2nd Circ. Backs Bankman-Fried's 25-Year Fraud Conviction

By Aislinn Keely

The Second Circuit on Friday upheld Sam Bankman-Fried's conviction and an $11 billion forfeiture order in an opinion that found the ex-CEO's claims that he could have made FTX customers whole didn't matter in the face of the government's "robust" evidence of his role in the fraud that felled the cryptocurrency exchange.

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5 Things To Know About Trump's Latest CFPB Nominee

By Jon Hill

President Donald Trump's newest pick for Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director has spent years sketching out a conservative vision for the agency that he could soon run, one that emphasizes minimalist rules, legal restraint and administrative procedure.

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DC Judge Refuses To Wipe DOJ's Powell Subpoena Loss

By Katryna Perera

A D.C. federal judge has rejected a bid by federal prosecutors to erase their loss earlier this year in a now-closed fight over subpoenas tied to former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, leaving in place a decision that had blocked those subpoenas as improper.

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DC Judge Refuses To Stop UFC Fight On White House Lawn

By David Steele

A D.C. federal judge on Friday allowed the UFC mixed martial arts event on the White House lawn Sunday to go on, denying a bid by two area residents to stop what they called an unauthorized use of government property.

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Wash. Justices Uphold Repeat DUI Offender Gun Ban

By Elizabeth Daley

A 5-4 Washington State Supreme Court majority has found that two men who were prevented from owning firearms after being repeatedly convicted of driving under the influence did not have their Second Amendment rights violated by the restriction.

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Judge Demands Proof $1.8B Trump Settlement Fund Is Dead

By Jack McLoone

A Virginia federal court judge ordered the federal government Friday to submit in writing that it won't create a $1.8 billion payment fund to settle President Donald Trump's tax leak suit against the Internal Revenue Service. 

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Jan. 6 Group Demands 'Coerced' Guilty Pleas Be Voided

By Jared Foretek

A newly formed association of Jan. 6 defendants has asked a D.C. federal judge to order that the U.S. Department of Justice revoke guilty pleas stemming from the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, arguing they were coerced.

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Analysis

3 Things To Know As Judge Stares Down Impeachment Push

By Kelcey Caulder

The scandal that could cost U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross her job also threatens to cause courthouse chaos in the form of recusal motions, bids to reopen suits and uncertainty for clerks. Here, Law360 looks at three things to know about the calls to impeach the judge and their potential fallout.

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Brief

Texas Judge Reprimanded For Jailing Jurors Amid Feud

By Spencer Brewer

The Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct issued a public reprimand against a state judge who tossed multiple would-be jurors in jail amid a political rivalry, saying Judge Amber King violated state rules on judicial ethics.

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Brief

Feds Drop Appeal To Preserve Trump Wind Permit Freeze

By Julie Manganis

The federal government has dropped its appeal of a Massachusetts federal judge's order last year blocking the Trump administration from freezing wind energy project permits, according to a filing with the First Circuit.

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Disability Rights Orgs. Seek To Halt NY, Ill. 'Aid-In-Dying' Laws

By Gianna Ferrarin

Disability rights organizations hit the governors of New York and Illinois with a pair of federal lawsuits seeking to stop new laws in each state from taking effect that would allow patients with terminal illnesses to seek a doctor's assistance in ending their lives.

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Brief

9th Circ. Tells Serial Litigant App Developer No More

By Nadia Dreid

The Ninth Circuit has said it does not want to hear any more from a serial litigant who has a bone to pick with tech behemoth Apple and a California federal court over the exclusion of an application for tracking COVID-19 cases from the App Store.

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Judge Questions Pentagon Claim That Press Escorts Curbed Leaks

By Jared Foretek

A D.C. federal judge pressed a Trump administration attorney to back up her claim that restricting reporters' access to the Pentagon has driven down the amount of classified information reaching the press, saying Friday that he'd seen nothing suggesting that unfettered access to the building was connected with leaks.

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Radio Station Group Presses For Relaxed Ownership Caps

By Christopher Cole

Radio station chain Connoisseur Media has called for the Federal Communications Commission to ease the industry's local ownership limits, pointing to rapidly rising competition from digital services.

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DOT Says Fla. Foreign Driver's License Row In Wrong Court

By Britain Eakin

The U.S. Department of Transportation moved Friday to dismiss a lawsuit from 19 foreign truck and bus drivers who challenged a Florida agency's decision to stop issuing commercial driver's licenses to some noncitizens, arguing the matter belongs in a federal appeals court.

