Public Policy

  • May 21, 2026

    BREAKING: Justices Back IAM Pension Fund In Withdrawal Liability Battle

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that multiemployer pension plan actuaries can retroactively change assumptions underlying their withdrawal liability calculations, handing a win to trustees of a union pension fund. 

  • May 20, 2026

    Bad AI Citation Sanction Slashed Amid 7th Circ. Guidance

    An Indiana federal judge Wednesday rejected a magistrate judge's recommendation that an attorney be sanctioned $7,500 for including faulty, artificial intelligence-generated legal citations in a discovery brief, pointing to recent Seventh Circuit guidance and sanctioning him $2,000 instead.

  • May 20, 2026

    House Passes Broad Housing Bill, But Senate Accord Unclear

    The U.S. House of Representatives voted 396-13 to pass a landmark housing bill on Wednesday, but questions remain about how the Senate will react to the latest version, particularly its handling of institutional investors in the single-family housing market.

  • May 20, 2026

    DOJ, Drugmakers Spar After Justices Snub 6 Negotiation Suits

    The U.S. Department of Justice is trying to have it both ways in drug pricing litigation, telling the U.S. Supreme Court not to intervene before additional circuits decide pending challenges and then using this week's nonintervention as ammunition against those challenges, drugmakers are arguing at appeals courts.

  • May 20, 2026

    Bayer Curbs Seed Loyalty Program Amid DOJ Antitrust Inquiry

    Bayer CropScience has agreed to back off, for the next seven years, from implementing requirements in its loyalty program where it was accused of tying discounts to sales targets that independent seed companies had to meet, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's announcement made Wednesday.

  • May 20, 2026

    Top 4 Most Surprising Moments In Musk-OpenAI Trial

    The high-profile trial over Elon Musk's challenge to OpenAI's for-profit conversion wrapped Monday with a quick jury verdict in favor of OpenAI and its executives, but the three-week trial drew some surprising moments for those in the courtroom who had front row seats to the fight between billionaires.

  • May 20, 2026

    Bank Ratings Would Focus More On Financial Risk Under Plan

    Federal regulators have unveiled a proposal to revamp a key ratings system used for grading the condition of banks, outlining changes that could make it harder to penalize banks on exams for governance and compliance issues unless they pose a clear financial threat.

  • May 20, 2026

    States Push FDIC To Include Them In Stablecoin Reviews

    The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. faces calls to coordinate with fellow federal agencies and include state banking regulators in its coming application process for stablecoin issuers under its supervision.

  • May 20, 2026

    Social Media Not Proven To Harm Mental Health, Judge Told

    A statistics expert for Meta sought Wednesday to undermine the claim that social media has driven a rise in mental health conditions among teens, saying the New Mexico attorney general's key witness on the topic didn't consider alternative factors like widening access to mental health care.

  • May 20, 2026

    Fed Pitches Formal Plan To Offer Fintechs 'Payment Accounts'

    The Federal Reserve on Wednesday moved closer to giving financial technology firms a new route to accessing its payment rails, advancing a formal proposal to create a special type of "payment account" while calling for a pause on some pending full-account decisions.

  • May 20, 2026

    Binance Libel Suit Doesn't Show Actual Malice, Dow Jones Says

    Dow Jones urged a New York federal judge to toss a defamation suit brought by Binance over a Wall Street Journal article saying the cryptocurrency exchange fired internal investigators who uncovered transactions that purportedly went to sanctioned Iranian-backed entities, arguing that Binance hadn't shown the article was published with actual malice.

  • May 20, 2026

    Texas AG Sues ISS Over ESG Considerations

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. on Wednesday for allegedly advising shareholders based on environmental, social and governance considerations rather than the objective advice it advertises, in violation of a Texas consumer law.

  • May 20, 2026

    Baltimore Bridge Wreck Civil Trial Will Stay The Course

    A Maryland federal judge on Wednesday refused an eleventh-hour request from the Dali cargo ship's owner and manager to delay a trial that's starting in less than two weeks to determine the scope of liability and damages over Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster, according to an attorney for certain claimants.

