Retail & E-Commerce

  • January 14, 2026

    United Rentals Says NC Sales Rep Diverted Biz To Competitor

    A former United Rentals Inc. sales representative drafted a resignation letter based on a competitor's offer letter, revealed sales leads and followed his new employer's advice on how to download data from his company devices for future use, a new lawsuit alleges.

  • January 14, 2026

    Ga. Panel Says Judge Overstepped In Voiding Noncompete

    The Georgia Court of Appeals ruled that a state trial court overstepped in throwing out a noncompete agreement between a motorcycle dealership and its former chief operating officer, reversing an "overbroad" decision to invalidate the entire agreement.

  • January 14, 2026

    Wholesaler Admits To $2.5M Opioid Diversion Scheme

    A Miami-based pharmaceutical wholesaler has signed on to a two-year deferred prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors over a charge that it knowingly diverted opioids to "pill mill" pharmacies, bringing in more than $2.5 million.

  • January 14, 2026

    Supreme Court Rejects Cigar Maker's Appeal Over Atty Fees

    The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear cigar maker Swisher International Inc.'s appeal in a long-running contractual and antitrust dispute with Trendsettah USA Inc., leaving intact a Ninth Circuit ruling that revived part of a jury verdict and more than $10 million in related attorney fee awards.

  • January 14, 2026

    Retailer Saks Global Hits Ch. 11 With Over $3B Debt

    The parent company of luxury department store chain Saks Fifth Avenue filed for Chapter 11 protection Wednesday in a Texas bankruptcy court with $3.4 billion in funded debt, buckling under the strain of debt it used to fund its purchase of Neiman Marcus more than a year ago.

  • January 13, 2026

    CoStar, Quinn Emanuel Spar Over Litigation Representation

    CoStar urged a California federal judge Tuesday to disqualify Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP from helping a rival commercial real estate platform pursue antitrust counterclaims in CoStar's copyright infringement suit, while the law firm moved to drop its representation of CoStar in separate litigation.

  • January 13, 2026

    Credit-Card Fight Heats Up As Trump Backs Swipe Fee Bill

    Bankers moved swiftly Tuesday to push back on President Donald Trump's late-night endorsement of legislation that he said will stop "out of control" credit-card swipe fees, his latest broadside against the credit card industry that has lenders on the defensive over costs.

  • January 13, 2026

    The Atlantic Sues Google In Latest Ad Tech Antitrust Suit

    The Atlantic became the latest publisher Tuesday to launch an ad tech antitrust suit against Google LLC, accusing the search engine giant in New York federal court of cutting the publisher and ad-tech companies out of billions of dollars in revenue by monopolizing the publisher ad server and ad exchange markets.

  • January 13, 2026

    Emotional Distress Claim Axed In Hartford Fire Coverage Row

    A federal magistrate judge dismissed a business owner's claim that Hartford Underwriters Insurance Co. intentionally caused her emotional distress through a "berating" phone call about a coverage dispute, ruling that she fell short of her burden to allege extreme conduct.

  • January 13, 2026

    Google Gets 6 Ad Tech Rivals' Complaints Consolidated To 2

    The six antitrust lawsuits from Google's advertising placement technology rivals will soon be consolidated into two, under a New York federal judge's ruling Tuesday combining the four suits originally filed in Virginia and pairing up the two filed in New York.

  • January 13, 2026

    Ill. Justices Mull COVID Screening Pay Under State Law

    The Illinois Supreme Court should leave decades of understanding surrounding the statutory term "workweek" intact and rule that the state's minimum wage law incorporates federal limitations on compensable preliminary activities, as finding otherwise would revive a short-lived overtime regime Congress considered "disastrous," Amazon argued Tuesday.

  • January 13, 2026

    Google Moves To Toss Penske Media's AI Overview Suit

    Google has urged a D.C. federal court to dismiss Penske Media Corp.'s antitrust lawsuit accusing it of unlawfully coercing publishers into providing content for artificial intelligence-generated answers at the top of Google search result pages, painting its conduct as a lawful "refusal to deal" on PMC's preferred terms.

