Analysis

Mass. AG, Auditor Brace For High-Stakes Constitutional Clash

By Chris Villani

A closely watched separation-of-powers test is playing out in Massachusetts, where the Bay State auditor will argue to the state's top court in a hearing next week that the attorney general is stonewalling her from conducting a voter-approved audit of the state legislature.

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Maryland Judges Ask 4th Circ. To Rebuke Habeas Order Suit

By Tom Lotshaw

Maryland federal judges urged the Fourth Circuit to decisively affirm a decision scrapping the Trump administration's challenge of a standing order that briefly blocks the removal of noncitizens who file habeas petitions, saying the unprecedented lawsuit deserves a precedential rebuke.

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Trump Says Fixed-Price Procurement Deals Will Be Default

By Madeline Lyskawa

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Thursday making fixed-price contracts the default for federal contracting, as a part of an effort to tackle "unpredictable costs, bloated overhead, and weak performance incentives," which the president attributed to cost-reimbursement contracts.

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Trump Taps 3rd Surgeon General Pick, Drops Casey Means

By Mark Payne

President Donald Trump nominated his third pick to be surgeon general on Thursday, withdrawing consideration for Casey Means after her confirmation stalled in the Senate. 

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Senate Advances Mont. Judge Pick Rated Unqualified By ABA

By Courtney Bublé

A judicial nominee for the District of Montana who was the only nominee of the second Trump administration so far to receive a "not qualified" rating from the American Bar Association advanced out of committee on Thursday.

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5th Circ. Focuses On Whether Texas Disabled Voters Can Sue

By José Luis Martínez

A Fifth Circuit judge questioned Thursday whether voting- and disability-rights groups have standing to challenge parts of a Texas voting security law alleged to make voting harder for Texans with disabilities and whether existing state law gives such voters a path to seek accommodations.

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CFPB Slashes Small-Biz Lender Reporting In Newly Final Rule

By Jon Hill

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday finalized a major rollback of its Biden-era rule on small-business loan data collection, sharply narrowing the scope of financial institutions and activity subject to the statutorily mandated reporting regime.

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Senate Dems Press Lutnick On Stablecoin Co.'s Loan To Trust

By Joyce Hanson

Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., on Thursday told Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and the CEO of El Salvador-based Tether that they want information about the stablecoin company's reported loan to a trust benefiting Lutnick's four children.

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Glass Lewis, ISS File More Suits Over State Proxy Laws

By Sarah Jarvis

Proxy advisory firms Glass Lewis & Co. LLC and Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. have sued the state attorneys general of Indiana and Kansas over laws the firms say are unconstitutional and impose burdensome requirements for issuing recommendations that go against corporate managers' wishes.

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Brief

Gemini Gets CFTC Sign-Off To Clear Derivatives

By Aislinn Keely

The Winklevoss-led Gemini said Thursday that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has granted the crypto firm a license to act as a clearinghouse for derivatives contracts, marking a step forward in the build-out of its prediction market offerings among other derivatives products.

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Pa. Justices Find Borough's Stormwater Charge Is Tax

By Jaqueline McCool

A Pennsylvania university that was charged by a borough for stormwater management services doesn't owe the amount assessed because the charges constitute a tax that the university is exempt from paying, the state's Supreme Court affirmed Thursday.

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Mosaic's Radioactive Road Case Not Moot, Enviro Group Says

By Carolina Bolado

The Center for Biological Diversity told the Eleventh Circuit on Thursday that there are still remedies to pursue if the appeals court revives its challenge to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's approval of a road that contains radioactive phosphogypsum that has already been completed.

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Debt Collectors Owe Charity Care Notice, Wash. Justices Say

By Lauren Berg

Just as hospitals must inform low-income patients they might qualify for financial assistance, so too must agencies collecting on medical debt, the Washington Supreme Court clarified Thursday.