  • May 20, 2026

    4th Circ. OKs Pipeline Work During Green Groups' Permit Suit

    A Fourth Circuit panel refused to order Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co. LLC to halt construction on an interstate pipeline, saying in an order Monday that environmental groups failed to persuade the judges that a recently issued discharge permit was arbitrary and capricious.

  • May 20, 2026

    Women Fencers Can't Advance Bias Suit Over Trans Eligibility

    A Missouri federal judge ruled on Wednesday that three women fencers did not prove that they were discriminated against by the organizers of a tournament that permitted transgender women to compete, throwing out their proposed class action.

  • May 20, 2026

    La. Defends Challenged LNG Project Air Permit At 5th Circ.

    A Louisiana regulator told the Fifth Circuit environmental groups have no ground to support their challenge of a preconstruction permit approved for a major liquefied natural gas export terminal in Cameron Parish.

  • May 20, 2026

    DOJ Looks To Nix Dish's Requirement To Operate 5G Network

    Now that it's sold off all its spectrum, Dish isn't going to be able to build the nationwide 5G network that it promised the U.S. Department of Justice it would as part of the T-Mobile-Sprint merger, so the DOJ is asking a D.C. federal court to nix that part of their agreement.

  • May 20, 2026

    1st Circ. Allows Transfer Of RI Youth Care Info To Texas Court

    The First Circuit declined to halt a Texas federal court's order requiring a Rhode Island hospital to hand over records detailing its provision of gender-affirming care to minors, finding a Rhode Island agency failed to demonstrate that doing so would cause children in the state irreparable harm.

  • May 20, 2026

    White House Told To Obey Records Law, Not Trump's Policy

    A D.C. federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Presidential Records Act is likely constitutional and ordered White House staff to comply with it, while rejecting the Trump administration's new recordkeeping policy as insufficient.

  • May 20, 2026

    FTC Targets AI 'Nudify' Apps Under Revenge Porn Law

    The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday sent warning letters to a dozen companies that offer artificial intelligence tools that allow people to "nudify" images, marking some of its first regulatory actions under a revenge porn law that went into force the day prior.

  • May 20, 2026

    FTC Looks For Ways To Avoid 'Litigating The Fix'

    Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson said Wednesday that last-minute settlement proposals in merger cases put enforcers in a tough spot and ultimately hurt the merger review process, as the agency considers ways to avoid litigating the offers in court.

  • May 20, 2026

    DC Circ. Orders FCC Response In News Distortion Dispute

    The D.C. Circuit ordered the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday to respond to a call from several former agency leaders for court action that would compel the FCC into rethinking its controversial policy against "news distortion."

  • May 20, 2026

    Antivax Health Workers Fight Uphill At 9th Circ. Over Firings

    Two Ninth Circuit panelists cast doubt Wednesday on an attempt by a group of former University of Washington employees to revive claims that they were wrongfully fired after they refused COVID-19 vaccination on religious grounds, with one judge remarking that unvaccinated workers "make the risk worse" in a healthcare setting.

  • May 20, 2026

    DOT Taps Vornado Team For Penn Station Rebuild

    The U.S. Department of Transportation on Wednesday selected a master developer team to lead a major renovation of New York City's Penn Station, a team that includes Vornado Realty Trust, which controls a significant commercial footprint across adjacent blocks.

  • May 20, 2026

    Connecticut Challenges Tribal Recognition Repetitioning Rule

    Connecticut is asking a federal court to block the Interior Department from accepting any requests from Indigenous nations seeking to reapply for federal recognition under a revised rule finalized last year, claiming it's the product of an unlawful procedure and is arbitrary and capricious in its substance and application.

Expert Analysis

  • Engaging With FDA's New Complete Response Letter Policy

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    A citizen petition filed with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last month puts renewed focus on the agency's practice of releasing complete response letters in near real time, materially altering the context in which life sciences companies communicate with investors regarding regulatory developments, say attorneys at Debevoise.

  • Data Center Developer Lessons From Maine's Vetoed Ban

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    The regulatory and political dynamics that recently led Maine’s governor to veto a popular bipartisan bill proposing a temporary data center development ban offer a useful template that developers can use to help their projects survive other states' attempts at moratoriums, say attorneys at Thompson Hine.