  • January 13, 2026

    Starbucks Misled Patrons On Coffee Supplier Ethics, Suit Says

    Two consumers are targeting Starbucks for touting "100% Ethical Coffee Sourcing" on product labels despite reports of forced labor and other human rights violations on supplying farms around the world, according to a proposed class action launched in Washington state federal court Tuesday.

  • January 13, 2026

    Battery Co. Urges 11th Circ. To Undo $20M Award In IP Feud

    A battery charger company told the Eleventh Circuit on Tuesday that it should reverse a roughly $20 million award after a jury found it ran Amazon advertisements that infringed a rival's trademark, arguing it used a generic product description and didn't cause confusion among consumers. 

  • January 13, 2026

    Oak Street Exec's Ex-Partner Must Forfeit $617K In Assets

    Federal authorities can delve into the assets of a man who made illegal insider trades of CVS stock based on information from his domestic partner so that they can recover $617,000 he agreed to forfeit as part of a plea deal, a Pennsylvania federal judge said Tuesday.

  • January 13, 2026

    CEO Of Auto Mat Maker WeatherTech Tapped For FTC Spot

    The founder and CEO of automobile accessories-maker WeatherTech, David MacNeil, was nominated to a seat on the U.S. Federal Trade Commission by President Donald Trump, the White House announced Tuesday. 

  • January 13, 2026

    2nd Circ. Hints Ex-Luxottica Worker Has ERISA Standing

    Second Circuit judges sounded sympathetic Tuesday to the idea that a former Luxottica employee has standing to pursue changes to its defined benefit pension plan, expressing skepticism at the company's notion that her case is barred because she is seeking unavailable remedies.

  • January 13, 2026

    Full Fed. Circ. Asked To Reconsider Car Seat Patent Case

    Wonderland Switzerland AG wants the full Federal Circuit to take another look at a panel's December reversal of part of a ruling that Evenflo Co. Inc. infringed one of its car seat patents, saying the suit involves a regularly occurring question in patent law.

  • January 13, 2026

    Fed. Circ. Backs PTAB's Axing Of UV Disinfectant Patent

    The Federal Circuit on Tuesday issued a one-word order affirming a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision invalidating claims in a patent covering technology for using UV light for sanitation, declining to take on the inventor's challenge to the board's obviousness determinations.

  • January 13, 2026

    Squires Institutes 8 Patent Reviews, Rebuffs 47 Petitions

    U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has denied 47 requests for America Invents Act patent reviews and granted eight other petitions, continuing his practice of spurning most patent challenges that reach his desk since he took over the handling of institution decisions.

  • January 13, 2026

    DOJ Fights For May Trial Against Agri Stats

    Justice Department attorneys pushed a Minnesota federal judge in oral arguments Tuesday to let them go to trial in May on claims that Agri Stats' protein industry reports help major producers hike prices, arguing they're entitled to leapfrog private plaintiffs and the company cannot toss or winnow their allegations.

  • January 13, 2026

    Lawmakers Eye 2-Year Delay On Hemp Ban Implementation

    A bipartisan group of Congress members led by Rep. Jim Baird, R-Ind., on Tuesday introduced a bill that would delay implementation of a national ban on most hemp products by an additional two years.

  • January 13, 2026

    Bath & Body Works Investor Sues Over Co.'s Growth Claims

    Retail chain Bath & Body Works Inc. was hit with a proposed shareholder class action accusing it of misleading investors about the success of its product expansion strategy and leaning heavily on frequent promotions to drive unsustainable growth.

  • January 13, 2026

    NJ Gov. Signs Bill Regulating Intoxicating Hemp Products

    New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy has signed into law a bill regulating the sale of intoxicating hemp products, closing what the bill's sponsors called a loophole that allowed them to be sold without oversight.

  • January 13, 2026

    'Sazerac Stitches' TM Too Similar To Sazerac, Fed. Circ. Says

    The Federal Circuit on Tuesday affirmed a trademark tribunal's refusal to register "Sazerac Stitches" for a variety of home goods and decor items because of potential confusion with the distilled spirits and cocktail accessories sold by Sazerac Brands LLC.

Expert Analysis

  • What To Know About Bill Aiming To Curb CIPA

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    A bill pending in the California Assembly would amend the California Invasion of Privacy Act to allow for the use of website tracking technologies for commercial business purposes, limiting class actions seeking damages under the act for industry standard practices, say Katherine Alphonso and Avazeh Pourhamzeh at Kaufman Dolowich.

