Analysis

Judiciary Stuck In AI Rulemaking Rut As Attys, Judges Protest

By Jeff Overley

Judiciary efforts to enact rules for the artificial intelligence age are mired in concerns about burdens on litigators, the tensions between burgeoning technology and snail-paced policymaking, and how to even define AI. And despite vivid examples of AI's risks, officials are inching toward mothballing the prominent project.

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Marvell To Buy AI Optics Co. Lumentum In $115B Deal

By Al Barbarino

Marvell Technology Inc. said Monday it has agreed to purchase data center optics maker Lumentum for an enterprise value of $115 billion in a deal advised by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati PC and Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. 

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Meta Users Win Class Cert. In Pixel Healthcare Data Suit

By Lauren Berg

A California federal judge certified four classes of Facebook users who allege Meta Platforms collected their personal health information through data tracking tools on healthcare providers' websites, rejecting the social media company's attempts to attack the predominance of common issues.

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More Amicus Briefs Flood NYT, OpenAI Copyright Case

By Theresa Schliep

Actors, writers groups, advocacy organizations, law professors and current and former political leaders weighed in on the OpenAI copyright multidistrict litigation in New York federal court, with some arguing that fair use does not protect the artificial intelligence developer, while others contended that training models on copyrighted works was all above board.

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Runway AI Must Face Video Scraping DMCA Suit, Judge Says

By Adam Lidgett

A New York federal judge has refused to toss a proposed class action accusing Runway AI of wrongfully scraping videos YouTube users posted online to train its artificial intelligence system, finding the allegations in the suit under federal copyright law are up to snuff at this point.

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Meta Can't Shake Android Users' Browsing-Profile Claims

By Hailey Konnath

A California federal judge on Monday once again refused to throw out consolidated litigation claiming Meta matched users' browsing activities to their Facebook accounts for targeted advertising purposes, ruling that the plaintiffs have adequately alleged it violated the Android security protocol known as sandboxing.

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News Orgs Say Brave Is 'Dealer' For Scraped Content

By Elliot Weld

The New York Times and a group of regional newspapers have accused Brave Software Inc. of acting as a "dealer" of copyrighted news content scraped from the internet and selling it to the top makers of artificial intelligence for training data.

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Interview

SEC's Top Cop On Building A 'Nimble' Enforcement Division

By Jessica Corso

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has lost hundreds of enforcement employees and seen significant restructuring of its regional offices over the past two years, but the Division of Enforcement's director said that hasn't stopped him from building a "nimble" program that is focused on more than just the number of cases filed.

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Analysis

Maine's Canada Trade Exemption May Ride On Midterms

By Dylan Moroses

The fate of Maine's relief from the trade war between the U.S. and Canada may lie in the balance of Tuesday's midterm election results, a dynamic that shows how trade policy can be influenced by the political winds, experts said.

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FCC Grants 1st Router Security Waiver Aimed At Onshoring

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission's staff has granted a partial waiver from its rules restricting the sale of foreign routers in the U.S., saying it's the first exemption for routers based on onshoring jobs as one of the public interest benefits.

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FCC Clears More Drones, Inverters, Robots From Covered List

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

The Federal Communications Commission has cleared several foreign-produced products for sale in the U.S., exempting certain uncrewed aircraft systems, advanced robotic devices and power inverters from the Covered List, which restricts foreign-made devices for national security reasons.

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FCC To Vote On Extending Rural Broadband Support Fund

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Communications Commission wants to extend the Connect America Fund's alternative cost model by another two years instead of letting it sunset at the end of the year.

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Reform But Don't Gut FCC Subsidies, Rural Telecoms Say

By Christopher Cole

Rural telecom providers say the Universal Service Fund needs reforms to run more smoothly, but they cautioned the Federal Communications Commission against structural changes that could disrupt the program.

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NJ Parents' Suit Challenging Storing Baby DNA Gets Tossed

By Dorothy Atkins

A New Jersey federal judge tossed a proposed class action Friday challenging the Garden State's practice of keeping newborn babies' residual blood spots without parental consent, finding the parents haven't alleged viable Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment claims, in part because the state agreed to destroy the blood spots at issue.

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Triller Faces $6.16M Default Judgment In Boxing Dispute

By Craig Clough

A Florida federal magistrate judge recommended Monday that two Triller companies pay nearly $6.2 million to a boxing agent over a breached settlement agreement, after the defendants failed to obtain replacement counsel by a court-ordered deadline.

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CoStar Dodges Rent Fee Class Action After Deal In Principle

By Ben Adlin

An Apartments.com user dropped her proposed nationwide class action accusing the online service of charging "junk transaction fees" on rent payments made through its platform, according to an order granted Monday by a Washington federal judge.

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XAI Fails To Dodge Miss. NAACP Pollution Suit

By Tom Lotshaw

A Mississippi federal judge denied X.AI Corp.'s bid to dismiss an NAACP citizen suit alleging that the company has unlawfully installed and operated dozens of polluting natural gas-fired turbines to power its Colossus 2 data center.

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Xbox Buyer's Microsoft Tariff Refund Suit Sent To Arbitration

By Rachel Riley

A Washington federal judge said Monday that an Xbox buyer must arbitrate his claims that Microsoft unjustly pocketed refunds meant for consumers after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Trump administration's global tariff regime, citing an arbitration pact described by the console's packaging and included documents.

