Public Policy

  • April 17, 2026

    PTAB Petitions Continue To Plummet As Reexams Surge

    The number of America Invents Act petitions continued to crater as the volume of reexamination requests skyrocketed in the first quarter of 2026 as policies by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires settled in, according to a new report from Unified Patents.

  • April 17, 2026

    Plea Change Hearing Set For Former Conn. Budget Official

    A change of plea hearing has been scheduled for Monday afternoon for Konstantinos M. Diamantis, a former Connecticut budget official, elected politician and attorney facing an impending federal corruption trial for allegedly pocketing bribes while helping end a state Medicaid audit of an optometry practice operated by his friend's fiancée.

  • April 17, 2026

    4 Firms Lead Kraken's $550M Buy Of Crypto Derivatives Biz

    Four firms including Haynes Boone and Jones Day guided Kraken's $550 million acquisition of regulated crypto derivatives exchange Bitnomial, according to a Friday announcement from Kraken.

  • April 17, 2026

    DOJ's NFL Probe May Reshape Sports Broadcasting Law

    Though antitrust charges are in play in the U.S. Department of Justice's investigation into the NFL's deals with services like Amazon Prime and Netflix, experts say they don't see a strong federal case against the league's broadcasting practices, as focus may shift to updating a decades-old law governing how sports leagues negotiate television deals.

  • April 17, 2026

    CFPB Could Soon Issue Overhauled Small-Biz Loan Data Rule

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is awaiting White House clearance to publish a final rule that would complete its revamp of small-business lender reporting requirements issued during the Biden administration, according to a new regulatory notice.

  • April 17, 2026

    Groups Say EPA Used Faulty Math In GHG Finding Repeal

    Sixteen health and environmental groups said this week that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must reconsider its February repeal of the scientific finding allowing the agency to regulate greenhouse gases, because the final rule relied on error-filled technical analyses that weren't included in the proposed version.

  • April 17, 2026

    California Is Latest Battleground In Defining Access To Justice

    A pair of dueling California ballot initiatives both purport to increase consumers' access to justice — a righteous cause, most would say. If only the initiatives' backers agreed on what that means.

  • April 17, 2026

    Too Mentally Ill To Stand In Court, Texas Inmate Fights On

    A Texas death row prisoner who gouged out both of his eyes and suffers from schizoaffective disorder is fighting efforts to move forward with his execution, arguing that his severe psychosis leaves him unable to rationally understand why the state wants to kill him. His case highlights a broader debate over whether the Constitution should bar the execution of people with severe mental illness, even when they technically know they are on death row.

  • April 17, 2026

    Judge Says USCIS Can't Keep Delaying Iranians' Work Permits

    A California federal judge ordered U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to unfreeze its processing of work permit applications for several dozen Iranians and a Sudanese national, finding the agency likely violated federal administrative law by indefinitely delaying decisions.

  • April 17, 2026

    Up Next At High Court: SEC And FCC Enforcement Authority

    The U.S. Supreme Court's final argument session of this term kicks off Monday, when the justices will consider the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's authority to seek disgorgement orders against alleged wrongdoers without proving investors were harmed. Here, Law360 breaks down the week's oral arguments.

  • April 17, 2026

    DOT Immigrant License Crackdown's Effects On Trucking

    New lawsuits and a tricky compliance landscape have besieged a trucking industry navigating the Trump administration's aggressive enforcement of restrictions on immigrant commercial truck drivers, as motor carriers, freight brokers and other ground-based shippers worry about escalating rates, driver turnover and service disruptions.

  • April 17, 2026

    Exxon Rips Mass. AG For Greenwash 'Fishing Expedition'

    ExxonMobil said Massachusetts' attorney general is proposing a "massive fishing expedition" in the state's long-pending "greenwashing" lawsuit by seeking to question witnesses about hundreds of topics, some dating back nearly 50 years, in a motion seeking to limit the scope of upcoming depositions.

  • April 17, 2026

    Texas Justices Back Enviro Agency In Deadline Dispute

    The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday that Texas' environmental regulator timely requested input from the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton before having to potentially disclose thousands of documents sought by the Sierra Club, finding its 10-business-day deadline didn't lapse.

