EQT Ups Bid To £9.4B In 'Final Offer' For Intertek

By Tom Fish

Private equity firm EQT AB said Tuesday that it has intensified its pursuit of Intertek Group PLC, unveiling what it called a "final proposal" valued at £9.4 billion ($12.7 billion) for the British laboratory testing company.

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'I Believe I'm Trustworthy,' OpenAI CEO Testifies In Musk Trial

By Dorothy Atkins

OpenAI Inc. CEO Sam Altman took the stand Tuesday in the California federal jury trial over Elon Musk's challenge to OpenAI's for-profit conversion, acknowledging that colleagues have accused him of being deceptive while testifying that "I believe I'm a trustworthy person."

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Antares Clinches $8.5B Senior Loan Fund III

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Alternative credit firm Antares Capital, led by Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, on Tuesday revealed that it wrapped its third fund after securing $8.5 billion in total commitments.

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S2G Wraps $1B Inaugural Growth Fund

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Investment firm S2G Investments on Tuesday announced it had closed its inaugural growth-stage investment fund after securing $1 billion in commitments.

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Authors Accuse OpenAI Of Arguing Differently On Each Coast

By Elliot Weld

An attorney representing authors accusing OpenAI of feeding their copyrighted works into training data for large language models told a New York federal magistrate judge Tuesday that the AI startup was asserting vastly different positions in New York and in an ongoing trial in California about whether it ever intended to become a for-profit enterprise.

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Businessman Fights Subpoena In Trump Media Dispute

By Carolina Bolado

A Russian businessman with alleged financial ties to Donald Trump's Truth Social platform has urged a Florida appeals court panel to quash an order requiring him to produce documents in a dispute over taking the company public, arguing the production could implicate his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

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Quotient Investors Seek Approval Of $48M Merger Deal

By Jarek Rutz

Investors in Coupons.com parent Quotient Technology Inc. have asked Delaware's Chancery Court to approve a $48 million settlement resolving claims that the company's former CEO, its financial adviser and the buyers steered Quotient's $430 million sale to Neptune Retail Solutions at too low a price.

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Drone Co. Skirts Unfair Biz Practices Claim In Ex-VP's Pay Suit

By Hayley Fowler

North Carolina's Business Court pared down a dispute between a company that makes emergency response drones and its former vice president of sales, finding his claim that the company misled him about its intent to pay him a bonus doesn't rise to the level of an unfair or deceptive business practice.

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Citron Founder Didn't Believe His Own Position, Jury Told

By Craig Clough

A cannabis company CEO testified Tuesday as the first witness in Citron Research founder Andrew Left's criminal securities fraud trial, telling a California federal jury that Left published an inaccurate short sale report on his company that quickly tanked its stock even though it appears he lacked the "conviction" of his attack.

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Investor Says AI Startup Duped Him Out Of $10M

By Jarek Rutz

A Pennsylvania investor has sued LifeBrand Inc.'s founder, executives, a financial adviser and two financial institutions in the Delaware Chancery Court, claiming they used inflated business claims, hidden commissions and insider payouts to induce him to put more than $10 million into the social media monitoring startup.

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Blockchain Analytics Biz Raises $120M Series D Funding

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic on Tuesday announced that it has hit a valuation of $670 million after closing its latest funding round with $120 million of investor commitments.

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Pillsbury Adds WilmerHale VC Pro In Silicon Valley

By Rose Krebs

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP has added a former WilmerHale attorney to expand its global emerging companies and venture capital practice group and capacity to handle venture capital financing matters.

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Brief

Employee Benefits Atty Joins Freshfields From Debevoise

By Andrea Keckley

Freshfields LLP has hired a former Debevoise & Plimpton LLP attorney who focuses on the employment and executive compensation aspects of mergers and acquisitions and private equity transactions.

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Assessing Material Adverse Event Clauses Amid Iran Conflict

As deals signed before the current Middle East conflict come under pressure, determinations over material adverse effect clauses are arising in real time, and whether an MAE has been wrongfully invoked may be as consequential as whether it was validly established in the first place, say Amran Nawaz and Ralph Stobwasser at Secretariat.

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4 Emerging Approaches To AI Protective Order Language

Over the last year, at least five federal district courts have issued or analyzed specific protective order provisions restricting the use of generative artificial intelligence platforms with protected materials, establishing that proactive AI-specific provisions are now standard practice and demonstrating that no single model works for every case, says Joel Bush at Kilpatrick.

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Murdaugh Murder Conviction Overturned By SC High Court

By Parker Quinlan

The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned a double murder conviction and ordered a new trial for disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh, finding the jury in his first trial was biased by a clerk of court who allegedly sought a guilty verdict in a ploy to juice sales of her book about the trial.

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Texas Atty Must Pay $5M For Groping Opposing Counsel

By Lynn LaRowe

A Texas state appellate court on Wednesday refused to disturb a $5 million jury verdict against a San Antonio lawyer for grabbing the buttocks of opposing counsel at the courthouse where they were arguing a family law proceeding in 2019.

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DOJ Fraud Division Set To Shake Up White-Collar Enforcement

By Phillip Bantz

President Donald Trump's administration created the U.S. Department of Justice's National Fraud Enforcement Division with a narrow focus on combating government program fraud, but a move to retain federal prosecutors focused on other types of fraud could signal a wider scope with potential ripple effects across white-collar enforcement.

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Arbitrators See Global Stakes In Trump BigLaw EO Fight

By Caroline Simson

Ahead of a D.C. Circuit hearing on Thursday in the Trump administration's effort to revive executive orders imposed against four BigLaw firms, an official at the College of Commercial Arbitrators told Law360 this week there are several things arbitrators are going to be watching for.

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Apple Targets Hagens Berman 'Gamesmanship' In ICloud Suit

By Bryan Koenig

Apple has lashed out at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP for trying to withdraw a named plaintiff from an iCloud antitrust case in California federal court without discovery into any directions she received to preserve now-deleted emails, raising concerns that the withdrawal is meant to "paper over lost evidence."

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Michigan Federal Judge Gets Probation For Drunken Driving

By Susan Smiley

Michigan federal Judge Thomas L. Ludington was sentenced by a state judge Wednesday to six months probation and fined $1,175 in after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge last month in Emmet County.

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6th Circ. Says Kentucky Judicial Hopefuls May Tout Ideology

By Emily Sawicki

Kentucky judicial hopefuls are cleared to discuss their political leanings on the campaign trail, according to a precedential ruling by the Sixth Circuit, which permanently enjoined the state's Judicial Conduct Commission from pursuing an enforcement action against two candidates who described themselves as "conservatives" and "Republicans" amid the 2022 election season.

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Series

The Biz Court Digest: Georgia Court Has Business On Its Mind

Thanks to recent legislation, the Georgia State-wide Business Court will soon offer business litigants greater access to the court than ever before, further enhancing the court's emphasis on efficiency, predictability and accessibility for sophisticated commercial disputes, says former GSBC judge Walt Davis at Jones Day.

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