White Collar

  • August 11, 2025

    'Flipping NJ' Developer Fights Charges, Citing Habba's Role

    A New Jersey real estate developer and influencer, who is accused of running a Ponzi-like investment fraud scheme and laundering drug money, on Monday became the latest defendant to seek dismissal of his indictment over what he says was the illegal appointment of Alina Habba as acting U.S. attorney for the Garden State.

  • August 11, 2025

    11th Circ. Nixes Ineffective-Counsel Claim In Salmonella Case

    Peanut Corp. of America's former president and a food broker convicted for their roles in a salmonella outbreak that killed nine people and sickened more than 700 cannot throw out their prison sentences, the Eleventh Circuit ruled Monday, rejecting their assertion of ineffective counsel.

  • August 11, 2025

    GE, UNC Agree To $63M Uranium Mine Cleanup In New Mexico

    The United Nuclear Corp. and General Electric Co. agreed to a consent decree with the federal government, New Mexico and the Navajo Nation to spend $63 million on environmental cleanup at a decades-old uranium mine, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday.  

  • August 11, 2025

    How A Nonexistent Bar Unraveled A California Bribery Case

    The criminal case against Palm Springs, California, developer John Wessman hinged on a cooperating witness's testimony that Wessman hatched a plan with him at a bar to bribe the city's then-mayor, but his defense counsel from Keker Van Nest & Peters LLP blew up that story on cross-examination by demonstrating the bar hadn't even opened at that time, helping to obtain an acquittal.

  • August 11, 2025

    Miles Guo Ordered To Forfeit $1.3B In Fraud Case

    Bankrupt Chinese exile Miles Guo must forfeit $1.3 billion in cash, luxury goods and real estate, including his 21-bedroom New Jersey mansion, a New York federal judge said Monday, more than a year after the purported billionaire was found guilty of wide-ranging fraud.

  • August 11, 2025

    Chicago Suburb's Ex-Mayor Gets 4 Years For Extortion, Bribery

    A former mayor of McCook, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, was sentenced to four years in federal prison Monday for accepting more than $250,000 in bribes and extortion payments.

  • August 11, 2025

    Tulsa Says Settlement Moots High Court Jurisdiction Bid

    Tulsa is asking the Supreme Court to deny a petition by an Oklahoma attorney that looks to undo his conviction stemming from a speeding ticket issued on tribal lands, arguing it seeks review of a broader jurisdictional question that the municipality and the Creek Nation have already resolved.

  • August 11, 2025

    Liberty Mutual Nabs FCPA Declination, Will Disgorge $4.7M

    Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. will avoid prosecution under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and disgorge nearly $4.7 million over bribes paid by employees of its Indian subsidiary, the U.S. Department of Justice said Monday, in the first FCPA declination since President Donald Trump paused prosecutions under the law.

  • August 11, 2025

    Ex-Ill. Speaker's 'False Hope' Won't Delay Prison Sentence

    Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan must begin serving his seven-year bribery and wire fraud prison sentence as ordered in October, a federal judge has ruled, finding that Madigan "clings to false hope" in arguing his forthcoming appeal to the Seventh Circuit will present an issue substantial enough to overturn his entire conviction.

  • August 11, 2025

    SEC Says Biotech Investor Traded On Inside Info About Deal

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed suit against a Texas-based individual investor, accusing him of insider trading on stocks by buying shares of a public biotech firm ahead of its 2020 merger with a privately held biotechnology company.

  • August 11, 2025

    McDermott, Other Firms Sign Deal To End $4.4M Guo Claims

    McDermott Will & Schulte, four other law firms and one consulting firm have agreed to settle, for an undisclosed amount and without formal litigation, clawback claims totaling $4.4 million by the Chapter 11 estate of bankrupt Chinese exile and convicted criminal Miles Guo.

  • August 11, 2025

    Girardi's Public Defender Rejoins Kendall Brill & Kelly

    A federal public defender who represented disgraced plaintiffs attorney Tom Girardi in his wire fraud trial has returned to Kendall Brill & Kelly LLP in Los Angeles as a partner, the firm said Monday.

  • August 11, 2025

    Pa. Judge Accused Of COVID Fraud Seeks Diversion Deal

    A Pennsylvania county judge facing criminal charges for allegedly misusing COVID-19 unemployment relief money to pay his former law firm's staff is working with prosecutors to enter into a pretrial diversion agreement, with the federal court agreeing to hold a conference on the matter, according to court filings Monday.

