FTC, AGs Say Amazon Pocketed $20B With Fraudulent Auctions

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

The Federal Trade Commission and a bipartisan coalition of 22 states sued Amazon Monday, alleging it secretly overcharged advertising customers more than $20 billion by manipulating how it set prices for ads on its e-commerce website.

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How Did Litigants Fare In Judge Albright's 55 Patent Trials?

By Dani Kass

U.S. District Judge Alan Albright oversaw more than 50 patent trials between his 2018 arrival on the bench and planned Monday departure, and in a surprise for many attorneys, there was a near-even split between victories for patent owners and accused infringers.

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6th Circ. Splits On Tenn. Social Media Age-Verification Law

By Emily Field

A split Sixth Circuit panel said a lower court should have blocked Tennessee's age-verification law for social media platforms while an internet industry group challenged the statute, finding the group had shown it would be harmed by compliance costs and the loss of free speech liberties.

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Judge Says Risky Investments Wipe SVB's $1.7B FDIC Claim

By Rick Archer

A California federal judge has ruled that a $1.7 billion claim by the parent of the failed Silicon Valley Bank against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is more than offset by the more than $5 billion the parent's reckless investment strategy cost the bank.

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Apple Can't Shake Fintech Co.'s Trade Secret, RICO Suit

By Bonnie Eslinger

A Georgia federal judge on Monday denied Apple's motion to dismiss Fintiv's trade secrets and racketeering litigation, finding the fintech company plausibly alleges that Apple stole its trade secrets and encouraged credit card issuers and payment processors to promote the false message that Apple created the technology behind Apple Pay.

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Kioxia Seeks To Undo 'Tainted' $229M Viasat IP Verdict

By Craig Clough

Kioxia Corp. urged a Texas federal court Friday to throw out a $229 million patent verdict for Viasat Inc. and order a new trial or grant it a win, arguing that "numerous errors tainted the jury's award."

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Sony, Warner Music Sue Anthropic Over 'Brazen' IP Theft

By Rae Ann Varona

Sony Music and Warner Chappell Music have accused Anthropic in California federal court of carrying out a "brazen campaign" of musical composition theft, alleging the Claude-maker stole lyrics and sheet music by scraping websites, exploiting datasets and "destructively scanning" physical copies of copyrighted music.

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House Passes Bill To Curb Secret Prosecutor Orders

By Courtney Bublé

The House passed a bipartisan bill via voice vote Monday afternoon to add transparency to prosecutors' use of nondisclosure orders for telephone service providers.

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Calif. Passes Bills To Limit Tracking Suits, Boost Privacy

By Allison Grande

California lawmakers have sent to the governor's desk legislation that would block private litigants from bringing website tracking lawsuits under a key provision of the state's wiretap law, as well as a separate pair of bills to expand protections under the state's data privacy law. 

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'Reality Check' Needed For E-Rate, Says Ex-FCC Commish

By Christopher Cole

A former member of the Federal Communications Commission pushed Monday for a complete review of the E-Rate program for school and library telecom discounts, asking if instead of helping students learn, it's "doing harm."

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Mass. Police Department Opposes FCC Drone Restriction

By Nadia Dreid

A Massachusetts police chief is asking the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider banning people from buying foreign-made military-grade drones, saying law enforcement can use them to find missing people much more quickly than human search groups.

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Fiber, Labor Shortages Spur Call To Delay Rural Connections

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

Broadband providers have reiterated their call for a one-year extension of the Federal Communications Commission's deadline to complete projects under a rural funding program, citing increasing fiber scarcity and the ongoing skilled labor shortage.

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Oregon Says Lifeline Integrity 'Robust' As FCC Probe Ensues

By Christopher Cole

Oregon told the Federal Communications Commission that its Lifeline phone subsidy program has shown low error rates as the FCC probes state programs that have opted out of a federal system to verify enrollees.

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NLRB Atty OKs Microsoft's Gaza Protest Firings

By Braden Campbell

Microsoft did not violate federal labor law by firing two workers who organized a protest of the war in Gaza at the company's Washington headquarters because the event didn't have a clear enough tie to their work, a National Labor Relations Board attorney said in a newly released advice memo.