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Supplement Industry Says FDA Wrongly Muzzled Label Claims

By Jared Foretek

A coalition of dietary supplement companies and an alternative medicine advocacy group filed suit Wednesday against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, claiming that the agency violated First Amendment commercial speech protections when it blocked product label claims connecting certain nutrients or ingredients to health outcomes.

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Brief

Feds Appeal Order Freezing CDC Childhood Vaccine Changes

By Carolyn Muyskens

The Trump administration said late Wednesday that it's appealing a court order that stopped its pared-down childhood vaccine schedule from going into effect.

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ITC Proposes Litigation Funding Disclosure Rule For IP Cases

By Ryan Davis

The U.S. International Trade Commission on Thursday proposed a new rule that would require litigants in intellectual property cases before the commission to disclose information about entities that have an ownership or financial interest in the case, including litigation funders.

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Fox News Can't Yet Duck Newsom's $787M Defamation Suit

By Hailey Konnath

A Delaware state judge Thursday refused to throw out California Gov. Gavin Newsom's $787 million defamation claims over Fox News' coverage of his June 6 phone call with President Donald Trump, ruling that Newsom has plausibly alleged that Fox News knew it was making false statements when it made them.

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UP, Norfolk Southern Refile $85B Merger Bid With Regulators

By Linda Chiem

Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern on Thursday submitted a revised application to federal rail regulators for their proposed $85 billion mega-merger, touting the efficiencies and cost-savings of their combined coast-to-coast rail network, while also seeking to quell competition concerns.

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Colo. Panel OKs Impact Fees On Reconstruction Projects

By Rachel Konieczny

Local governments can charge impact fees on new development projects as a condition of issuing a development permit, including on projects other than the development of a raw parcel of land, the Colorado Court of Appeals held Thursday.

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Senate Bars Itself From Prediction Markets

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. senators voted unanimously on Thursday to ban themselves and their staff from trading on prediction markets.

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New Mexico AG Calls Meta Threat To Leave State 'PR Stunt'

By Craig Clough

New Mexico's attorney general responded Thursday to Meta Platforms' threat to pull social media products from the state if an upcoming bench trial over potential mandates to increase child safety goes poorly for the company, calling it a "PR stunt" that is "showing the world how little it cares about child safety."

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Trump Order Aims To Help More Workers Save For Retirement

By Kellie Mejdrich

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday aimed at expanding workers' access to a low-cost retirement plan via a new government website, touting a $1,000 federal contribution match available under authority that Congress provided in a 2022 retirement law, the Secure 2.0 Act.

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Conn. House GOP Office Escapes Ex-Press Aide's Bias Suit

By Brian Steele

A former spokesperson for Republican state lawmakers in Connecticut did not present enough evidence to support her claims that she was pushed out of her job because of her gender and post-traumatic stress disorder, or that she endured a hostile work environment, a state court judge ruled in disposing of her lawsuit.

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Ex-Housing Official Said Convictions Shouldn't Cost Pension

By Julie Manganis

The former director of a public housing authority who pled guilty to hiding his full $325,000 a year income from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said that conviction and others should not result in the loss of his pension, in a complaint filed Wednesday in Massachusetts state court.

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Google Says Ad Tech Rivals Can't 'Circumvent' Time Limits

By Bryan Koenig

Google has formally asked a New York federal judge to dramatically reduce antitrust claims from rival advertising placement technology providers, arguing they're clearly targeting policies they've known about for years and thus cannot get around a four-year statute of limitations pegged to a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit.

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Monthly Merger Review Snapshot

By Matthew Perlman

A pair of door manufacturers ended a landmark private merger challenge, state enforcers are gearing up for a potential Live Nation breakup bid following a crucial jury win, and a separate group of states and DirecTV are challenging Nexstar's $6.2 billion deal for rival broadcaster Tegna.