  • August 11, 2025

    FTX Customers Aim To Beef Up Case Against Fenwick & West

    New information that has emerged since customers of the now-collapsed cryptocurrency trading platform FTX Trading Ltd. sued Fenwick & West LLP over the firm's alleged role in that collapse justifies updating the complaint against the firm, those customers told a Florida federal court Monday.

  • August 11, 2025

    White & Case Adds Ex-Chicago Prosecutor From Perkins Coie

    White & Case LLP has grown its global litigation practice in Chicago with the addition of a longtime Perkins Coie LLP partner who previously was an assistant U.S. attorney in the city, the firm said Monday.

  • August 11, 2025

    Terraform Founder Set To Plead Out Of $40B Fraud Case

    Terraform founder Do Kwon is on track to enter a guilty plea in his $40 billion criminal fraud case, a Manhattan federal judge said Monday, in an order that comes ahead of a scheduled 2026 trial and amid weeks of talks between his lawyers and prosecutors.

  • August 11, 2025

    NY Judge Won't Unseal 'Redundant' Maxwell Grand Jury Docs

    A New York federal judge on Monday denied the Trump administration's bid to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits in the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is appealing a 20-year prison sentence for trafficking teenage girls for sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, concluding that the materials contain almost nothing new.

  • August 08, 2025

    Frank Founder, Exec Can't Undo JPMorgan Fraud Convictions

    Charlie Javice, the startup founder convicted of lying to JPMorgan Chase ahead of its $175 million purchase of her college-aid website Frank, and her former colleague have failed to show good reasons why they should now be acquitted, the judge on her case has found.

  • August 08, 2025

    Ripple Exits SEC Case With An Injunction Still Over Its Head

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's long-running case against Ripple Labs has finally come to an end with both sides agreeing to drop competing appeals, but the crypto firm's inability to shake a court-ordered judgment leaves it potentially vulnerable to future enforcement actions.

  • August 08, 2025

    Tornado Cash Case Far From Over With Jury's Mixed Verdict

    The split verdict in the Tornado Cash trial likely won't encourage prosecutors to go after crypto projects for failing to register as money transmitters, but it may still leave software developers open to liability if they seem aware of others' misuse of their creations.

  • August 08, 2025

    LAPD Wins Bid To Withhold 'Embarrassing' Body Cam Footage

    The public will not get to see body-camera footage allegedly showing a Los Angeles police officer destroying an MRI machine after his rifle was pulled into its magnetic field during a raid on an X-ray clinic that was wrongly assumed to be a cannabis grow site, a California federal court ruled, seeking to avoid "embarrassing" the officers named in the civil suit.

  • August 08, 2025

    Tight Budget Not Enough To Justify Delay In PrivatBank Case

    A Florida federal magistrate judge has denied the U.S. State Department's bid to pause litigation by two associates of the former owners of Ukraine's largest bank, ruling that heavy workloads due to budget constraints do not justify delaying the case.

  • August 08, 2025

    DC Circ. Hands Banker's Estate Win In IRS Whistleblower Bid

    A split D.C. Circuit sided with the estate of a former banker at Rabobank in ruling Friday that the Internal Revenue Service used the wrong legal standard to deny him an award for contributing to investigations into two companies' tax avoidance scheme.

  • August 08, 2025

    Fake AI Hedge Fund Operator Reaches Partial SEC Settlement

    A Florida investment pro who previously admitted to duping investors who poured $5 million into his supposed artificial intelligence-powered hedge fund has agreed to an officer and director ban in a partial settlement with securities regulators, according to a Thursday letter.

  • August 08, 2025

    El Paso Soldier Accused Of Sending Military Info To Russia

    An El Paso active-duty soldier has been arrested in connection with accusations that he attempted to transmit U.S. military information to Russia.

Expert Analysis

  • Why Hiring Former Jurors As Consultants Can Be Risky

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    The defense team's decision to hire former juror Victoria George in the high-profile retrial of Karen Read shines a spotlight on this controversial strategy, which raises important legal, ethical and tactical questions despite not being explicitly prohibited, says Nikoleta Despodova at ND Litigation.

