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Compliance
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December 18, 2024
E&Y Accused Of Aiding Energy Firm's SPAC Fraud
Big Four accounting firm Ernst & Young faces a suit alleging that its "unqualified" audit opinions for a United Arab Emirates-based oil storage leasing company enabled the company to defraud investors in its $1 billion 2019 merger with a special purpose acquisition company.
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December 18, 2024
Judge Wants To Know If Colo. Kroger Merger Fight Is Moot
A Colorado state judge wants to know whether two recent decisions blocking the proposed $24.6 billion merger of The Kroger Co. and Albertsons Companies Inc. has mooted Attorney General Phillip J. Weiser's challenge to the transaction, according to a briefing plan approved Tuesday.
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December 18, 2024
FCC Asked To Place Conditions On Skydance-Paramount Deal
Paramount Global's $2.4 billion plan to merge with Skydance Media has gained another critic, a right-leaning nonprofit law firm that wants the Federal Communications Commission to refuse to approve the tie-up without placing conditions on Paramount's CBS.
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December 18, 2024
CVS Fueled Opioid Epidemic In Rush For Profits, Feds Say
The U.S. Department of Justice unveiled a suit Wednesday accusing CVS, the nation's largest pharmacy chain, of knowingly filling invalid prescriptions for powerful opioids and ignoring internal pleas from its pharmacists as it allegedly put profits over safety.
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December 18, 2024
Conn. AG Can't Close Courtroom In Ghost Gun Hearing
A Connecticut state judge won't close the courtroom for a damages hearing in a suit by the state against an online shop selling so-called ghost gun kits, saying the public's interest in the facts of the case outweighs the state's concerns about an undercover investigator's safety.
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December 18, 2024
EPA Greenlights California's Race To 100% ZEVs By 2035
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday authorized California's plan to require that all new light cars and trucks sold in the state be zero-emission by 2035, a move that was instantly slammed by the fossil fuel industry.
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December 18, 2024
RJ Reynolds Asks Justices To Toss Forum Shopping Argument
R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's argument that the vape company engaged in forum shopping when it challenged denial of one of its applications in the Fifth Circuit, saying its Texas- and Mississippi-based co-petitioners make the Fifth Circuit the proper venue.
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December 18, 2024
Connecticut AG Gets Remand Of 'Forever Chemicals' Suit
A Connecticut federal judge has shipped one of the state's PFAS "forever chemicals" lawsuits back to state court, siding with the state attorney general's argument that the case targeted pollution from consumer products and civilian industrial sources that were not "inextricably commingled" with chemicals produced to military specifications.
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December 18, 2024
Hagens Berman Says Apple, Amazon Doc Demand Is Off Base
Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP is firing back against Apple and Amazon's bid to force the turnover of texts and emails with a client who disappeared from a putative class action against the tech giants, calling the spat an opportunistic attack "based on a fiction."
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December 18, 2024
Mont. High Court Cements Right To 'Stable Climate System'
The Montana Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that the state's constitution guarantees the right to "a stable climate system" and affirmed a lower court's decision to strike down state law provisions that barred the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions in permitting decisions.
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December 18, 2024
IRS Pushes Some Retirement Plan Min. Distributions To 2026
The Internal Revenue Service updated the effective date to January 2026 — instead of next year — for when some must start to withdraw the required minimum amount of funds from several types of individual retirement accounts that were amended by a December 2022 retirement savings law.
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December 18, 2024
High Court To Review TikTok Sale-Or-Ban Law
The U.S. Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it will fully review TikTok's First Amendment challenge to a federal law requiring the wildly popular social media platform to divest from its Chinese parent company or face a nationwide ban, scheduling expedited oral arguments one week before the law's effective date.
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December 18, 2024
CFPB Says Credit Card Point Devaluation May Break The Law
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned Wednesday that credit card companies risk violating federal law when they or their merchant partners devalue rewards points and miles banked by their cardholders, casting it as a potential "bait-and-switch."
