Public Policy

  • May 15, 2024

    'Uber Files' Scandal Can't Prop Up Investor Suit, Judge Says

    Uber Technologies has beaten back a proposed class action alleging that a trove of leaked internal records harmed shareholders by revealing corporate misconduct, with a California federal judge saying plaintiffs failed to prove that any of Uber's statements about the leak were false.

  • May 15, 2024

    Georgia Justices Weigh State Immunity In Trooper's Wage Suit

    Georgia's Department of Public Safety urged the state's highest court on Wednesday to undo a Georgia Court of Appeals decision that revived a state trooper's suit alleging that the department failed to pay him owed overtime for time spent in training, arguing that the state never waived its sovereign immunity privilege.

  • May 15, 2024

    Flexibility In Info Security Policy May Add Compliance Burden

    New federal guidance for contractors handling sensitive, but unclassified information could introduce confusion and compliance burdens if agencies implement security controls without consulting contractors. 

  • May 15, 2024

    Fla. Suit Alleging Race Bias In New Voting Districts Proceeds

    A Florida federal court has ruled that a lawsuit by five Tampa-area citizens accusing state officials of using race to redraw two new voting districts in their region can proceed, saying the residents do not claim vote dilution and are not required to allege a discriminatory effect.

  • May 15, 2024

    Prosecutors Fight Full Court Review Of 'Double Odor' Pot Test

    North Carolina prosecutors said no review is necessary on a state appellate court's opinion which found that the smell of marijuana combined with the "strong odor of a cologne" as a "cover scent" is enough to give police officers probable cause to search a vehicle, highlighting the hostile tone in the appellant's bid.

  • May 15, 2024

    Texas Judge Won't Halt County's Electioneering Restrictions

    Newly-crafted electioneering rules in Palo Pinto County, Texas, can stay in place as conservative activists pursue an interlocutory appeal of an order denying their motion to block the rules' implementation, a Texas federal judge has ruled.

  • May 15, 2024

    Noncompete Rule Challenge Gets More Backing

    A slew of business groups have thrown their support behind a challenge of the Federal Trade Commission's sweeping ban on noncompete clauses for employees, saying the rule relies on "cherrypicked" data to back a policy preferred by the FTC's majority.

  • May 15, 2024

    House Reauthorizes NTIA, But Agency Takes Heat From GOP

    The U.S. House voted late Wednesday to reauthorize the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, hours after Republicans on a key oversight committee blasted the agency for its handling of the government's $42.5 billion broadband deployment effort.

  • May 15, 2024

    6th Circ. Frees Ex-Ohio Pol Pending Bribery Appeal

    A former member of the Cincinnati City Council convicted of bribery and attempted extortion in connection with a sports betting redevelopment project spearheaded by a former Cincinnati Bengals player can stay out of prison while an appeal plays out, the Sixth Circuit said Wednesday.

  • May 15, 2024

    McGirt Ruling Should Be In 'Full Force' In Tulsa, U.S. Says

    The federal government wants to intervene in a challenge by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation to the city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, that seeks to block city officials from asserting criminal jurisdiction over tribe members on tribal lands, arguing the municipality is violating federal law reiterated in a 2020 high court ruling.

  • May 15, 2024

    Don't Make Network Outage Reporting Mandatory, FCC Told

    Telecommunications industry groups are telling the Federal Communications Commission that rules requiring mandatory broadband outage reporting would burden small and rural providers and potentially distract from outage response.

  • May 15, 2024

    Arrested Ga. Lawmakers Say 'Disruption Statute' Is Overbroad

    Attorneys for U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, state Rep. Park Cannon and several Georgia residents who were arrested for protesting in the rotunda of the Georgia State Capitol in 2018 and 2021 told the Georgia Supreme Court on Wednesday that the law used to justify their arrests is unconstitutionally overbroad.

  • May 15, 2024

    Mass. Senate Aide Alleges Retaliation After Bias Complaint

    A constituent services aide to a Massachusetts state senator is alleging that the lawmaker and his former chief of staff stonewalled his requests for accommodation after a leg injury left him unable to climb stairs, then iced him out after he filed a complaint with the state's anti-discrimination agency.

