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Compliance
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July 18, 2024
NY Courts Limit Access To Ethics Data, Violating Own Rules
After a decade of widespread noncompliance with income and gift reporting rules, the New York court system's Ethics Commission has refused to publicly release all judges' annual financial disclosures, which safeguard against conflicts of interest, corruption and ethics lapses.
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July 18, 2024
Texas Can't Nix EEOC Guidance Over Gender Identity
A Texas federal judge refused to grant the state attorney general's request to do away with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's enforcement guidance over gender identity, saying the state needs to file a new lawsuit and not piggyback on a case that was closed two years ago.
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July 18, 2024
American Airlines Hit With Class Action Over Sales Strategy
An investor launched a proposed class action against American Airlines over the company's botched sales and distribution strategy, saying that American touted its strategy as driving revenue while hiding the fact that the strategy was "driving customers away" in a Texas federal court on Thursday.
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July 18, 2024
Cozen O'Connor Targets Penny Stock Co. CEO For Legal Fees
Cozen O'Connor is asking a Connecticut state court judge to affirm two Pennsylvania judgments against a penny stock company CEO who lost a federal enforcement action, alleging Bernard Findley and two of his companies owe nearly $750,000 in legal fees.
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July 18, 2024
Meta And FTC Want DC Circ. Privacy Fight Kept Paused
Meta's D.C. Circuit bid to stop the Federal Trade Commission from modifying the parties' $5 billion privacy settlement should be kept on ice, both sides said Thursday, as the commission vies to toss Meta's trial court suit following a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
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July 18, 2024
Healthcare Co. Says Fired In-House Atty Lacks Standing To Sue
Kidney care company Panoramic Health has urged a Colorado federal judge to toss a former assistant general counsel's lawsuit that claims she was fired for raising concerns about violations of federal anti-kickback statutes.
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July 18, 2024
Final IRS Rules Require Beneficiaries To Take Distributions
Beneficiaries of retirement account owners who died after starting to take distributions must continue taking the distributions annually, the Internal Revenue Service said Thursday in final regulations on required minimum distributions that rejected feedback saying the requirement was overly complex.
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July 18, 2024
Womble Bond Adds Finance Atty With Latin America Focus
Womble Bond Dickinson's growing New York office is welcoming a capital markets and structured finance attorney after his more than 10 years with Hogan Lovells, most recently in Brazil.
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July 18, 2024
PharMerica Inks $100M Deal In 13-Year-Old Whistleblower Suit
PharMerica Corp. has agreed to pay $100 million to settle a former New Jersey nursing home owner's long-running whistleblower litigation over an alleged drug kickback scheme, according to the plaintiff's law firm.
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July 18, 2024
SolarWinds Beats Most Claims In SEC's Data Breach Suit
A New York federal judge on Thursday delivered a heavy blow to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's case against software developer SolarWinds Corp. by dismissing substantial portions of the lawsuit, including claims that the company committed securities fraud by minimizing the severity of a state-sponsored attack on its flagship product.
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July 18, 2024
CFPB Eyes Loan Treatment For 'Earned Wage' Cash Advances
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau moved Thursday to apply federal truth-in-lending requirements to the growing market for fintech cash advances, issuing a proposed rule that would classify many "earned wage access" products as consumer loans needing clear pricing disclosures.
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July 17, 2024
EPA Disputes High Court Link To Texas Clean Air Act Case
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency argued that the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling blocking a federal plan to reduce cross-state pollution does not impact the EPA's decision to reject state plans submitted by Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi.
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July 17, 2024
PJM Jumps Into 3rd Circ. Row Over Transmission Project
A Pennsylvania commission's request to have the Third Circuit reinstate its rejection of a power transmission project would impinge on PJM Interconnection's federally mandated planning process, the regional grid operator said in an amicus brief filed Wednesday.
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July 17, 2024
MTA Sued For Bus Service Cuts After Congestion Plan Nixed
New York City's Public Advocate hit the Metropolitan Transportation Authority with a proposed state court class action Wednesday aimed at reversing bus service cuts implemented after Gov. Kathy Hochul abruptly canceled plans for congestion pricing, slashing billions in anticipated revenue for the MTA.