  • April 17, 2026

    3 Key Questions On Trump's Pharma Tariffs

    President Donald Trump recently announced 100% tariffs on certain imported pharmaceutical products, with opportunities for drug companies to lower their tariff rates to zero, but questions remain about the requirements for preferential treatment and abilities to administer the regime. Here, Law360 examines three open questions surrounding pharmaceutical tariffs' implementation.

  • April 17, 2026

    Workers At 3 NJ Colleges Eligible For Union As Non-Managers

    A New Jersey state appeals court on Friday upheld a state labor agency's finding that dozens of employees at three public colleges are eligible for union membership, rejecting the state's argument that the workers fall within a statutory carveout for managers.

  • April 17, 2026

    EEOC Says Halting Penn Subpoena Would Compromise Probe

    The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission argued in a federal court filing Friday that allowing the University of Pennsylvania to freeze the agency's subpoena for information on the school's Jewish employees would undercut its investigation into antisemitism on campus.

  • April 17, 2026

    Ex-FERC Chair Backs Pa. AG's Intervention In Grid Fight

    Former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman Mark Christie voiced support for Pennsylvania's efforts to block a power grid project along its southern border in a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court Friday, asking the high court to allow the state's attorney general to challenge an appellate ruling that held federal law governed the project.

  • April 17, 2026

    Penn State Beats Claims In Ex-Trustee's Suit Over His Ousting

    A federal judge threw out most of a former Pennsylvania State University trustee's lawsuit against the university and its board Friday, but let his First Amendment claims continue so that the court could consider whether he was acting as a public employee, a private citizen or an elected official.

  • April 17, 2026

    Bill Floated To Nix Medical Residency Antitrust Exemption

    U.S. Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, has introduced legislation to repeal an antitrust exemption given to the medical residency matching program by Congress two decades ago, over concerns about wages and a bottleneck of medical school graduates.

  • April 17, 2026

    Aramark Joins NJ Insulin Pricing Suits Against PBMs

    Aramark Services Inc. joined multidistrict litigation accusing CVS and pharmacy benefit managers of colluding to inflate the price of insulin.

  • April 17, 2026

    Neb. Prison Reverses Ban On Native Religious Area Access

    The warden of the Nebraska State Penitentiary has rescinded a 60-day ban that restricted Indigenous inmates' access to a religious worship space several days after the decision was challenged in federal court, saying added security measures allowed for the reinstatement.

  • April 17, 2026

    Cities Pan Latest GOP Permit Reform Bill As 'Dangerous'

    A coalition of cities and counties Friday blasted a Republican plan to impose "shot clocks" on local governments so they will hurry along broadband permit decisions, calling it an unacceptable attack on local authority.

  • April 17, 2026

    Senate GOP Says Bid To Extend Haitian TPS Is DOA

    Following the House's rebuke Thursday of the Trump administration in its vote to extend temporary protected status for Haitian nationals in the United States, Republican senators insist the bill won't pass their chamber.

  • April 17, 2026

    Tufts Grad Settles Immigration Cases, Returns To Turkey

    Tufts University graduate Rümeysa Öztürk has returned to her native Turkey after completing her doctorate and reaching a settlement with the federal government to end her immigration proceedings, her attorneys said Friday.

  • April 17, 2026

    Mich. Judge Strikes Pregnancy Limits On Advance Directives

    A Michigan state judge struck down statutory rules barring providers from carrying out an incapacitated patient's advance directive to withdraw from life-sustaining treatment if the patient is pregnant, finding they violate reproductive rights enshrined in the state's constitution.

Expert Analysis

  • NY Tax Talk: Calculating Tiered Partnership Income

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    Attorneys at Eversheds Sutherland discuss how the potential impact recent New York City Tax Appeals Tribunal decision in Matter of Cantor Fitzgerald holding that the entity approach should be used by tiered partnerships to compute unincorporated business tax liability, why the issue of the proper approach remains unsettled and the broader implications for federal conformity and administrative agency deference.

  • FDA Guidance May Move Goalposts For Form 483 Responses

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    New draft guidance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration provides formal insight on how drug manufacturers are expected to respond to Form 483s, raising some concerns about the agency's timelines and expectations, say attorneys at Cooley.