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Prediction Market Policing Getting 1st Test In Maduro Bet Case

By Aislinn Keely

The insider trading case against a U.S. Army sergeant who helped plan the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro presents a compelling test for the statutory tools the government can use to police prediction markets, and it sends a message there's more to come, former prosecutors say.

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FCC Advances Plan To Clamp Down On Robocall Campaigns

By Christopher Cole

Calling illegal robocalls the No. 1 customer service issue facing the agency, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday floated new rules that would require voice call providers to familiarize themselves with customers ahead of carrying their call traffic.

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Ga. Power Says Ford, Union Carbide Must Stay In Cancer Suit

By Chart Riggall

Georgia Power urged a state appellate court Thursday to reverse a trial court's order letting Ford and Union Carbide out of a construction worker's cancer claims, arguing that under the state's 2025 tort reform law, their dismissal would unjustly leave the utility company to face the suit alone.

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Pa. Justices Say DA Can't Drop Charges In Police Shooting

By Elizabeth Daley

Pennsylvania prosecutors cannot refuse to try a police officer who claimed he mistook his gun for a taser when he pressed his weapon to a mentally-ill man's leg and shot him in front of his mother at close range, the state's highest court said Thursday, affirming a lower court decision.

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Brief

CACI Says High Court Case Will Affect Abu Ghraib Verdict

By Ganesh Setty

CACI Premier Technology Inc. has urged the Fourth Circuit to delay adjudicating its rehearing bid after a panel upheld a $42 million jury award over CACI's conspiracy to torture Iraq War detainees, pointing to a forthcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

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DC Fights Federal Challenge To Assault Weapons Laws

By Jared Foretek

The District of Columbia government is urging a federal judge there to dismiss the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit targeting its assault weapons laws, claiming in a new response brief that the Trump administration is misusing a federal police misconduct law that was never intended to challenge criminal statutes.

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DC Judge Allows NASA Research Library Closure To Continue

By Ganesh Setty

A D.C. federal court rejected scientists' bid to block NASA from shuttering its largest research library and suspending access to a related database for space mission documentation, finding they failed to show irreparable harm.

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Critical Mineral Restrictions Up 500% From 2009, OECD Says

By Jack McLoone

Global export restrictions on critical raw materials that are key for digital and renewable energy technologies increased fivefold between 2009 and 2024, which could lead to greater risks of supply chain vulnerabilities, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said.

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Trump To Drop Scottish Whiskey Tariffs After UK Royal Visit

By Dylan Moroses

The U.S. will grant imported whiskey from the United Kingdom preferential tariff treatment following the visit to the U.S. by King Charles and Queen Camilla, President Donald Trump said on social media Thursday.

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EU-South American Provisional Trade Deal Takes Effect Friday

By Dylan Moroses

The European Union's interim trade agreement with four countries in the South American regional bloc known as Mercosur will begin to apply on a provisional basis Friday, according to news releases issued by the European Commission and members of European Parliament on Thursday.

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Fla. High Court Allows Email Service To Foreign Debtor

By David Minsky

The Florida Supreme Court declined to hear a case involving a Maltese citizen's challenge of email service in a law firm's lawsuit to collect fees, validating a recent state law that allows parties to bypass the Hague Convention to serve legal documents to foreign entities electronically.

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Judge Seeks Help On Jurisdiction In Trump's Tax Leak Suit

By Molly Moses

A Miami federal court appointed six attorneys from three firms to help it determine whether it has jurisdiction in President Donald Trump's suit accusing the IRS of failing to prevent a former contractor from leaking his tax returns to news outlets.

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Meta Made $8B From Treasury Guidance On Minimum Tax

By Kevin Pinner

Meta Platforms Inc. booked a more than $8 billion tax benefit from U.S. Treasury Department guidance on the corporate alternative minimum tax that allowed taxpayers to reduce the tax's base, the company said.

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Ohio Panel Strikes Curbs On 3rd-Party Tax Complaints

By Maria Koklanaris

Additional restrictions on third parties filing complaints about property valuation in Ohio violate the state's constitution, an Ohio appellate panel found.