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July 17, 2024
SEC's Peirce Calls For Rule Agenda Reset After Court Rulings
Hester Peirce, a member of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, called on the agency Wednesday to reconsider its rulemaking agenda given recent court rulings, saying it should "really think about hewing closely" to its statutory mandate, in comments made just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to end Chevron deference.
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July 17, 2024
Ex-SEC Lawyer's Fellow Penny Stock Fraudster To Pay $1M
A Texas federal judge handed down final judgment Tuesday to a co-defendant of an ex-SEC lawyer turned fraudster in a civil case involving a penny stock scheme, barring Justin Herman from ever dealing penny stocks again and ordering him to pay over $1 million.
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July 17, 2024
SEC Says Ex-CEO Of Trump-Tied SPAC Hid Merger Talks
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday accused the former CEO of Digital World Acquisition Corp. of falsely representing that the special purpose acquisition company had no potential merger targets when he was actually personally discussing a merger with former President Donald Trump's social media company.
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July 17, 2024
Off-Channel Comms Top Concern For Compliance Pros
Investment advisers' compliance officers have listed electronic communications surveillance as their hottest topic, beating out concerns about the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's marketing rule, according to a new survey of compliance professionals representing nearly 600 investment advisers.
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July 17, 2024
AT&T Sued Over Breach Of 'Nearly All' Cell Users' Records
AT&T Inc. is facing separate class actions in Texas, Montana and New Jersey federal courts after the company disclosed Friday that hackers had downloaded phone call and text message records belonging to "nearly all" the telecom giant's wireless customers between May 2022 and early last year.
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July 17, 2024
SEC Awards $37 Million To Whistleblower
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday announced a $37 million award to a whistleblower who provided information that the commission did not previously know, which contributed to a successful enforcement action.
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July 17, 2024
1st Circ. Affirms SEC's $32M Win Against Investment Adviser
The First Circuit upheld roughly $32 million in fees, disgorgement and interest the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission won against a Nevada-based investment adviser, who was found to have defrauded clients about the track record of a once popular investment scheme, saying the adviser "acted with a high degree of recklessness" in promoting the strategy.
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July 17, 2024
Calif. Asks 9th Circ. To Lift Injunction On Kids' Privacy Law
California urged the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday to remove an injunction blocking a groundbreaking new law requiring social media platforms to bolster privacy protections for children, defending the protections and arguing that any unconstitutional provision should be severed following the U.S. Supreme Court's Moody v. NetChoice decision.
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July 17, 2024
9th Circ. Open To X's Challenge To Content Disclosure Law
A three-judge Ninth Circuit panel appeared open Wednesday to granting X Corp.'s request to block at least some of a new California law requiring social media companies to provide semiannual disclosures regarding their content moderation policies, with each judge saying one particular provision appears to infringe free speech rights.
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July 17, 2024
FTC Cites 3rd Circ. In Defending Noncompete Ban
The Federal Trade Commission has continued to argue against a preliminary injunction a tree services company wants against its noncompete ban, directing a Pennsylvania federal judge to look at a Third Circuit decision from the day before calling for a high bar on initial court blocks absent immediate and permanent harm.
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July 17, 2024
Judge Warns HHS It's Not In 'Reasonable Compliance'
The Department of Health and Human Services appears not to be in "reasonable compliance" of an injunction ordering it to develop an avenue for Medicare beneficiaries to appeal their hospitalization status, a Connecticut federal judge said in a Tuesday notice.
Expert Analysis
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Series
Fishing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Atop the list of ways fishing makes me a better lawyer is the relief it offers from the chronic stress of a demanding caseload, but it has also improved my listening skills and patience, and has served as an exceptional setting for building earnest relationships, says Steven DeGeorge at Robinson Bradshaw.