  • Understanding The SEC's Consequential Crypto Guidance

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent interpretive release — its most comprehensive statement ever on the application of the federal securities laws to crypto-assets — reimagines the Howey test to resolve long-standing questions over what is a security, but leaves many issues unresolved, say attorneys at Cahill.

  • Ohio Case Reflects States' Aggressive Criminal Antitrust Turn

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    The Ohio Attorney General's Office’s recent bid-rigging indictment of an online auctioneer is the latest signal that states, through attorneys general pursuing more kickback cases and legislators expanding the reach of antitrust laws, are shedding their historical reluctance to wield their criminal antitrust enforcement powers, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Justices' Geofence Ruling May Test 4th Amendment's Future

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    When the U.S. Supreme Court decides in Chatrie v. U.S. whether law enforcement may use geofence warrants to compel Google to disclose location history data, the ruling is likely to become an important statement about the future of Fourth Amendment law in data-driven investigations, says Duncan Levin at Levin & Associates.

  • Series

    NY Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q1

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    In the first quarter of 2026, New York's banking developments were headlined by initiatives to expand oversight of financial institutions and strengthen consumer protection laws, including a new framework for buy now, pay later lenders, a sweeping debt collection rule and a revised corporate self-disclosure program for financial crimes, say attorneys at Proskauer.

  • Seeking A Policy Fix As Merger Reporting Fight Continues

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    A recently announced request by the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice for public comment on the Hart-Scott-Rodino premerger reporting requirements, as litigation challenging the commission's updated requirements continues, suggests the government's willingness to address how best to support modern merger enforcement without unduly burdening filing parties, say attorneys at Baker Botts.

  • What New Fla. Citizens Bill Means For Surplus Lines Insurers

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    A Florida bill recently passed by the Legislature as part of a continued effort to depopulate Citizens Property Insurance, the state's insurer of last resort, creates an additional pathway for commercial policies to be written by surplus lines insurers, but also presents concerns of unnecessary regulation, say attorneys at Troutman.

  • What Voluntary Calif. Carbon Reports Show About Compliance

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    While the enforcement of California's S.B. 261 is currently paused due to a Ninth Circuit injunction, more than 130 companies have nonetheless chosen to voluntarily publish climate-related financial risk disclosures, providing a useful snapshot of how the market is interpreting the law's requirements in practice, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

  • PTAB Memo Recenters Discretion On US Manufacturing

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    Read alongside recent Federal Circuit decisions, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires' memo on patent denial considerations emphasizes domestic manufacturing in a way that the International Trade Commission does not require, says Brandon Theiss at Volpe Koenig.

  • Why MDLs Slow Down — And How To Speed Them Up

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    Multidistrict litigation has become central to mass tort practice, but as MDLs grow in size and complexity, so do delays and costs — so tools like the new federal rule governing MDLs, targeted use of special masters and strategically deployed Lone Pine orders are more essential than ever, say attorneys at Ice Miller.

  • What A Court Doc Audit Reveals About Erroneous Filings

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    My audit of 1,522 court documents from last month found that over 95% contained at least one verifiable error, with fewer than 1% showing clear indicators of artificial intelligence use — highlighting above all else that lawyers may want to focus most on strengthening their review processes, says Elliott Ash at ETH Zurich.

  • Regulators' Basel Pitch May Bring Banks Capital Relief

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    The prudential banking agencies' new proposals to implement the so-called Basel III endgame rules — which would modify the approach to risk-based capital, among other notable changes — represent a fundamental directional shift in bank capital requirements aimed at increasing lending capacity, says Chen Xu at Debevoise.

  • How SEC And CFTC Are Attempting To End Their 'Turf War'

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    Through coordinated examinations and a shared aim to end duplicative regulation, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's recent memorandum of understanding could represent a significant shift in the regulatory landscape for market participants subject to the jurisdiction of both agencies, say attorneys at Jenner.

  • FTC Focus: Growing Emphasis On Competition In AI

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    The Federal Trade Commission's leadership has continued to highlight that competitive risks in artificial intelligence markets may arise at multiple levels simultaneously, considering not only who controls the resources necessary to build AI systems, but also how those systems function and yield outputs, say attorneys at Proskauer.

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