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December 17, 2024
GOP Hill Leaders Pledge To Prioritize Crypto Bills Next Year
Lawmakers told crypto industry participants Tuesday that they plan to keep digital assets top of mind in the coming legislative session by prioritizing bills on a regulatory structure for stablecoins and digital asset markets, as well as digging into allegations bank regulators have unfairly targeted crypto businesses.
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December 17, 2024
FTC Finalizes New Rule Cracking Down On 'Junk Fees'
The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday announced it has finalized a bipartisan rule barring businesses in the event ticketing and lodging industries from using bait-and-switch pricing and other tactics to sneakily foist so-called junk fees on consumers.
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December 17, 2024
Broker, AML Chief Settle SEC Suspicious Activity Claims
Broker-dealer SogoTrade Inc. and its former anti-money laundering compliance officer on Tuesday agreed to pay fines, and other terms, to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges that they repeatedly failed to investigate suspicious customer activity or file related reports.
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December 17, 2024
Red States Can Back Feds In Dakota Access Pipeline Row
A North Dakota federal judge said Tuesday that 13 Republican-led states can back the federal government in litigation brought by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe seeking to halt operations of the Dakota Access Pipeline.
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December 17, 2024
SEC, CFTC Members Eye Crypto Coordination Under Trump
Republican commissioners at the federal securities and futures regulators told crypto industry participants on Tuesday that they will urge their agencies to collaborate more closely on providing regulatory relief and clarity in the new year as they wait for lawmakers to get long-awaited crypto legislation across the finish line.
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December 17, 2024
Senate GOP Enviro Leader Questions EPA On Grant Funding
The leading Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee said Tuesday she's worried about the "potential for misuse" of the $30 billion in funding being doled out by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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December 17, 2024
Google-Apple Collusion Plaintiff Asks 9th Circ. To Revive Suit
A California crane operator training school asked the Ninth Circuit on Monday to revive its case accusing Google of paying Apple to refrain from developing its own search engine in light of a recent Washington, D.C., federal judge's decision that Google monopolizes the search market.
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December 17, 2024
FTC, Meta Fight Over Monopolization Trial Limits
Meta Platforms and the FTC are butting heads about how to structure the trial they are hurtling toward in April in D.C. federal court over the agency's monopolization claims, trading barbs Tuesday and trying to make their cases for how they think the multiweek trial should look.
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December 17, 2024
Sandoz Cuts $275M Deal For More Price-Fixing Claims
Swiss drugmaker Sandoz said Tuesday it has reached a $275 million settlement to end claims from consumers, insurers and others in the sprawling multidistrict litigation over alleged price-fixing in the generic-drug industry.
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December 17, 2024
DOJ Antitrust Division Head Kanter Stepping Down Friday
The head of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Jonathan Kanter, announced his imminent departure Tuesday, leaving the agency after a little over three years and with a legacy of dramatically ramped-up monopolization enforcement, an extremely low tolerance for potentially problematic transactions and more aggressive criminal enforcement.
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December 17, 2024
Visa Says 'Contradictory' Debit Card Market Dooms DOJ Suit
Visa Inc. formally asked a New York federal judge Monday to nix the U.S. Department of Justice monopolization lawsuit accusing it of paying off would-be debit network rivals and penalizing the use of alternate payment systems, arguing the government cannot mix-and-match its way into claiming the company holds a dominant market share.
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December 17, 2024
SEC Says Express Didn't Disclose $1M In Ex-CEO Perks
Express Inc. failed to disclose nearly $1 million worth of perks and personal benefits to former CEO Tim Baxter, according to a settlement released Tuesday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which declined to levy a civil penalty against the fashion retailer in light of its cooperation and remediation.
Expert Analysis
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The Future Of GLP-1 Policy After Drug Shortage Ends
If and when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration determines that GLP-1 RA drugs are no longer in short supply, regulators will face questions of how to balance access to GLP-1 RAs with statutory and policy considerations applicable to compounded drugs, say attorneys at Skadden.
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Conducting A 'Reasonably Expected Market Area' Analysis
Regardless of whether the incoming administration scales back on redlining examinations and investigations, lenders should take steps to understand how regulators define "reasonably expected market areas," and how to conduct analyses of such areas, say attorneys at Mitchell Sandler.