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Shop Says Rival Must Arbitrate ENASCAR Trade Secrets Row

By Elaine Briseño

An eNASCAR digital race car shop accused of stealing trade secrets told a North Carolina federal judge the dispute should be arbitrated, arguing the accusations stem from supposed information obtained from its rival's website.

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Railway Co. Says Pact Silent On NJ Transit Indemnity Claim

By George Woolston

A railway electronics company is urging a Garden State federal court to toss New Jersey Transit's suit claiming the company must fund the transit agency's defense against patent infringement claims in an underlying suit, arguing the agreement the agency cites doesn't support what is alleged.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court last week allowed a stockholder claim over R1 RCM Inc.'s $8.9 billion buyout to proceed, while investors in Meta Platforms Inc. sued to block a stock restructuring they say would let CEO Mark Zuckerberg sell billions of dollars in shares without giving up control of the company.

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Analysis

AI Agents Raise Stakes For Banks As Legal Fights Loom

By Jon Hill

As major banks move to keep artificial intelligence agents from accessing customer accounts, financial services attorneys say the growing use of these tools in financial transactions could test the limits of existing consumer protection laws and set the stage for litigation.

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Monthly Merger Review Snapshot

By Matthew Perlman

The Federal Trade Commission caused a pair of playground equipment makers to abandon their planned merger, Canadian enforcers upended a deal for the Green Giant brand in the country and state attorneys general reached settlements for several regional deals.

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Blackstone-Led Group Investing $3.1B Into LNG Canada

By Al Barbarino

Blackstone and a group of Canadian institutional partners have agreed to invest $3.1 billion in a Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary that holds the Japanese company's 15% stake in the LNG Canada natural gas project, the private equity giant and Japanese conglomerate announced Monday.

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Lowenstein, Loeb Guide Tokenization Firm's $350M SPAC Deal

By Katryna Perera

Fintech firm tZERO Group Inc. and FG Imperii Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company, announced Monday they have agreed to a $350 million merger, guided by Lowenstein Sandler LLP and Loeb & Loeb LLP.

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50 Cos. Object To Listing On OKX Tokenized Stock Venue

By Aislinn Keely

Fifty publicly traded firms including Goldman Sachs, Microsoft and Nvidia have directed the tokenized stock trading venue OKXICE not to list blockchain-based forms of their shares, according to the crypto platform's latest disclosure.

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RealPage, Landlords Get DC Antitrust Trial Delayed

By Isaac Monterose

A District of Columbia superior court judge has vacated the March 29, 2027, jury trial date for the city's rent price-fixing lawsuit against property management software company RealPage Inc. and multiple landlords.

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Calif. AG Hits Lyft With $1.8M Fine For Opt-Out 'Barrier'

By Allison Grande

Lyft has agreed to pay $1.8 million and overhaul its mechanism for consumers to stop the sale of their data through its mobile app in order to resolve the California attorney general's claims that the company's existing opt-out process was too "cumbersome" and created a "barrier" to consumers exercising their privacy rights. 

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Kirkland ITC Patent Litigator Leaves For Wolf Greenfield In DC

By Dani Kass

Wolf Greenfield & Sacks PC has expanded its litigation team in Washington, D.C., with a U.S. International Trade Commission-focused intellectual property specialist from Kirkland & Ellis LLP, the firm announced Monday.

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A Defense Attorney Playbook For Challenging Flock Evidence

As law enforcement continues to bring charges based on evidence from Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers, defense counsel should consider four key categories for discovery requests and motions to compel such evidence, says Tamar Lerer at the New Jersey Office of the Public Defender.

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The Patent Circuit: Minding Patents' Family Histories

The Federal Circuit's recent decision in Epic Tech v. Pen-Tech highlights the relevance of patent families in determining whether to maintain an ongoing patent infringement litigation, and the sanctions risk that may stem from failing to account for patent relatives, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.

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How Banks Can Better Prepare For Wire Fraud Risks

Recent schemes serve as a reminder that banks can better limit liability for fraudulent wire transfers by documenting commercially reasonable security procedures, following them consistently, and addressing beneficiary name and account number discrepancies, says Shelli Clarkston at Spencer Fane.

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Lessons For Cannabis Dispensaries From Web Tracking Suits

The trajectory of health-tracking litigation in Florida and elsewhere suggests that patient privacy claims will not disappear quickly, so dispensaries should audit their sites, tighten consent and align their disclosures with their actual practices, say attorneys at Buchanan Ingersoll.

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BigLaw Attys Step Up To Help Voters In Midterm Elections

By Jack Karp and Lynn LaRowe

Attorneys from several BigLaw firms are volunteering across the country to make sure voters don't run into problems casting their ballots or having those ballots counted in Tuesday's midterm elections.

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Brief

Winston Taylor, DLA Piper Match Milbank Pay Scale

By Tracey Read

Two more BigLaw firms have opted to match the new associate salary scale set by Milbank LLP in June.

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Judge Orders Chicago US Atty To Testify In Misconduct Probe

By Celeste Bott

An Illinois federal judge has ordered Chicago's top federal prosecutor and three assistant U.S. attorneys to testify under oath about potentially false statements made to her in a now-dismissed criminal conspiracy case against anti-ICE protesters, saying Monday that the government's shifting explanations about communications with DOJ leadership suggest prosecutors misled the court about outside involvement in the prosecution.

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NY State Bar Says Attys Can't Bill Time Saved By AI

By Andrea Keckley

The New York State Bar Association has told lawyers not to bill clients for the time they saved by using artificial intelligence, or for the time it took to learn a new AI tool.

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