  • Series

    Adapting To Private Practice: From NY Fed To BigLaw

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    While the move to private practice brings a learning curve, it also brings chances to learn new skills and grow your network, requiring a clear understanding of how your skills can complement and contribute to a firm's existing practice, and where you can add new value, says Meghann Donahue at Covington.

  • Combs Case Reveals Key Pretrial Scheduling Strategies

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    The procedural battles over pretrial disclosure deadlines leading up to the criminal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs show how disclosure timing can substantially affect defendants’ ability to prepare and highlight several scheduling pointers for defense counsel, says Sara Kropf at Kropf Moseley.

  • Top 3 Litigation Finance Deal-Killers, And How To Avoid Them

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    Like all transactions, litigation finance deals can sometimes collapse, but understanding the most common reasons for failure, including a lack of trust or a misunderstanding of deal terms, can help both parties avoid problems, say Rebecca Berrebi at Avenue 33 and Boris Ziser at Schulte Roth.

  • 5th Circ. Ruling Is Latest Signal Of Shaky Qui Tam Landscape

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    In his recent concurring opinion in U.S. v. Peripheral Vascular Associates, a Fifth Circuit judge joined a growing list of jurists suggesting that the False Claims Act's whistleblower provisions are unconstitutional, underscoring that acceptance of qui tam relators can no longer be taken for granted, say attorneys at Miller & Chevalier.

  • Foreign Countries Have Strong Foundation To Fill FCPA Void

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    Though the U.S. has paused enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, liberal democracies across the globe are well equipped to reverse any setback in anti-corruption enforcement, potentially heightening prosecution risk for companies headquartered in the U.S., says Stephen Kohn at Kohn Kohn.

  • How Attys Can Use A Therapy Model To Help Triggered Clients

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    Attorneys can lean on key principles from a psychotherapeutic paradigm known as the "Internal Family Systems" model to help manage triggered clients and get settlement negotiations back on track, says Jennifer Gibbs at Zelle.

  • A Tale Of Two Admins: Parsing 1st Half Of SEC's FY 2025

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    The first half of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's fiscal year 2025, which ended March 31, was unusually eventful, marked by a flurry of enforcement actions in the last three months of former Chair Gary Gensler's tenure and a prompt pivot after Inauguration Day, say attorneys at Jones Day.

  • How Attorneys Can Make The Most Of A Deposition Transcript

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    With recent amendments to federal evidence rules now in effect, it’s more important than ever to make sure that deposition transcripts are clear and precise, and a few key strategies can help attorneys get the most out of a transcript before, during and after a deposition, says Allison Rocker at Baker McKenzie.

  • Getting Ahead Of The SEC's Continued Focus On Cyber, AI

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is showing it will continue to scrutinize actions involving cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, but there are proactive measures that companies and financial institutions can take to avoid regulatory scrutiny going forward, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • 3 Steps For In-House Counsel To Assess Litigation Claims

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    Before a potential economic downturn, in-house attorneys should investigate whether their company is sitting on hidden litigation claims that could unlock large recoveries to help the business withstand tough times, says Will Burgess at Hilgers Graben.

  • IRS And ICE Info Sharing Could Drive Payroll Tax Enforcement

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    Tax crimes are historically difficult to prosecute, but the Internal Revenue Services’ recent agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to share taxpayer records of non-U.S. citizens could be used to enhance payroll tax-related enforcement against their employers, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

  • Series

    Teaching College Students Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Serving as an adjunct college professor has taught me the importance of building rapport, communicating effectively, and persuading individuals to critically analyze the difference between what they think and what they know — principles that have helped to improve my practice of law, says Sheria Clarke at Nelson Mullins.

  • A New Tool For Assessing Kickback Risks In Health Marketing

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    The Seventh Circuit's recent decision in U.S. v. Sorensen, reversing a conviction after trial of a durable medical equipment distributor, highlights two principle considerations for determining whether payments to marketers in healthcare are unlawful under the Anti-Kickback Statute, says Elisha Kobre at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Crunching The Numbers Of Trump SEC's 1st 100 Days

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    During the first 100 days of the second Trump administration, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission brought significantly fewer stand-alone enforcement actions than at the beginning of the Biden and the first Trump administrations, with every one of the federal court complaints including allegations of fraudulent conduct, say attorneys at Dentons.

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