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Compliance
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June 25, 2024
Cummins Brass Face Investor Suit For $2B Clean Air Act Deal
Executives and directors of engine manufacturer Cummins Inc. have been hit with a shareholder derivative suit accusing them of concealing the company's use of unlawful emissions control devices in certain engines, which eventually resulted in a record $1.68 billion fine against the company and more than $326 million in related payments.
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June 25, 2024
CFPB Delays Start Of Small-Biz Loan Rule Deadlines Until '25
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday formally pushed back the compliance deadlines for its contested rule that establishes reporting requirements for the small-business lending market, putting nearly 10 more months on the clock for banks and other lenders after a court-ordered stay.
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June 25, 2024
USDA Tackles 'Inconsistent' Court Handling Of Packers Suits
The U.S. Department of Agriculture sought Tuesday to empower itself, and perhaps individual farmers, in lawsuits against allegedly unfair practices in the livestock, meat and poultry industries, by proposing a new rule that would replace the current case-by-case adjudication of what counts as a violation of the Packers and Stockyards Act.
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June 25, 2024
Norfolk Southern Torched In NTSB Final Derailment Findings
Norfolk Southern used "reprehensible" tactics to interfere with the investigation into last year's derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and pushed for an "unnecessary" controlled vent and burn of highly flammable vinyl chloride during the accident's chaotic aftermath, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
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June 25, 2024
GOP Lawmakers Urge 8th Circ. To Quash SEC's Climate Rule
A group of 35 Republican lawmakers on Tuesday moved to weigh in on the consolidated challenge to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recently adopted climate disclosure rule, arguing that the Eighth Circuit should vacate the measure due to a lack of clear congressional authorization.
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June 25, 2024
Verizon To Pay $1M For Southeast 911 Outage, FCC Says
Verizon has agreed to pay just more than $1 million and follow a compliance plan after a December 2022 breakdown of 911 connectivity throughout the Southeast, the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday.
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June 25, 2024
Broker's Lax ACH Monitoring Led To $330K Theft, FINRA Says
A broker-dealer that was once a unit of Oregon-headquartered Umpqua Bank has agreed to pay $225,000 to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority after self-reporting supervisory oversights that enabled unauthorized parties to siphon over $330,000 out of a customer's account.
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June 25, 2024
Flint Judge Wants To Keep City 'Motivated' To Fix Lead Pipes
A Michigan federal judge on Tuesday all but approved a proposal from the state to step in and help the city of Flint finish replacing lead water service lines and restoring properties for residents, noting the city's repeated failures to meet its obligations under a 7-year-old settlement agreement.
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June 25, 2024
FCC Says Anti-Redlining Rule 'Dutifully' Carries Out Law
The Federal Communications Commission has urged the Eighth Circuit to toss multiple industry challenges to its rules against discrimination in broadband deployment, saying its use of a wide-reaching standard for prohibited bias fits the law's requirements.
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June 25, 2024
FTC Suit Merely 'Publicity Stunt,' Seattle Bill Pay Biz Says
A Seattle-based online bill pay platform has accused the Federal Trade Commission of filing a baseless consumer protection suit against it, telling a Washington federal court the company has already gone above and beyond its legal obligations to satisfy regulators' concerns about misleading ads and hidden fees.
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June 25, 2024
FTC Looks To Ax MGM Suit Over Cybersecurity Probe
The Federal Trade Commission rebuffed claims from MGM Resorts International that the agency improperly declined to recuse chair Lina Khan from investigating the hospitality giant's data security practices, urging a D.C. federal judge to toss MGM's lawsuit that seeks to stop the probe.
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June 25, 2024
Firm Accused Of Raising $12M On Fake Investment Claims
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sued an investment firm and its adviser over allegations they fraudulently raised $12.5 million from investors while claiming it had ties to an art investing platform and had a major accounting firm as its auditor.
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June 25, 2024
Exxon Bid For Avangrid Docs In Greenwash Case Faces Doubt
A Massachusetts judge on Tuesday questioned the relevance of potentially millions of wind energy company Avangrid's documents being sought by ExxonMobil in its defense of a greenwashing case brought by the state.
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June 25, 2024
Pot Cos. Push Back On Calif. City's Bid To Toss $5.4M Fee Suit
Six cannabis companies are fighting the California city of Cudahy's bid to dismiss a suit alleging that the city reneged on a promise to waive $5.4 million in fees accrued during the COVID-19 shutdowns, saying the motion largely disputes allegations that the court has to accept as true under a motion to dismiss.