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Gensler Tells 6th Circ. 'Sports Bets Aren't Swaps'

By Aislinn Keely

Former Wall Street regulator Gary Gensler told the appeals court overseeing Kalshi's prediction market battle with Ohio regulators that Congress didn't intend for the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to become a nationwide sports betting regulator when it drafted swaps laws during his chairmanship of the agency.

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Q&A

JAMS Chief Executive Says Mass Arbitrations On The Rise

By Kellie Mejdrich

Mediation giant JAMS says it has seen a major upswing in mass arbitrations in employment and other contexts, as plaintiff-side firms develop new ways of responding to language requiring out-of-court dispute resolution by companies. CEO Kimberly Taylor and veteran JAMS mediator Robert Meyer spoke to Law360 about mediation trends, with a specific focus on employee benefits disputes.

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Challenge To 'Troubling' EEOC Trans Bias Shift Dismissed

By Grace Elletson

A Maryland federal judge tossed a suit Friday from an LGBTQ+ advocacy group challenging the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's decision to step back from investigating bias charges from transgender workers, saying the pivot was "deeply troubling" but out of the court's hands.

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Brief

New Bill Aims To Provide Paid Family Leave For Fed Workers

By Grace Elletson

A bipartisan group of U.S. House representatives reintroduced legislation that would expand benefits for federal employees by allowing them to collect up to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave, the lawmakers announced.

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Texas Justices Limit Seizures Of Land Lacking Public Use

By Spencer Brewer

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday sided with a company seeking to repurchase land that the state condemned for a highway project but was no longer using, saying in a split opinion that the state isn't immune from claims to repurchase unused property.

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DOJ Clears Paramount's $110B Deal To Acquire Warner Bros.

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. Department of Justice is closing its investigation into Paramount Skydance Corp.'s $110 billion deal for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., the department's antitrust unit announced Friday, saying its review suggests the deal will "increase" and not harm competition in media and entertainment.

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FTC Wants More Info On $5.5B Cintas-UniFirst Deal

By Matthew Perlman

The Federal Trade Commission has requested additional information about Cintas Corp.'s planned $5.5 billion acquisition of fellow uniform and facility services supplier UniFirst Corp., despite the companies giving enforcers more time to review the transaction last month.

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State Privacy & AI Watch: 4 Legislative Developments To Know

By Allison Grande

States are continuing to keep the heat on how companies are using a wide range of consumer data and artificial intelligence models, with Connecticut enacting new laws in both arenas and one Midwest locale eyeing what could become the nation's most stringent AI auditing rules.

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Telecom Blocked From US Networks Over Walmart Scam Calls

By Nadia Dreid

All providers downstream of SK Teleco will be required to block its traffic after the telecom failed to convince the FCC that it shouldn't be stripped of its right to operate on U.S. networks following the transmission of millions of scam calls impersonating Walmart employees.

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Trucker, Broker Sued Over Fatal Fla. Turnpike U-Turn Crash

By Linda Chiem

The estate of one of three people killed in the August Florida Turnpike collision that became a flash point for the Trump administration's crackdown on foreign commercial truckers has sued the driver, the trucking company that employed him and the freight broker that arranged the shipment.

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OpenAI, Google Workers Back Anthropic In DOD Usage Feud

By Elaine Briseño

Google and OpenAI employees told a California federal court that autonomous lethal weapons systems used without human oversight pose several risks, backing rival artificial intelligence company Anthropic's bid to show the government acted arbitrarily in determining Anthropic posed national security risks.

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Analysis

4 Questions As Gov't Appeals Illegal Tariff Refund Suit

By Dylan Moroses

The government's appeal of an order requiring immediate refunds for tariffs that were deemed illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year is the latest obstacle for importers forced to stall investments in new products and brace for a longer wait for their refunds in response.

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Brief

Chinese Fiberglass Panels Facing Triple-Digit Duties

By Jack McLoone

Fiberglass door panels from China face steep antidumping and countervailing duties after the U.S. Department of Commerce made final determinations Friday that they are being sold at unfair prices.

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IRS Must Revisit Whistleblower Award Denial, DC Circ. Rules

By Stephen K. Cooper

The D.C. Circuit said Friday that the Internal Revenue Service must reconsider a whistleblower's claim that her information helped the agency collect taxes on more than $31 million in corporate income, reversing a U.S. Tax Court ruling that sided with the IRS.

