Cooley, Investor Settle NJ Malpractice Suit Over Startup Deal

By Jake Maher

Cooley LLP and an investor who had accused the firm of malpractice over a deal to invest in a dry-cleaning delivery startup have resolved the case, they told a New Jersey federal court this week.

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Cravath Makes Historic Group Hire In Weil M&A Addition

By Aebra Coe

In what appears to be its largest-ever group hire, Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP announced Friday the firm is bringing on six mergers and acquisitions partners from Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP, including that firm's corporate department chair.

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3 Firms Guide Firstborn Top Capital's $1.1B SPAC Merger

By Al Barbarino

ARC Group Acquisition I Corp., a Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company, has agreed to acquire Malaysian private financing company Firstborn Top Capital in a deal that values the business at an implied enterprise value of nearly $1.1 billion.

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Bitcoin Miner Atlantic HPC Lands $150M SPAC Merger

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Bitcoin mining company Atlantic HPC Group Inc., led by Hunter Taubman Fischer & Li LLC, on Friday revealed plans to go public by merging with Ellenoff Grossman & Schole LLP-led special purpose acquisition company Aperture AC in a $150 million deal.

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Don't Miss It: Cooley, Latham Steer Hot Deals

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

A lot can happen in the world of mergers and acquisitions and equity fundraising over the course of a couple of weeks, and it's difficult to keep up with all the deals.

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Ex-CEO Of AI Recruitment Co. Cops To $27M Investor Fraud

By Rick Archer

The former CEO of bankrupt artificial intelligence-powered staffing firm Joonko Diversity on Friday entered a guilty plea to charges that she defrauded investors out of $27 million using forged financial documents and lying about the company's customers.

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RV Co. Reaches Deal With DOL In ESOP Row

By Katherine Smith

A recreational vehicle company and its executives have agreed to settle a U.S. Department of Labor suit alleging they improperly allowed its employee stock ownership plan to be overcharged in a $105 million deal, according to an Arizona federal court filing.

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Qdoba Sued Over Jalapenos Tied To Salmonella Outbreak

By Gina Kim

Fast casual Mexican restaurant chain Qdoba and Coast Citrus Distributors were hit with a proposed negligence class action in California federal court Thursday by two customers who allege they fell ill after consuming food containing jalapeno peppers supplied by the defendants that they say were contaminated with salmonella. 

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Mass. Fund Says It Was Sidelined After Lining Up $300M

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts life sciences investment fund says SPRIM Global Investments strung it along on a pledge to bring it in as a co-general partner in a new joint fund, then backed out of the agreement and took control of the fund after the plaintiff lined up a $300 million investment, according to a lawsuit filed in Massachusetts state court.

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LA Judge Rejects Bid For $134K Default In Pot Co. Loan Suit

By Mike Curley

A California state judge has rejected a lender's bid for default judgment in a suit alleging that a cannabis oil extraction company's owner failed to pay back a $134,000 loan, saying the lender is asking for too much without sufficient evidence.

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Retiree Says Pot Entrepreneur Scammed Him Of $3M Savings

By Mike Curley

A California retiree and his relative are suing a cannabis entrepreneur and his businesses in Los Angeles court, alleging that the entrepreneur duped them into investing more than $3 million into a cannabis business, only to string them along and fail to live up to his promises of repayment.

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Roundup

Taxation With Representation: Paul Weiss, Troutman, Wachtell

By Zak Kostro

In this week's Taxation With Representation, GE Aerospace buys Consolidated Precision Products from private investment firms Warburg Pincus and Berkshire Partners, Independence Realty Trust Inc. and Centerspace agree to merge, and EverBank Financial Corp. and WaFd Inc. agree to combine through a reverse merger.

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Del. Ruling Emphasizes High Bar To Pleading A Control Group

The Delaware Court of Chancery's recent decision in Le Clair v. KnowBe4 illustrates the high burden to which courts hold plaintiffs trying to establish a control group, as well as the continued power of an informed stockholder vote, say attorneys at Sidley.

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Attorneys Using AI May Have Ethical Duty To Redact Docs

The trajectory of legal ethics guidance in recent years strongly suggests that as redaction technology becomes more accessible, the failure to use it when uploading highly confidential materials into artificial intelligence tools will become increasingly difficult to defend as reasonable, say attorneys at Lewis Brisbois.

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Senior Lawyers Survey: Tell Us About Your Career

How are senior lawyers adapting to evolving career paths and emerging technologies? Share your perspective in this five-minute survey.

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Greenberg Traurig, Eckert Seamans Hit By Data Breaches

By Ryan Boysen

Greenberg Traurig LLP and Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott LLC have publicly revealed that they've been hit by data breaches, adding to the dozens of cybersecurity incidents U.S. law firms have suffered this year.

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Analysis

Midterm Wins Could Help Dems Probe Trump's BigLaw Deals

By Courtney Bublé

If the Democrats take back one or both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, a big item on their oversight agenda will be to step up ongoing investigations of the deals that nine major law firms cut with the Trump administration last year.

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Trial Errors 'Crippled Goldstein's Defense,' 4th Circ. Hears

By Jeff Overley

Appellate luminary Tom Goldstein unveiled a sweeping and forceful critique aimed at erasing his felony fraud convictions, telling the Fourth Circuit that prosecutors were hell-bent on convicting him "no matter the facts or law," disregarded a star witness "incompetence" and benefited from a trial judge's "inexplicable" rulings.

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In-House Atty Org. Says Rival Ripped Off Data For AI Tool

By Andrea Keckley

The Association of Corporate Counsel alleges in Delaware federal court that its competitor used the nonprofit's proprietary materials to train its artificial intelligence tool Lloyd and "brazenly promoted its Lloyd product by showing the public that ACC materials could be accessed via Lloyd."

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Interview

ABA Cyber Task Force Co-Chair Eyes AI Education Boost

By Allison Grande

With the legal industry presenting a more and more enticing target for cyberattacks, it's becoming increasingly important for practitioners to know how to best protect clients' data and most effectively use emerging artificial intelligence tools — a task that the American Bar Association's Cybersecurity Legal Task Force is well positioned to assist with, its incoming co-chair recently told Law360.

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Personal Injury Firm Beats Atty's Bid For 'Birth Justice' TM

By Adam Lidgett

A former associate at a personal injury and medical malpractice law firm can't register in her own name a trademark for birth-injury legal services that she helped develop before and during her employment with the firm, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has ruled.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

AI is driving a significant gap between in-house legal departments' budgets and the cost of their workloads, according to a new study. Speaking of gaps, a new Law360 Pulse report on women in law found that men still make up 71% of law firm equity partners and 63% of nonequity partners. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Elias Law Group LLP and Stinson LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Missouri cannot use a newly drawn congressional map that favors Republicans in the midterms.

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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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