Telecommunications and Information Administration

Oklahoma Attorney General's Office

U.S. Attorney's Office

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

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

U.S. Department of Agriculture

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of the Treasury

U.S. District & Bankruptcy Courts of Southern District of Texas

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

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts

U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota

U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina

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

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

U.S. Senate

U.S. Supreme Court