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Data Center Tax Fight Spurs Va. House Study Proposal

By Maria Koklanaris

Trying to move forward Virginia's budget, which has been snarled for weeks amid an intraparty fight over continuing tax breaks for data centers, state House Democrats proposed what they called a compromise plan Friday that would create a commission to study the centers.

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'No Excuse': DHS Unit Must Heed Filing-Freeze Ruling Now

By Britain Eakin

A Rhode Island federal judge has clarified the immediate effect of his order vacating policies underlying the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services' freeze on immigration adjudications for nationals of the 39 countries subject to President Donald Trump's travel ban.

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Kids' Legal Aid Groups Say ICE Sought Files Without Warrant

By Rae Ann Varona

Federal agents, including those from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, conducted unannounced visits to nonprofits that provide legal aid to immigrant children who come to the U.S. alone, unlawfully seeking documents concerning the children, the organizations said Friday.

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Brief

ACLU Of Pa. Sues DHS, CBP Over Probe Into Online Critics

By George Woolston

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania sued U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Pennsylvania federal court on Friday, saying they failed to respond to a records request seeking copies of subpoenas for the identities of anonymous social media users who criticized the agencies.

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Brief

ACLU Drops Racial Profiling Suit Over ICE Arrests, For Now

By Elaine Briseño

Minneapolis-area residents and the American Civil Liberties Union dropped their proposed class action accusing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of racial profiling, choosing to file administrative claims instead.

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No Amici In Comey Seashell Threat Case, Judge Says

By Craig Clough

A North Carolina federal judge on Friday said she will not allow any amici to weigh in on former FBI Director James Comey's criminal charges alleging he threatened President Donald Trump with a social media post, finding the parties are "ably represented" by counsel and public input is not needed.

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Okla. Tribes' Hunting Rights Suits Can Fire Away, Judge Says

By Crystal Owens

An Oklahoma district judge said Oklahoma officials must face challenges that look to block the state's wildlife conservation director from requiring tribal citizens to obtain state-issued fishing and hunting licenses for use on reservation lands, saying the Indigenous nations presented "colorable claims" on their treaty rights and inherent authority.

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Trump Admin Must Restore National Park Signs For 250th

By Lauren Berg

The Trump administration must restore information about climate change, slavery and Indigenous history to National Park Service sites by the nation's 250th anniversary, a Massachusetts federal judge ruled Friday, warning that the removal of such signage "sets a dangerous precedent of censorship and sanitization."

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Feds Award $75.5M Navajo-Gallup Pipeline Contract

By Elaine Briseño

The Bureau of Reclamation has awarded Flatland Energy Services LLC a $75.5 million contract to construct a water pipeline as part of an infrastructure project that will provide reliable water supply to parts of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico.

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Wis. Tribe Seeks Quick Win In Pipeline Relocation Dispute

By Joyce Hanson

The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has asked a D.C. federal judge to vacate a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit letting an energy company reroute 41 miles of a crude oil pipeline around the tribe's reservation.

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Tribes, Enviro Groups Hail Setback To Utah Monument Fight

By Crystal Owens

Indigenous rights and environmental groups say the U.S. Senate's failure to act on a resolution to nullify a conservation resource plan for Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument prevented a significant escalation in federal lawmakers' use of the Congressional Review Act, which would have led to "chaos on the ground."

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Eutelsat Seeks 'Relative' Payments For Upper C-Band Moves

By Nadia Dreid

The FCC ought to stick with its plan of paying companies who agreed to quickly clear out of the upper C-band "relative" to their contribution, but that doesn't mean using the same percentages it did to dole out payments for clearing out of the lower C-band, one satellite company said.

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Court Won't Halt NY Pot Licensure In Dormant Commerce Row

By Sam Reisman

A New York federal judge has rejected a renewed bid from out-of-state cannabis entrepreneurs to halt retail marijuana licensure in the state, saying the challengers could not show that they would be irreparably harmed from licensing going forward.

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Mass. High Court OKs Pot Repeal Question For Nov. Ballot

By Julie Manganis

Massachusetts' top court on Friday rejected a challenge to a ballot question on repealing legal recreational marijuana sales, allowing the measure to go before voters in November.