  • May 15, 2024

    Anti-Trans Groups Fail To Block Wash. Youth Shelter Law

    A federal judge on Wednesday threw out a lawsuit filed by two anti-transgender groups challenging a Washington state law intended to ensure shelter for teens seeking gender-affirming care or reproductive health services, ruling that speculating on possible injury was not enough to clear a standing hurdle.

  • May 15, 2024

    Feds, Pesticide Cos. Seek More Time To Find Mediator

    The Federal Trade Commission and agricultural chemical companies Syngenta and Corteva are seeking extra time to select a mediator as they litigate claims that the manufacturers leverage loyalty programs to suppress competition from cheaper generic pesticides.

  • May 15, 2024

    House Panel Weighs Baltimore Bridge Rebuilding Costs

    Rebuilding Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge may cost up to $1.9 billion and take at least four years, as accident investigators continue to examine how a cargo ship slammed into the bridge in March and knocked it down, officials told a House panel Wednesday.

  • May 15, 2024

    Lawmakers Move To Kill DOL's ERISA Fiduciary Regs

    A group of 16 mostly Republican senators introduced a resolution Wednesday to overturn the U.S. Department of Labor's new rule broadening who qualifies as a fiduciary under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, saying the regulations threaten Americans' ability to save for retirement.

  • May 15, 2024

    FTC Chair Khan Defends Request For 25% Budget Increase

    Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina M. Khan defended a 25% budget increase request during a House appropriations hearing Wednesday, calling it "healthy" that aggressive Biden administration merger enforcement has made antitrust considerations top of mind for companies mulling transactions.

  • May 15, 2024

    Amid Controversy, Gov. Names Tribal Police Chief As Liaison

    South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has appointed the former Pine Ridge Reservation chief of police as her administration's new tribal liaison, saying that after he "bravely testified" before a U.S. Senate committee about the cartel presence on tribal lands, he found himself without a job.

  • May 15, 2024

    House Dems Launch Task Force To Address High Court 'Crisis'

    A group of House Democrats on Wednesday launched a task force seeking to bring more transparency and accountability to the U.S. Supreme Court.

  • May 15, 2024

    Ga. Says Plaintiffs Firing Blanks At Controversial Voting Law

    In a slew of filings Monday, the state of Georgia renewed its urging that a federal judge grant the state a win in one of the most wide-ranging challenges to its 2021 election voting overhaul bill, arguing that the plaintiffs can't marshal "any competent evidence" to support their suit.

  • May 15, 2024

    House Panel Advances Tax-Exempt Org Oversight Bills

    The House Ways and Means Committee approved a package of bills Wednesday that would increase scrutiny of foreign donations to tax-exempt organizations, including legislation that would require those organizations to publicly report the donations.

  • May 15, 2024

    Wage Damages Update Isn't Retroactive, NJ Justices Say

    The New Jersey Supreme Court on Wednesday held an amendment to the state's wage laws adding liquidated damages and extending the statute of limitations should only be applied to conduct that occurred after its effective date, backing the dismissal of some claims brought by laborers alleging unpaid pre- and post-shift work.

  • May 15, 2024

    Rio Grande Is A 'Creek,' Texas Tells 5th Circ. In Barrier Rehearing

    The state of Texas told the full Fifth Circuit on Wednesday that the Rio Grande is "little more than a creek with an excellent publicist" as it pushed the court to vacate an order that would require it to remove a floating barrier intended to keep migrants out of the country.

  • May 15, 2024

    Michigan Can't Shake Lawsuit Over Prison's Scabies Outbreak

    The director of the Michigan Department of Corrections and other high-ranking officials must face claims that they allowed an outbreak of scabies in a women's prison to go untreated for years, a federal judge has ruled.

Expert Analysis

  • Rebuttal

    Time For Congress To Let Qualified Older Pilots Keep Flying

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    While a previous Law360 guest article affirmed the current law requiring airline pilots to retire at age 65, the facts suggest that the pilots, their unions, the airlines and the flying public will all benefit if Congress allows experienced, medically qualified aviators to stay in the cockpit, say Allen Baker and Bo Ellis at Let Experienced Pilots Fly.

  • Does Expert Testimony Aid Preliminary IPR Responses?

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    Dechert attorneys analyze six years of patent owners' preliminary responses to inter partes review petitions to determine whether the elimination of the presumption favoring the petitioner as to preinstitution testimonial evidence affected the usefulness of expert testimony in responses.