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Brief

FCC Names New Enforcement Bureau Chief

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission has named Hunter Deeley as its new Enforcement Bureau chief.

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GOP Asks Justices To Lift Block In Campaign Ad Pricing Case

By Katie Buehler

Republican fundraising committees have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift a Fourth Circuit order blocking the Federal Communications Commission from extending discounted television and radio advertising rates to committees that buy spots in coordination with political candidates, arguing the lower court prematurely jumped into the review process.

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Fed. Circ. Affirms Samsung Didn't Infringe Mobile Tech Patent

By Elliot Weld

The Federal Circuit on Monday upheld a lower court's decision to deny a new trial in a case accusing Samsung of infringing a mobile device technology patent, saying Samsung had shown "ample" evidence cutting against infringement.

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Fed. Circ. OKs PTAB Axing Some SpaceTime3D Claims

By Elliot Weld

The Federal Circuit on Monday affirmed a pair of rulings from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that found two patents and some claims in a third patent covering graphical user interface technology held by SpaceTime3D Inc. were unpatentable, siding with challenges made by Apple and Google.

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Tesla Asks 9th Circ. To Decertify 'Full Self-Driving' Ad Class

By Dorothy Atkins

Tesla urged the Ninth Circuit on Monday to decertify classes of Tesla buyers who accuse the company of making false and deceptive promises about the capabilities of their "self-driving" electric vehicles, arguing that there's no proof showing all class members viewed the alleged misstatement at issue on Tesla's webpage.

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Judge Trims Claims In Insurance Software Trade Secret Case

By Elliot Weld

A federal judge in Chicago on Monday issued a mixed ruling in a case brought by a company that makes insurance agency management software against a rival that it claims created a fake insurance company to steal trade secrets, dismissing some claims but preserving others for trade secret misappropriation and violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

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Tesla, Calif. Family Settle Suit Over Fatal Autopilot Crash

By Y. Peter Kang

Tesla has agreed to settle a suit alleging the automaker's autopilot technology and marketing of its self-driving capabilities contributed to a fatal 2023 crash that killed a driver and seriously injured his passenger, according to documents filed in California federal court.

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DOGE Data-Privacy Suit Survives Reconsideration Bid

By Jared Foretek

A D.C. federal judge declined Friday to reconsider his March decision allowing a proposed class action accusing the Trump administration of unlawfully sharing federal employees' sensitive personal information with Department of Government Efficiency staffers to proceed, ruling that an "oversight" in his prior opinion wouldn't alter the result.

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Law Firm's Calif. Claims Stayed Over AI Comms Co.'s NY Suit

By Andrea Keckley

A California federal judge ruled that AI communications company Connex One cannot escape claims brought by a personal injury law firm alleging it faced harassment and threats of litigation after it declined to renew their contract, saying the case will be stayed until a New York lawsuit brought by Connex against the firm runs its course.

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Avalara Investors Suing Over $8.4B Buyout Win Class Cert.

By Asha Glover

A Washington federal judge granted class certification to investors in tax software company Avalara in a suit alleging it misled investors ahead of an $8.4 billion deal to take the company private.

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Valve's 15K Antitrust Arbitrations Will Stay On Ice, Judge Says

By Ben Adlin

Arbitrations between gaming giant Valve Corp. and nearly 15,000 gamers will remain paused as the Ninth Circuit weighs whether the antitrust disputes are eligible for arbitration under the company's updated subscriber terms, according to a bench ruling Monday from a Seattle federal judge.

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Senators Say Roblox, Discord Can't Arbitrate Sex Abuse Suit

By Mike Curley

Sens. Dick Durbin, Richard Blumenthal and Kirsten Gillibrand are urging a California state appeals court to reject Discord Inc. and Roblox Corp.'s bid to compel arbitration in a suit from a teenager alleging he was groomed and abused on the platforms.

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Webinar Site Says Recorded Meetings Were Public

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

A webinar site accused of secretly recording and posting private videoconferences online for profit told a California federal court Friday the "dissonance" required to assume the meetings are private is enough to end the proposed class action.

