Public Policy

  • May 18, 2026

    EPA, Flint Plaintiffs Clash Over Facts After Bellwether Trial

    Residents of Flint, Michigan, and the federal government have offered sharply different accounts of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's role in the city's water crisis in hundreds of pages of proposed findings submitted after a bellwether bench trial that lasted more than a month and ended in March. 

  • May 18, 2026

    Volvo Inks $197M Emissions Deal With Calif. Regulators

    Volvo Group North America has agreed to pay roughly $197 million to resolve allegations the automaker violated California's emissions and certification standards, according to an announcement made Monday by the California Air Resources Board.

  • May 18, 2026

    Online Directory Wrongfully Listed Cell Numbers, Suit Says

    An online directory operator published thousands of residents' cellphone numbers without their consent, exposing them to scams, harassment and identity theft, according to a proposed class action filed in Colorado state court Monday.

  • May 18, 2026

    Half The Nation's Bar Apps Could Remove Rape Questions

    By next year, it's possible that about half of U.S. jurisdictions will have amended character and fitness questions to avoid dredging up aspiring lawyers' sexual trauma. But while advocates hail the reforms as progress, concerns linger about the patchwork this could create across the country.

  • May 18, 2026

    DOD Says Chipmaker Belongs On Chinese Military List

    The U.S. Department of Defense has said it has "substantial" evidence to back labeling Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. a Chinese military company because its products have military applications, urging a D.C. federal judge to reject the chipmaker's lawsuit challenging the label.

  • May 18, 2026

    EPA Rejects Hawaii's Haze Plan, Keeping Oil-Fired Plants Open

    The Trump administration has rejected Hawaii's plan to comply with national emission standards to limit regional haze, repeating a novel argument that the closure of a fossil fuel-fired power plant as part of the plan appears to be unconstitutional.

  • May 18, 2026

    Feds Say TerrAscend Owes Back $8M Tax Refund

    Multistate cannabis operator TerrAscend erroneously received more than $8 million in tax refunds that should never have been issued because of a federal law that bars traffickers in controlled substances from taking business deductions, the U.S. government said in a new lawsuit.

  • May 18, 2026

    Feds Say BIA Ruling Doesn't Undercut Quick Removal Policies

    The Trump administration told the D.C. Circuit that a recent precedential Board of Immigration Appeals ruling interpreting the meaning of "arrival" and "arrived" should have no bearing on its policies seeking to increase the number of expedited removals.

  • May 18, 2026

    Exxon Tells 9th Circ. Calif.'s Plastic Suit Belongs In Fed. Court

    The state of California's claim that Exxon Mobil Corp. is responsible for plastic pollution belongs in federal court, the petroleum giant told a Ninth Circuit panel during a hearing on Monday, arguing that federal courts have admiralty jurisdiction because the litigation targets pollution in navigable waters, among other alleged injuries.

  • May 18, 2026

    Calif. AG Previews Live Nation Remedies At Democratic Forum

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta, one of the state attorneys general of a coalition of states that recently won a jury verdict finding Live Nation illegally established a monopoly over the live music industry, said Monday the next step is a structural overhaul of the conglomerate.

  • May 18, 2026

    AT&T Seeks FCC's OK To Change Covered Routers

    AT&T is asking the Federal Communications Commission to greenlight hardware changes to foreign-made routers, which the agency recently placed on the covered list, arguing the artificial intelligence boom has created a shortage that makes getting replacements difficult.

  • May 18, 2026

    Fla. Court Tosses Pricing Suit Against Textbook Publishers

    A Florida court tossed a qui tam action alleging that McGraw Hill and another educational publisher billed Sunshine State schools for educational materials at disparate costs in violation of the "best pricing" statute, ruling that the law only applies to interstate sales. 

  • May 18, 2026

    NC Says Open-Court Gun Review Didn't Prevent Fair Trial

    A North Carolina trial court did not violate state rules when it allowed jurors, at their request, to view in open court a weapon in connection with a case against a man accused of gun and drug charges, state lawyers have told the North Carolina Supreme Court.