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June 25, 2024
Drilling Permit Challenge Should Stay Dead, DOI Tells DC Circ.
The U.S. Department of the Interior told the D.C. Circuit a federal judge correctly ruled environmental groups cannot challenge the federal approval of thousands of drilling permits in New Mexico and Wyoming because they failed to establish any particularized injury.
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June 25, 2024
EU Opens Microsoft Case, Unappeased By Teams Unbundling
European Union antitrust authorities opened a formal complaint against Microsoft on Tuesday over the company's bundling of its Teams communications program with its Office 365 suites, calling out as insufficient the disconnection of the services Microsoft initiated last year to appease enforcers.
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June 25, 2024
Int'l Paper Gets US Clearance On $7.2B DS Smith Buy
International Paper Co. and its U.K. competitor DS Smith PLC said Tuesday that the waiting period for U.S. antitrust authorities to try and block their planned roughly $7.2 billion merger has expired.
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June 25, 2024
NY Judge Partially Lifts Trump Gag Order Ahead Of Sentence
The Manhattan judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's hush-money case on Tuesday vacated key parts of a gag order intended to shield jurors and witnesses from his verbal attacks, although an order protecting the jurors' identities remains in place.
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June 24, 2024
Chevron's $120M Trial Loss Reinstated By Calif. Appeals Court
A California appellate court says Chevron cannot get another trial after a jury found it liable for the negligent operation of an oil field, overturning a lower court's ruling that the company was entitled to a new trial because a juror failed to disclose a decades-old criminal conviction.
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June 24, 2024
More Law Schools Boosting AI In Curricula
Law schools are increasingly incorporating artificial intelligence into their curricula, including dedicated AI courses and opportunities for students to use AI tools, signaling a trend that the technology is becoming essential for future lawyers, according to results from an American Bar Association survey released Monday.
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June 24, 2024
Tesla Class Attys In Del. Blast Musk's Texas Pay-Salvage Plan
Tesla stockholder attorneys who won a Delaware Court of Chancery order voiding Elon Musk's then-$56 billion compensation package in January have asked the court to reject company claims that recent stockholder approval of the same Musk pay plan after Tesla's reincorporation in Texas "has controlling and preclusive effect."
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June 24, 2024
SEC Official Urges Banks To Report Commercial RE Risks
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is closely monitoring the way banks with significant commercial real estate portfolios are communicating with investors about their exposure to the struggling market, the agency's director of its Division of Corporation Finance said in remarks posted online Monday.
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June 24, 2024
Localities Redouble Effort To Block House Broadband Bill
The U.S. Conference of Mayors is leaning on Congress to abandon the American Broadband Deployment Act of 2023, saying the bill is trying to cut red tape for broadband permitting at the expense of local governments' control over their own territories.
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June 24, 2024
Justices Will Weigh Liability Of Corporate Affiliates In TM Row
The U.S. Supreme Court will review whether a real estate development company's corporate affiliates should be responsible for a $46.6 million trademark infringement judgment — even though they were not defendants — in a case attorneys said Monday could have ramifications beyond the Lanham Act.
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June 24, 2024
GM Financial Pulls FDIC Industrial Bank Application, For Now
General Motors' financing arm said Monday that it has withdrawn its long-gestating bid for Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. approval to open an insured industrial bank, tabling its plans just days after the agency signed off on another such application for the first time in years.
Expert Analysis
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FDA Warning Indicates Scrutiny Of Regenerative Health Cos.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's recent warning letter to Akan Biosciences is a quintessential example of the agency's enforcement priorities for certain products involving human cells and tissues, and highlights ongoing scrutiny placed on manufacturers, say Dominick DiSabatino and Cortney Inman at Sheppard Mullin.
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New OSHA Memo Helps Clarify Recordkeeping Compliance
Based on recent Occupational Safety and Health Administration guidance on whether musculoskeletal disorders are recordable injuries under the agency's recordkeeping regulation, it appears that OSHA may target active release techniques and stretching programs during its inspections, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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A Closer Look At Feds' Proposed Banker Compensation Rule
A recently proposed rule to limit financial institutions' ability to award incentive-based compensation for risk-taking may progress through the rulemaking process slowly due to the sheer number of regulators collaborating on the rule and the number of issues under consideration, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.
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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.