Social Media MDL Judge Rips State Attys Defying Orders

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal magistrate judge overseeing discovery in multidistrict litigation over social media platforms' allegedly addictive designs on Thursday ordered states to provide the names and state bar numbers of agency counsel who have refused to comply with discovery orders, threatening sanctions and asking, "What happened to the rule of law?"

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Rebel Wilson Unlikely To Duck 'The Deb' Defamation Suit

By Rachel Scharf

A Los Angeles judge suggested Thursday that he'll likely keep alive a defamation suit accusing actress Rebel Wilson of spreading baseless lies about producers of the musical film "The Deb," saying it seems the matter is a "private business dispute" not protected by California's anti-SLAPP statute.

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Ye's Cos. Sanctioned For Blowing Off Discovery In Bias Suit

By Rachel Scharf

A Los Angeles judge sanctioned two of Ye's companies Thursday after they "simply ignored" discovery requests in a former employee's lawsuit alleging widespread racism, antisemitism and homophobia on the part of the rapper formerly known as Kanye West.

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Ill. Justices Overturn Jussie Smollett's Conviction

By Cara Salvatore

Illinois' high court ruled Thursday that prosecutors violated Jussie Smollett's constitutional rights by trying the actor after earlier dismissing his charges for falsely reporting a hate crime, saying the "fundamentally unfair" conviction must be voided.

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Ill. High Court Won't Shield Sun-Times In Trump Tax Case

By Grace Dixon

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Chicago Sun-Times can't use an anti-SLAPP law to duck a defamation suit over the paper's coverage of an investigation into a $1 million property tax reduction granted to Trump Tower during the president-elect's first term.

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NYT To OpenAI: You Deleted My Search Results

By Andrew Karpan

Lawyers for The New York Times and other newspapers suing Microsoft and OpenAI over allegedly using copyright-protected news stories to train ChatGPT now say that a week's worth of their search result data was accidentally erased by OpenAI engineers.

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Defamation Suit Against Ga. Election Chief Likely To Proceed

By Chart Riggall

A federal judge said Thursday that she was likely to allow a Texas attorney to continue with her defamation suit against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over comments that suggested she presented "doctored" evidence to state senators in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

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Biden's FCC Chair Stepping Down From Agency Jan. 20

By Christopher Cole

The Democratic head of the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday she will be leaving the agency on Jan. 20.

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White & Case Guides Mediaocean On $525M Innovid Buy

By Al Barbarino

Private equity-backed advertising company Mediaocean said Thursday it has agreed to buy software platform Innovid for roughly $525 million, with White & Case LLP and Latham & Watkins LLP steering the deal as legal counsel. 

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Deals Rumor Mill

Trump Eyes Crypto, SpaceX To Sell Shares, And More Rumors

By Tom Zanki

Donald Trump's social media company wants to enter the cryptocurrency business, while Elon Musk's SpaceX is planning a tender offer of shares that values the space technology startup at $250 billion. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other notable deal rumors from the past week.

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Brief

Trump Settles Copyright Suit Over 'Electric Avenue' Song

By Adam Lidgett

President-elect Donald Trump has settled a copyright lawsuit from the creator of the 1980s pop hit "Electric Avenue" who alleged the song was used without his permission in a social media post attacking President Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential election.

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Snap Moves To Toss New Mexico's Child 'Sextortion' Suit

By Rae Ann Varona

Snap Inc. has moved to toss New Mexico's lawsuit accusing it of enabling child sexual exploitation on its instant messaging app, Snapchat, telling a New Mexico state court that the state's attorney general lodged a "sensationalist" lawsuit rife with patently false allegations.

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Analysis

DOJ Search Fixes Would Remake Google, Break Off Chrome

By Bryan Koenig

To give rival search engines a fighting chance against Google's illegal monopoly and its massive data and structural advantages, the Justice Department asked a D.C. federal judge Wednesday for sweeping changes that would divest the Chrome browser, open up Android devices and guarantee access to underlying search data.

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DOJ Urges Chrome, Android Sales In Google Case

By Bryan Koenig

The U.S. Department of Justice late Wednesday formally asked a Washington, D.C., federal judge to order a range of steps to end Google's monopolization of general search services and the text ads shown alongside search results, most notably by forcing the company to spin off the Chrome browser.

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Sony Music Settles Bias Suit By Columbia CEO's Ex-Assistant

By Craig Clough

A New York federal judge dismissed a lawsuit Thursday by a former assistant to Columbia Records chief executive Ron Perry who claimed she was forced to resign after pushing back on hiring practices that discriminated against non-Black applicants, after Sony Music and the other parties informed the court they reached a settlement. 

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FCC Aims To Better Protect Undersea Telecom Cables

By Christopher Cole

From shortening license terms to working with federal law enforcement to protect underwater telecom infrastructure, the Federal Communications Commission launched an effort to shield submarine cables from ever-increasing national security risks on Thursday.

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FCC Targets Spoofing Scams With Third-Party Caller ID Regs

By Christopher Cole

In hopes of better combating spoofed robocalls, the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday required telecoms to meet certain legal obligations when hiring third parties to verify caller ID data using a widely accepted technical standard.

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Vt. Telecom Hints DOJ Protected Biden Ally In Dish FCA Suit

By Jared Foretek

A Vermont telecom all but accused the Department of Justice of undercutting the company's False Claims Act suit alleging fraudulent Dish Network spectrum bidding in order to protect a major donor to President Joe Biden, arguing Thursday that its suit should go forth even without the government's blessing.