  • How Attys Can Use AI To Surface Narratives In E-Discovery

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    E-discovery has reached a turning point where document review is no longer just about procedural tasks like identifying relevance and redacting privilege — rather, generative artificial intelligence tools now allow attorneys to draw connections, extract meaning and tell a coherent story, says Rose Jones at Hilgers Graben.

  • Gauging The Risky Business Of Business Risk Disclosures

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    With the recent rise of securities fraud actions based on external events — like a data breach or environmental disaster — that drive down stock prices, risk disclosures have become more of a sword for the plaintiffs bar than a shield for public companies, now the subject of a growing circuit split, say attorneys at A&O Shearman.

  • Series

    Playing The Violin Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing violin in a string quartet reminds me that flexibility, ambition, strong listening skills, thoughtful leadership and intentional collaboration are all keys to a successful legal practice, says Julie Park at MoFo.

  • DOJ Enforcement Trends To Watch In 2nd Half Of 2025

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    Recent investigations, settlements and a declination to prosecute suggest that controlling the flow of goods into and out of the country, and redressing what the administration sees as reverse discrimination, are likely to be at the forefront of the U.S. Department of Justice's enforcement agenda the rest of this year, say attorneys at Baker Botts.

  • Series

    NY Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q2

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    In the second quarter of the year, New York utilized every available tool to fill gaps left by federal retrenchment from consumer finance issues, including sweeping updates to its consumer protection framework and notable amendments to cybersecurity rules, say attorneys at Steptoe.

  • State, Fed Junk Fee Enforcement Shows No Signs Of Slowing

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    The Federal Trade Commission’s potent new rule targeting drip pricing, in addition to the growing patchwork of state consumer protection laws, suggest that enforcement and litigation targeting junk fees will likely continue to expand, says Etia Rottman Frand at Darrow AI.

  • Series

    Law School's Missed Lessons: Practicing Self-Care

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    Law schools don’t teach the mental, physical and emotional health maintenance tools necessary to deal with the profession's many demands, but practicing self-care is an important key to success that can help to improve focus, manage stress and reduce burnout, says Rachel Leonard​​​​​​​ at MG+M.

  • What Expanding Merchant Code Regs Mean For Processors

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    Arkansas and South Dakota recently joined a host of other states that restrict payment processors' usage of merchant category codes with laws that include noteworthy prohibitions against maintaining registries of firearms owners, with ramifications for multistate payment systems, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.

  • Forensic Challenges In Lithium-Ion Battery Fire Cases

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    Lawsuits over lithium-ion battery fires and explosions often center on the core question of whether the battery was defective or combusted due to some other external factor — so both plaintiff and defense attorneys litigating these cases must understand the forensic issues involved, says Drew LaFramboise at Joseph Greenwald.

  • ABA Opinion Makes It A Bit Easier To Drop A 'Hot Potato'

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    The American Bar Association's recent ethics opinion clarifies when attorneys may terminate clients without good cause, though courts may still disqualify a lawyer who drops a client like a hot potato, so sending a closeout letter is always a best practice, say attorneys at Thompson Hine.

  • Latest Influencer Marketing Class Actions Pinpoint 5 Themes

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    Several recent deceptive marketing class actions against both brands and influencers attempt to transform arguably routine business practices into a new focus area for consumer complaints, suggesting a coordinated approach to test what could become an increasingly popular area of litigation, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Dupes Boom Spurs IP Risks, Opportunities For Investors

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    The rising popularity of dupe products has created a dynamic marketplace where both dupes-based businesses and established branded companies can thrive, but investors must consider a host of legal implications, especially when the dupes straddle a fine line between imitation and intellectual property infringement, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • A Look At Trump Admin's Shifting Strategies To Curtail CFPB

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    The Trump administration has so far carried out its goal of minimizing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's authority and footprint via an individualized approach comprising rule rollbacks, litigation moves and administrative tools, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

  • Series

    My Opera And Baseball Careers Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Though participating in opera and the world of professional baseball often pulls me away from the office, my avocations improve my legal career by helping me perform under scrutiny, prioritize team success, and maintain joy and perspective at work, says Adam Unger at Herrick Feinstein.

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