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Opinion
Justices Rightly Corrected Course In Nvidia And Facebook
By dismissing both the Nvidia and Facebook class actions, over investors' ability to hold corporations accountable for fraud, the U.S. Supreme Court was right in refusing to favor corporations over transparency, and reaffirmed its commitment to corporate accountability, investor protection and the rule of law, says Laura Posner at Cohen Milstein.
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Gov't Scrutiny Of Workplace Chat Apps Set To Keep Growing
The incoming Trump administration and Republican majorities in Congress are poised to open numerous investigations that include increasing demands for entities to produce communications from workplace chat apps, so companies must evaluate their usage and retention policies, say attorneys at Orrick.
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2024 Regulatory Developments For Bank-Fintech Partnerships
Joseph Silvia at Duane Morris reviews a handful of particularly noteworthy 2024 updates regarding bank-fintech partnerships, including federal banking agencies issuing a number of important pieces of guidance that reiterate and update previous guidance in the area of third-party risk management.
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2025's Midmarket M&A Terrain May Hold A Few Bright Spots
Attorneys at Stoel Rives assess middle-market merger and acquisition trends, and explain why many dealmakers have turned cautiously optimistic about the sector's 2025 prospects, despite potential inflation and new Federal Trade Commission rules.
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Top 10 Whistleblowing And Retaliation Events Of 2024
From a Florida federal court’s ruling that the False Claims Act’s qui tam provision is unconstitutional to a record-breaking number of whistleblower tips filed with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, employers saw significant developments in the federal and state whistleblower landscapes this year, say attorneys at Proskauer.
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The Implications Of 2024's AI Rules And Regs For Patent Attys
Christina Huang, John Smith and Devin Stein at Faegre Drinker review this year's new rules and regulations on the development and use of artificial intelligence — from the Biden administration, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the American Bar Association and various states — as they apply to patent attorneys.
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Green Card Sponsorship Expectations Reset In 2024
In 2024, adjudication times for employment-based green card applications increased to about 13 months, prompting more employers to implement varied strategies to avoid losing talent and minimize business disruptions, a trend that is likely to continue in the new year, says Jennifer Cory at FisherBroyles.
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When US Privilege Law Applies To Docs Made Outside The US
As globalization manifests itself in disputes over foreign-created documents, a California federal court’s recent trademark decision illustrates nuances of both U.S. privilege frameworks and foreign evidentiary protections that attorneys must increasingly bear in mind, say attorneys at Hunton.
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Changes To Expect From SEC Under Trump Nominee
President-elect Donald Trump's nomination of Paul Atkins for U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission chair will likely lead to significant shifts in the Division of Enforcement's priorities, likely focused on protecting retail investors and the stability of the capital markets, say attorneys at Morrison Foerster.
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Ring In The New Year With An Updated Employee Handbook
One of the best New Year's resolutions employers can make is to update their employee handbooks, given that a handbook can mitigate, or even prevent, costly litigation as long as it accounts for recent changes in laws, court rulings and agency decisions, say attorneys at Kutak Rock.
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'Minimal Participant' Bar Is Tough To Clear For Whistleblowers
Under the U.S. Department of Justice’s corporate whistleblower pilot program, would-be whistleblowers will find it tough to show that they only minimally participated in criminal misconduct while still providing material information, but sentencing precedent shows how they might prove their eligibility for an award, say attorneys at MoloLamken.
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9 Things To Expect From Trump's Surprising DOL Pick
The unexpected nomination of Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Ore., to lead the U.S. Department of Labor reflects a blend of pro-business and pro-labor leanings, and signals that employers should prepare for a mix of continuity and moderate adjustments in the coming years, say attorneys at Fisher Phillips.
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Impact Of Corporate Transparency Act Ambiguity On Banks
Even though banks generally needn't file beneficial ownership information reports, financial institutions must continue to monitor the status of the Corporate Transparency Act and understand its requirements in case the nationwide injunction that was issued against the CTA earlier this month is overturned, say attorneys at Armstrong Teasdale.