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Brief

New FCC Rules Pave Way For More FM Station Geotargeting

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission adopted rules Thursday meant to make it easier for FM booster stations to broadcast brief segments of hyper-local content every hour.

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Brief

FCC To Hit Video Doorbell Maker For Skirting Security Rules

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Communications Commission wants to slap Chinese smart home device maker Eken with a more than $700,000 fine for breaking agency rules that require foreign companies to have an agent located in the U.S.

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Oklahoma Tribe Asks DC Circ. To Revive Creek Land Lawsuit

By Crystal Owens

An Oklahoma tribe is asking the D.C. Court of Appeals to revive its challenge to a U.S. Department of the Interior decision that rejected the tribe's proposed liquor ordinance in a dispute over shared jurisdiction with the Muscogee Creek Nation, arguing federally recognized Indigenous nations should stand on equal footing.

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Sterlington Boosts Aviation Group With Ex-Mintz Member

By Tracey Read

Sterlington PLLC has added a first-chair litigator in commercial, partnership, private aviation and intellectual property disputes from Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC as a partner in New York.

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Purse-Case Scenarios: 'MetaBirkin' Appeal Tests TM Rights

A federal court's finding that "MetaBirkin" nonfungible tokens infringed on Hermes' iconic Birkin bag imagery is now on appeal in the Second Circuit, and the order will have a lasting effect on how courts balance trademark rights and the First Amendment, say attorneys at Venable.

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3 Ways To Train Junior Lawyers In 30 Minutes Or Less

Today’s junior lawyers are experiencing a skills gap due to pandemic-era disruptions, but firms can help bring them up to speed by offering high-impact skill building content in bite-sized, interactive training sessions, say Stacey Schwartz at Katten, Diane Costigan at Winston & Strawn and Lauren Tierney at Freshfields.

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How They Won It

How A Purple Jacket Led To A Murder Exoneration And $13M

By Julie Manganis

To win compensation under a Massachusetts state law, lawyers for Michael J. Sullivan, who spent 26 years in prison, were required to prove he was innocent of the 1986 crime for which he was convicted. A couple of lucky breaks helped.

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Interview

High Court Bar's Future: Sullivan & Cromwell's Morgan Ratner

By Jeff Overley

Morgan L. Ratner has emerged as a leader of the U.S. Supreme Court bar's next generation, and she attributes her ascent to brilliant mentors, a laid-back argument style, an aversion to overconfidence and a firm commitment to clear principles in every case — even if that means reluctantly telling the chief justice, as she once did, that a hypothetical cat stuck in a tree shouldn't be saved.

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Trump Sentencing Halted To Weigh President-Elect's Immunity

By Frank G. Runyeon

The New York state judge who oversaw Donald Trump's hush money trial officially canceled his Nov. 26 sentencing date Friday to weigh the impact of his new status as president-elect, pushing briefing into December.

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UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen cash-strapped Thurrock Borough Council bring a £40 million ($50 million) negligence claim against 23 other local authorities over its solar investments from a not-for-profit local government body, AstraZeneca sue a fire safety company following a blaze at its Cambridge headquarters last year, and a director who was convicted in 2016 for corporate manslaughter face action by Manolete Partners. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Bonus Spotlight

Top Firms Big And Small Join In On Milbank Bonuses

By Aebra Coe

The latest law firms to follow Milbank LLP on 2024 associate bonuses late Thursday and into Friday run the gamut from global giant to boutique, according to firm memos shared with Law360 Pulse and media reports.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Andrea Keckley

Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum LLP, King & Spalding LLP, Holland & Knight LLP and Barnes & Thornburg LLP lead this week's list of Law360 legal lions for beating a Pennsylvania state court lawsuit brought against Bayer AG unit Monsanto by a woman who said she got cancer by using the weed killer Roundup.

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Squire Patton Lawyer Dies In Laos Amid Poisoning Reports

By Ashish Sareen

A junior lawyer at Squire Patton Boggs LLP has died in Laos, the law firm confirmed Friday, amid reports in the media that she was the victim of a suspected mass poisoning incident.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Google's chief legal officer has blasted a U.S. Department of Justice proposal to force it to sell its Chrome browser, saying a sale would "break" a range of Google products and be a threat to U.S. tech leadership in the world. And in a close but surprising outcome, California voters have turned down a minimum wage hike for workers.

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Gaetz, Greene Face Atty Fees Bid For $550,000 In Calif. Suit

By Madison Arnold

Progressive groups including the NAACP are seeking more than $550,000 in attorney fees and costs from U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and former Rep. Matt Gaetz after escaping their lawsuit alleging that the organizations conspired to pressure city officials in California to cancel the politicians' rallies.

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Analysis

Bondi Vowed Trump Payback. Ex-Colleagues Aren't Worried.

By Phillip Bantz, Chris Villani and Carolina Bolado

U.S. attorney general nominee Pam Bondi is an outspoken ally of President-elect Donald Trump and vowed during the campaign that his "prosecutors will be prosecuted," but people who've worked with her say she's well qualified to serve as the nation's top cop and downplayed concerns that she would politicize the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Brief

Navajo Co. Dismisses Case Alleging Paralegal Took Docs

By Thy Vo

A natural resources company owned by the Navajo Nation has dismissed a lawsuit against a paralegal it accused of failing to turn in her computer for removal of its privileged documents, after the paralegal said she had already arranged to surrender her device before the lawsuit was even filed.

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Senior Dem Asks Schumer For Votes On Circuit Court Picks

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Friday pushed back against a deal Democrats and Republicans cut earlier this week that obligates Democrats to forgo votes on four appellate picks.

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