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NY Appeals Court OKs Officials' Inspections Of Hemp Stores

By Sam Reisman

A New York intermediate appellate court has reversed a lower court's decision to grant a preliminary injunction that blocked New York City and state authorities from conducting warrantless raids against hemp stores suspected of selling unlicensed cannabis.

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Snoqualmie Leader Joins Kilpatrick As Wash. Gov't Adviser

By Joyce Hanson

Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP said it has added Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson's former director of external relations, who had previously served as the Snoqualmie Tribe's governmental affairs and special projects executive director, to the law firm's government relations team.

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Using Past Tech Transitions As A Lens For Calif. Worker AI Bill

Examining previous workplace automation battles reveals the goals of a California bill that would impose obligations on employers for layoffs and hiring cessations caused by artificial intelligence, and illustrates where it may prove difficult to administer and how to prepare for its enactment, say attorneys at Skadden.

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3 Misconceptions About Justices' FCC Fines Ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court's June 4 Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T decision rejecting AT&T’s and Verizon’s argument that the commission's forfeiture process violates the Seventh Amendment has yielded three common reactions that misunderstand the decision as a matter of law and how the FCC actually operates, says Samuel Feder at Jenner & Block.

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Direct Fed Payment Access Finally In Sight For Fintechs

A recent executive order and a Federal Reserve proposal could finally allow direct payment system access for fintechs and other nonbanks, potentially reducing reliance on sponsor banks and reshaping competition, as well as prompting organizations to reassess partnership strategies as litigation and rulemaking unfold, say attorneys at Freshfields.

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3 Things To Know About Trump's Pick To Lead SDNY

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson

President Donald Trump has announced that he plans to appoint Sullivan & Cromwell LLP partner James M. McDonald to lead the Southern District of New York. Here are three things to know about him.

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Trump Personal Atty In Carroll Cases Confirmed To 8th Circ.

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 48-43 on Monday evening to confirm Justin Smith, who represented the president in the defamation and sexual abuse cases brought by writer E. Jean Carroll, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

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Hagens Berman Must Cover Fees After Misconduct Findings

By Adrian Cruz

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP must cover the fees and costs of a special master who alleged the firm committed misconduct in product liability litigation over the morning sickness drug thalidomide, a Pennsylvania federal judge has said.

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Analysis

Newman's Appeal Loss Shows Limits On Suspension Reviews

By Ryan Davis

The U.S. Supreme Court's rejection on Monday of Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman's appeal in the long-running dispute over her suspension made clear that the available routes to challenge such orders are narrow, and spurred critics to contemplate ways to revise the system.

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Justices Turn Down Judge Newman's Suspension Case

By Ryan Davis

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman's effort to revive her lawsuit against her colleagues for suspending her, leaving intact a D.C. Circuit decision that her challenges to the order are not subject to judicial review.

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Attys Want Up To $33M In Long-Running UBH Benefits Fight

By Kellie Mejdrich

Attorneys for employee benefit plan participants who sued to change how United Behavioral Health processed claims for mental health and substance use disorder treatment asked a California federal court for up to $33 million in fees and expenses for their work on the "groundbreaking" case.

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Ex-SEC Atty Reprimanded Over Misstatements In Crypto Case

By Julie Manganis

A former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission attorney has received a public reprimand for misleading a judge in a cryptocurrency fraud case that led to sanctions against the agency.

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Barnes & Thornburg Profit-Share Admin Wants Legal Bills Paid

By James Boyle

A company that oversaw recordkeeping duties of Barnes & Thornburg LLP's profit-sharing plan says in a complaint in Pennsylvania state court it is owed legal fees over a previous suit filed by a former firm partner.

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Carlton Fields Pushes To Be Involved In Miss America Hearing

By Madison Arnold

Carlton Fields pushed back Monday on a request from the CEO of Miss America and companies linked to the pageant to bar a firm attorney from a status conference in their litigation over Miss America's bankruptcy and filed a motion to intervene in the case.

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FBI Misplaced Nadine Menendez's Jewelry, Judge Told

By Parker Quinlan

An attorney for Nadine Menendez on Monday told a Manhattan federal judge that the FBI is still unable to locate pieces of her jewelry seized as part of the investigation that led to Menendez and her husband, former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, being convicted of participating in a bribery scheme.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court this past week handled disputes involving shareholder voting rights, take-private transactions, merger disclosures, board control battles and investor litigation, while the Delaware Supreme Court heard arguments over the wind-down of an oil-and-gas investment fund.

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