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LSC Decries House Subcommittee's Proposed Budget Cut

By Marco Poggio

The nation's largest funder of civil legal aid condemned a House appropriations proposal to slash its budget for fiscal year 2027 by more than half, warning Thursday the reduction could leave nearly 3 million Americans without help for critical civil legal problems.

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Judge Denies Push To Stop Closed Immigration Hearings

By Tom Lotshaw

A D.C. federal judge denied a Minnesota human rights organization's request to block immigration judges from restricting public and press access to proceedings, ruling that it failed to show an immediate threat of future harm from unlawful hearing closures.

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5th Circ. Tosses FCA Suit Against IT Firm Over Visa Fraud

By Ganesh Setty

The Fifth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a man's claims that an India-based information technology and professional services firm violated the False Claims Act via fraudulent visa applications and improper tax withholding, finding no specific payment obligations under the FCA itself.

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Immigrant Minors Lose Bid To Block Repeat Sponsor Vetting

By Lauren Berg

A Washington, D.C., federal judge Thursday refused to block a Trump administration policy requiring that previously approved custodians reapply to sponsor "unaccompanied" children while the minors are held in government facilities, finding that the plaintiffs have not established the government is likely acting contrary to law.

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Gov't Pauses Medicaid Data Use For ICE Amid Injunction Fight

By Ben Adlin

The Trump administration agreed at a hearing Thursday to temporarily halt the use of 22 states' Medicaid data for immigration enforcement purposes until a San Francisco federal judge clarifies the boundaries of an injunction that the largely Democratic-controlled states had accused the government of flouting.

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Muscogee Disputes Okla. County's Jurisdiction On Tribal Land

By Joyce Hanson

The Muscogee Creek Nation has taken its fight to the Tenth Circuit to block Tulsa County's district attorney from exercising criminal jurisdiction on its reservation, appealing a lower court decision allowing the prosecutor to try and punish Native Americans who aren't members of the tribe.

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Ark. Asks 8th Circ. To Uphold Tribal Gaming License Order

By Crystal Owens

Arkansas is asking the Eighth Circuit to reject an appeal by two Cherokee Nation entities over the voter referendum revocation of a gaming license in Pope County, arguing that their claims omit crucial details in alleging that the state conspired to violate their constitutional rights.

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Native Groups Say Justices' Voting Order 'Mocks' Democracy

By Crystal Owens

Two Indigenous groups say the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to narrow a provision of the Voting Rights Act that forbids discrimination on the basis of race "cruelly" undercuts a foundational tool for Native American voters and other minority voters to protect themselves.

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FCC Establishes E-Rate Competitive Bidding Portal

By Nadia Dreid

Despite a partial dissent from the Federal Communications Commission's lone Democrat, the agency Thursday morning voted to approve a much-criticized plan to create a portal that consolidates bids for the E-rate program into one place.

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Brief

Antenna Location Near Bermuda Sinks Ala. FM Station Bid

By Nadia Dreid

Selma, Alabama, will not be getting a new low-power FM station after the Federal Communications Commission said an error on the paperwork listed antenna coordinates that nearly reached all the way to Bermuda.

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How Banks And Fintechs Can Build COPPA-Ready Youth Apps

Recent Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and state law activity expanding children's data protections underscore compliance considerations for bank-fintech partnerships offering digital financial tech products for youth, including age-gating, data minimization and parental control, says Erin Illman at Bradley Arant.

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Previewing FDA National Priority Vouchers In Psychedelics EO

President Donald Trump's recent executive order on psychedelic drug access represents a watershed moment in federal drug policy, but its significance lies in two distinct regulatory pathways, the first being the Commissioner's National Priority Vouchers, which offer a significant opportunity to compress U.S. Food and Drug Administration review, say Kimberly Chew at Husch Blackwell and Odette Hauke at Odette Alina.