  • Fostering Employee Retention Amid Shaky DEI Landscape

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    Ongoing challenges to the legality of corporate diversity, equity and inclusion programs are complicating efforts to use DEI as an employee retention tool, but with the right strategic approach employers can continue to recruit and retain diverse talent — even after the FTC’s ban on noncompetes, says Ally Coll at the Purple Method.

  • Are Concessions In FDA's Lab-Developed Tests Rule Enough?

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    Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's new policy for laboratory-developed tests included major strategic concessions to help balance patient safety, access and diagnostic innovation, the new rule may well face significant legal challenges in court, say Dominick DiSabatino and Audrey Mercer at Sheppard Mullin.

  • 5 Climate Change Regulatory Issues Insurers Should Follow

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    The climate change landscape for insurers has changed dramatically recently — and not just because of the controversy over the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related risk disclosure rules, says Thomas Dawson at McDermott.

  • How New Rule Would Change CFIUS Enforcement Powers

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    Before the May 15 comment deadline, companies may want to weigh in on proposed regulatory changes to enforcement and mitigation tools at the disposal of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, including broadened subpoena powers, difficult new mitigation timelines and higher maximum penalties, say attorneys at Venable.

  • What's Extraordinary About Challenges To SEC Climate Rule

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    A set of ideologically diverse legal challenges to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate disclosure rule have been consolidated in the Eighth Circuit via a seldom-used lottery system, and the unpredictability of this process may drive agencies toward a more cautious future approach to rulemaking, say attorneys at Thompson Coburn.

  • 8 Questions To Ask Before Final CISA Breach Reporting Rule

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    The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s recently proposed cyber incident reporting requirements for critical infrastructure entities represent the overall approach CISA will take in its final rule, so companies should be asking key compliance questions now and preparing for a more complicated reporting regime, say Arianna Evers and Shannon Mercer at WilmerHale.

  • Series

    Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Years of participation in swimming events, especially in the open water, have proven to be ideal preparation for appellate arguments in court — just as you must put your trust in the ocean when competing in a swim event, you must do the same with the judicial process, says John Kulewicz at Vorys.

  • Key Priorities In FDIC Report On Resolving Big Bank Failures

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    The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s report last month on the resolvability of large financial institutions contains little new information, but it does reiterate key policy priorities, including the agency's desire to enhance loss-absorbing capacity through long-term debt requirements and preference for single-point-of-entry resolution strategies, say attorneys at Freshfields.

  • Best Practices For Space Security In Our Connected World

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    NASA's recently published space security guide is another indication that cyber-resilience has become a global theme for the space and satellite sector, as well as a useful reference for companies and organizations reviewing their cybersecurity frameworks or looking to partner with the U.S. agency, says Hayley Blyth at Bird & Bird.

  • Opinion

    SEC Doesn't Have Legal Authority For Climate Disclosure Rule

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    Instead of making the required legal argument to establish its authority, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related disclosure rule hides behind more than 1,000 references to materiality to give the appearance that its rule is legally defensible, says Bernard Sharfman at RealClearFoundation.

  • What 100 Federal Cases Suggest About Changes To Chevron

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    With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to overturn or narrow its 40-year-old doctrine of Chevron deference, a review of 100 recent federal district court decisions confirm that changes to the Chevron framework will have broad ramifications — but the magnitude of the impact will depend on the details of the high court's ruling, say Kali Schellenberg and Jon Cochran at LeVan Stapleton.

  • FTC Noncompete Rule May Still Face Historical Hurdles

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    The Federal Trade Commission's final rule banning noncompetes might face challenges that could have been avoided with more cautious consideration of the commission's long history of failed lawsuits that went beyond the agency's statutory authority, as well as the mountain of judicial precedent justifying noncompete agreements in employment contracts, say attorneys at BakerHostetler.

  • A Look At Subchapter V As Debt Limit Expiration Looms

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    If proposed legislation to extend Subchapter V’s debt eligibility ceiling sunset date in June is passed, bankruptcy professionals can seek ways to work with their local jurisdictions to advocate for code changes and guidance that bring more efficiencies and clarity to the process, say Matthew Brash at Newpoint Advisors and Melinda Bennett at Stretto.

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