  • Revised Fed Principles Balance Risk And Remediation

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    The Federal Reserve's recently updated supervisory principles sharpen standards for enforcement actions while rewarding self-identification and remediation, signaling a more transparent approach that could reduce uncertainty and reshape how banks manage examination risk and regulator engagement going forward, say attorneys at Davis Wright.

  • Big Issues Linger After Senate Prediction Market Trading Ban

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    Whether the Senate can — or should — extend prediction market trading restrictions beyond itself will test not only the boundaries of insider trading law, but also the structural limits of legislative power in an era where information itself has become a tradable asset, say attorneys at Benesch.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lesson: Diagnose Before Arguing

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    Law school often skips over explicitly teaching students how to determine what kind of problem a case presents before they commit to a particular doctrinal path, which risks building arguments that are internally coherent but externally misaligned, says Melanie Oxhorn at Kobre & Kim.

  • Trump's Psychedelics EO Creates A Regulatory Collision

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    Sponsors pursuing U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for psychedelic drug access must tackle how to generate regulatory-grade safety and efficacy data in controlled trials when President Donald Trump's recent executive order on psychedelics mandates uncontrolled access through Right to Try, say Kimberly Chew at Husch Blackwell and Odette Hauke at Odette Alina.

  • What Model Risk Guidance Update Means For Banks

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    Federal prudential regulators recently issued new model risk management guidance for banks that is designed to reduce prescriptive supervisory expectations and instead focus more on material financial risk, so banking organizations should reassess their model inventories, apply the new materiality framework and update their internal policies, say attorneys at Orrick.

  • Recent Benchmarking Suits Highlight DOJ Enforcement Risks

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    The U.S. Department of Justice's recent settlements with RealPage and Agri Stats inform the level of antitrust risk surrounding the use of benchmarking services and suggest an aggressive enforcement approach, particularly with respect to granular data and nonprice data reporting, say attorneys at Axinn.

  • Becoming The Biz-Savvy GC That Portfolio Companies Need

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    Candidates for general counsel roles at private equity-backed portfolio companies should prioritize proving their sector-specific experience, commercial judgment and ease with uncertainty — and attorneys hoping to be candidates in five to 10 years should start working on those skills now, says Dimitri Mastrocola at Major Lindsey.

  • Operational AI Washing: The Section 220 Information Strategy

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    Plaintiffs filing AI washing claims will likely use Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law to obtain internal board records, but 2025 amendments have fundamentally changed the landscape of presuit shareholder document demands in ways that create both risk and opportunity for companies, say attorneys at Akerman.

  • What New PFAS Rule Means For Tracking And Disclosure

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    In the wake of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's publication of its rule adding PFHxS-Na to the Toxics Release Inventory, companies should identify this substance in their facilities and supply chains, and prepare for disclosures to both regulators and the public, says Ayodeji Ayolola at Gordon Rees.

  • Ch. 11 Ruling Raises Bar For Avoiding Default Interest

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    Following a New York bankruptcy court's recent decision in 33 Mako, solvent debtors may find it significantly harder to avoid paying contractual default interest to oversecured lenders under Section 506(b) of the Bankruptcy Code, say attorneys at Benesch.

  • Series

    Judges On AI: How Courts Can Survive The Tech Revolution

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    Colorado Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter and Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Lino Lipinsky de Orlov discuss how artificial intelligence has already fundamentally altered the legal system and offer tips for courts navigating deepfakes, hallucinations and a gap in access to AI tools.

  • 'Skinny Label' Arguments Spotlight Induced Infringement Risk

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    Recent oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court in Hikma Pharmaceuticals v. Amarin Pharma highlight the uncertain boundary between lawful generic competition through so-called skinny labels and induced patent infringement, with potential implications for patent holders’ communication, enforcement and causation strategies across industries, says Anton Hopen at Trenam.

  • What Jury Holdouts Can Teach Trial Lawyers About Strategy

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    Though a hung jury can be a disappointment, a psychological understanding of jury holdouts can help trial lawyers shape their damages arguments and understand leadership and group composition as a function of jury selection, says Clint Townson at Townson Litigation.

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