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State Of Insurance: Q1 Notes From Illinois

Matthew Fortin at BatesCarey discusses notable insurance developments in Illinois, including the state Supreme Court's highly anticipated Griffith Foods v. National Union Fire Insurance ruling, two bulletins from the Department of Insurance directed at public adjusters and a Seventh Circuit decision precluding a "super excess" tier of coverage.

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Why Product-Based Public Nuisance Claims May Be Waning

The Maryland Supreme Court's recent decision in Express Scripts v. Anne Arundel County is the latest in a national trend of rulings rejecting product-based public nuisance claims — but other forms of government litigation against companies that allegedly increase the cost of public services are likely to continue, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

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Series

Playing Magic: The Gathering Makes Me A Better Lawyer

The competitive card game Magic: The Gathering offers me a training ground for the strategic thinking skills crucial to litigation, challenging me to adapt to oft-updated rules, analyze text as complicated as any statute and anticipate my opponent’s next moves, says Christopher Smith at Lash Goldberg.

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Q&A

How Paul Clement Does It All

By Katie Buehler

For most lawyers, getting to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court is a once-in-a-lifetime event, but for a select few, it's a common occurrence. Clement & Murphy PLLC name partner Paul Clement is one of those lawyers. 

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Don't 'Throw' Young Attys Under Bus, Judge Warns Musk Atty

By Dorothy Atkins

The California federal judge presiding over Elon Musk's challenge to OpenAI's for-profit conversion criticized Musk's attorney Marc Toberoff on Friday for eliciting "waste of time" trial testimony into Musk's $97.4 billion acquisition bid, warning Toberoff he "shouldn't throw young lawyers under the bus" by not quickly acknowledging his role.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a California federal jury cleared Armistice Capital and two of its executives of class action claims that it pumped and dumped $250 million in Vaxart stock during the COVID-19 pandemic and violated federal securities law with insider trading.

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Whistleblower Says DOJ Rushed SPLC Indictment

By Courtney Bublé

A whistleblower has come forward to say a top U.S. Department of Justice official ordered prosecutors in Alabama to "rush" the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center despite concerns about the viability of the case, according to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.

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California High Court Rejects Dunn's Bid To Nix Suspension

By Adrian Cruz

The California Supreme Court has declined to review a California State Bar decision to impose a one-year stayed suspension on former State Bar executive Joseph Dunn.

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FTC, DOJ Say ABA Reliance Limits Law School Competition

By Matthew Perlman

The Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division told the Tennessee Supreme Court the American Bar Association's monopoly over law school accreditations is driving up the cost of legal education.

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Analysis

SEC's Corp. Governance Shift Puts Onus On States, Cos.

By Sarah Jarvis

Lawyers who work with clients on corporate governance matters had a warm response to a recent pledge from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul Atkins to let states handle such issues, saying the shift marks a return to the agency's historical approach and may spur increased activity among state regulators.

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Ex-Bondi Adviser Tapped As Fraud Task Force's Chief Lawyer

By Phillip Bantz

Ousted U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's former adviser is taking on a new role as general counsel for the White House's fraud task force.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

A pair of proxy advisory firms have sued two state attorneys general over laws they say impose burdensome requirements for issuing recommendations that go against corporate managers' wishes. Meanwhile, KPMG reports that legal is evolving into a key driver of business performance, and AI is a core component of the department. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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Roundup

The Top In-House Hires Of April

By Michele Gorman

Legal department hires during the past month included high-profile appointments at Intel, Colgate and Tripadvisor. Here, Law360 Pulse looks at some of the top in-house announcements from April.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

The past week in London has seen a Swiss energy trader bring a Financial List claim against shipping benchmarking company Baltic Exchange, law firm Slater and Gordon sued by a former client, Slack and Salesforce hit Microsoft with an antitrust claim, and Stephen Fry bring a personal injury claim after he broke bones falling off a stage. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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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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