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Circle Says N. Korea Hack USDC Was Never In Its Possession

By Sydney Price

Blockchain company Circle Internet Financial LLC said that the family of a man who was kidnapped and murdered by North Korean agents cannot collect $232 million from the company following the April Fools' Day exploit of crypto project Drift Protocol, arguing it was not in possession of the contents of the wallets at issue.

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Tech Biz Challenges ICE's $95M Sole-Source Blockchain Award

By Elaine Briseño

Chainalysis Government Solutions accused the U.S. Department of Homeland Security of improperly awarding a nearly $95 million sole-source contract for forensic software, arguing the government should have held a full competition for the "largest blockchain analytics contract" it ever awarded.

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Shareholders Say Generator Co. Overhyped Data Center Deal

By Isaac Monterose

A shareholder in Hyliion Holdings Corp. is accusing the linear generator manufacturer in Texas federal court of exaggerating the potential success of its business partnership with an AI infrastructure company that specializes in data centers.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court this past week saw disputes over a $200 million federal grant, a $1.7 billion software take-private deal, the ouster of Better.com founder Vishal Garg and a proposed $4 million settlement stemming from an electric vehicle company's SPAC merger.

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SLB Buying Kelvion In $4.1B Data Center Cooling Deal

By Al Barbarino

Global energy technology company SLB said Monday it has agreed to acquire Apollo-backed Kelvion, a provider of thermal management and heat exchange technologies, in a $4.1 billion deal that SLB said will expand its role in the rapidly growing data center infrastructure space. 

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Nuvo's $9.75M D&O Deal Ends US-Israel Bankruptcy Clash

By Ben Zigterman

Bankrupt pregnancy-technology firm Nuvo Group and an Israeli court-appointed trustee tasked with liquidating it reached an agreement that resolves their cross-border disputes by using a $9.75 million settlement payment from insurers of former executives.

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ChatGPT, Reddit, Roblox ID'd For Extra EU Digital Safeguards

By Bryan Koenig

The European Commission labeled ChatGPT, Reddit and Roblox on Monday as large enough to warrant extra rules for policing illegal content and other mandates, bringing the number of companies hit with Digital Services Act labels up to 28.

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Brief

FCC Fines Undersea Cable Cos. For Expired Landing Licenses

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Communications Commission inked a deal with a submarine cable company and its three co-licensees to end an investigation into their failure to renew their licenses on time, with the quartet agreeing to split a $45,000 fine.

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Greenberg Traurig Adds Ex-Meta Atty In DC And Miami

By Madison Arnold

A longtime Meta Platforms Inc. in-house attorney has jumped to Greenberg Traurig LLP to work in its digital infrastructure group in Washington, D.C., and Miami, the firm announced Monday.

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Ex-Clifford Chance Attys Fight Bid To Toss Clawback Suit

By Ryan Boysen

The two partners facing a $6 million clawback demand by Clifford Chance LLP have again asked a federal judge to decide whether English or New York law should govern the arbitration, claiming the firm's partnership agreement is unclear.

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New Report Rings Alarm On Threats To Judicial Independence

By Jack Karp

Verbal attacks on judges, disinformation about the courts and the defiance of court orders are undermining the independence of the federal judiciary and significantly affecting individual judges' ability to do their jobs, a report out Monday says.

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Roundup

Defamation Litigation Roundup: NYT, J&J, Azerbaijan

By Theresa Schliep

In this month's review of defamation fights, Law360 details a jury verdict against The New York Times in a suit involving its reporting on a shooting in Alabama, and highlights a judge's decision to spare researchers from a suit by a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary over their talc research.

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Brief

House Passes Bill Adding Texas, California Court Sites

By Courtney Bublé

The House voted 378-10 on Monday evening to expand access to federal courts in Texas and California, the two most populous states in the nation.

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Roundup

Hub Hires: MassBar, Kirkland, Troutman

By Chris Villani

Massachusetts' legal landscape saw a sizzling summer finish, with several major firms making hires. Kirkland added a veteran white collar defense attorney, Troutman bolstered its real estate team and Day Pitney nabbed an experienced corporate attorney.

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