  • May 18, 2026

    Ex-Detainees Say NC Sheriff Withholding Data In ECourts Row

    Counsel for a putative class of individuals who allege they were wrongfully arrested or detained due to glitches in the state's electronic court system told a North Carolina federal court during a Monday hearing that a county sheriff's office is delaying the release of its own records.

  • May 18, 2026

    Pa. High Court Snapshot: Wegmans, PennDot Top May Lineup

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's May session begins Tuesday with an argument whether the state's Department of Transportation can be sued over a tree branch that fell onto a state road, even though the tree itself was growing from Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority property.

  • May 18, 2026

    Debate Ramps Up Over Prison Cellphone Jamming

    Two GOP lawmakers say the Federal Communications Commission isn't moving fast enough to complete a rule that would effectively let state prisons and jails jam contraband cellphones, but industry pushback remains strong.

  • May 18, 2026

    Minn. Lawmakers OK Federal Conformity, Property Tax Relief

    Minnesota would conform with several changes to the federal tax code and extend its workaround of the cap on corporate deductions for state and local taxes under an omnibus tax package approved by lawmakers and heading to Gov. Tim Walz.

  • May 18, 2026

    Live Nation, Club Hit With $50M Suit Over Wrong-Way Death

    Employees of the House of Blues Boston over-served alcohol to a patron who subsequently hit and killed another driver in a wrong-way crash, a $50 million wrongful death lawsuit filed Monday in Massachusetts state court alleges.

  • May 18, 2026

    Former USPTO Directors Diverge On Patent Injunctions

    The debate over the role of injunctions in patent cases remains active in the U.S., and European leaders shouldn't think that there is a "consensus" in the country, said former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal.

  • May 18, 2026

    Hawaiian Scholarship Suit Imperils $2.2M In Work, Court Told

    An Indigenous nonprofit is seeking to intervene as a defendant in a constitutional challenge to the Native Hawaiian Health Scholarship Program, telling a federal district court that the litigation threatens $2.2 million of annual work that's central to its mission and will impede ongoing collaborations for the upcoming fiscal year.

  • May 18, 2026

    CIT Says Commerce Must Better Explain Garlic Duty Evasion

    The U.S. Department of Commerce failed to explain why it found preserved and cut garlic chunks to be avoiding an antidumping duty placed on fresh garlic cloves imported from China, and it must provide more detail behind its decision on remand, according to an opinion issued by the U.S. Court of International Trade.

  • May 18, 2026

    Ex-FCC Official Urges Agency To Bring USF Billing In-House

    A former top Federal Communications Commission official says it's time for an overhaul of how the agency runs the Universal Service Fund with reforms that should include bringing the program's billions of dollars in yearly revenue collections in-house.

  • May 18, 2026

    FCC Commish Focuses On Spectrum In Trips Around Globe

    Commissioner Olivia Trusty of the Federal Communications Commission has kept global spectrum policy at top of mind, and her travel schedule shows it.

  • May 18, 2026

    Trump Seeks Circuit Seats For 2 Judges He Appointed

    President Donald Trump's recent picks for the Eighth and Tenth Circuits mark the first time in his second administration that he's seeking to elevate judges he appointed in his first term.

  • May 18, 2026

    Pullman & Comley Pans 'Absurd' Challenge To Tax Sale

    Pullman & Comley LLC has urged a Connecticut state judge to dismiss a challenge to its representation of the town of Woodstock's tax collector, saying a resident who owes money has pressed "the absurd claim that a municipality is forbidden from retaining counsel to assist in its collection of municipal taxes."

Expert Analysis

  • 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.

  • What's Missing From Latest Gov't Claims Against Harvard

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    The most interesting thing about the Trump administration’s recent civil rights enforcement efforts targeting Harvard University is its decision not to assert violations of the False Claims Act when given the opportunity, despite signals that its enforcement efforts will include use of the federal FCA, say attorneys at Bass Berry.

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