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Best Practices For Responding To CBP's Solar Questionnaire
U.S. Customs and Border Protection's recently introduced questionnaire to solar importers imposes significant burdens, with the potential for supply chain disruptions and market consolidation, but taking certain steps can assist companies in navigating the new requirements, say Carl Valenstein and Katelyn Hilferty at Morgan Lewis.
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Exploring Alternatives To Noncompetes Ahead Of FTC Ban
Ahead of the Sept. 4 effective date for the Federal Trade Commission's noncompete ban, employers should seek new ways to protect their proprietary and other sensitive information, including by revising existing confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements, says Harvey Linder at Culhane.
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5th Circ. Venue-Transfer Cases Highlight Mandamus Limits
Three ongoing cases filed within the Fifth Circuit highlight an odd procedural wrinkle that may let district courts defy an appellate writ: orders granting transfer to out-of-circuit districts, but parties opposing intercircuit transfer can work around this hurdle to effective appellate review, says Charles Fowler at McKool Smith.
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A Healthier Legal Industry Starts With Emotional Intelligence
The legal profession has long been plagued by high rates of mental health issues, in part due to attorneys’ early training and broader societal stereotypes — but developing one’s emotional intelligence is one way to foster positive change, collectively and individually, says attorney Esperanza Franco.
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Navigating Self-Disclosures As A Regulated Financial Entity
As enforcement risks heat up for regulated financial institutions, such entities may be forced to weigh the potential advantages and disadvantages of self-disclosing potential compliance gaps, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.
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To Make Your Legal Writing Clear, Emulate A Master Chef
To deliver clear and effective written advocacy, lawyers should follow the model of a fine dining chef — seasoning a foundation of pure facts with punchy descriptors, spicing it up with analogies, refining the recipe and trimming the fat — thus catering to a sophisticated audience of decision-makers, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Takeaways From SEC's New Data Breach Amendments
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent amendment of its consumer privacy rules to require investment advisers and broker-dealers to put procedures in place to uncover data breaches and report them to customers evidences that protecting client records and information remains an SEC priority, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.
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EPA Heavy-Duty Vehicle GHG Rules Face Bumpy Road Ahead
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions for owners and operators of heavy-duty vehicles are facing opposition from both states and the transportation industry, and their arguments will mirror two pending cases challenging the EPA's authority, says Grant Laizer at Adams and Reese.
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8 Steps Companies Should Take After An Internal Investigation
Given the U.S. Department of Justice’s increasing focus on corporate compliance and remediation of misconduct, companies must follow through in several key ways after an internal investigation to ensure history does not repeat itself, say Jonathan Aronie and Joseph Jay at Sheppard Mullin.
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Circuit Judge Writes An Opinion, AI Helps: What Now?
Last week's Eleventh Circuit opinion in Snell v. United Specialty Insurance, notable for a concurrence outlining the use of artificial intelligence to evaluate a term's common meaning, is hopefully the first step toward developing a coherent basis for the judiciary's generative AI use, says David Zaslowsky at Baker McKenzie.
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A Look At M&A Conditions After FTC's Exxon-Pioneer Nod
The Federal Trade Commission's recent consent decree imposing several conditions on Exxon Mobil's acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources helps illustrate key points about the current merger enforcement environment, including the probability of further investigations in the energy and pharmaceutical sectors, say Ryan Quillian and John Kendrick at Covington.
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'Food As Health' Serves Up Fresh Legal Considerations
The growth of food as medicine presents a significant opportunity for healthcare organizations and nontraditional healthcare players to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs, though these innovative programs also bring compliance considerations that must be carefully navigated, say attorneys at McDermott.
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Series
In The CFPB Playbook: Regulatory Aims Get High Court Assist
Newly emboldened after the U.S. Supreme Court last month found that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding is constitutional, the bureau has likely experienced a psychic boost, allowing its already robust enforcement agenda to continue expanding, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.
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NY Public Campaign Funding May Attract Scrutiny From Feds
The upcoming elections across New York this year will be the first under the state’s public campaign finance program — which may broaden federal prosecutors' purview to target state election fraud and corruption, says Jarrod Schaeffer at Abell Eskew.