Public Policy

  • July 02, 2024

    Gig Drivers' Union Rights Make It To Mass. Ballot

    Massachusetts voters will decide in November whether to give app-based drivers the right to unionize after supporters of a proposed ballot initiative submitted a batch of signatures to the state Tuesday, the Service Employees International Union announced. 

  • July 02, 2024

    Georgia Wants 11th Circ. To Undo Blocks On Election Law

    The state of Georgia has urged the Eleventh Circuit to undo the enjoining of two provisions of the state's controversial 2021 election law, including a ban on handing out food and drinks to voters waiting in line that the state called a "prophylactic" against electoral interference.

  • July 02, 2024

    Calif. Tribe Members Say Racial Ancestry Case Is Valid

    Family members seeking control of the California Valley Miwok Tribe have told a federal court that the U.S. Department of the Interior wrongly claims they must submit to a process designed to determine their racial ancestry, even though the process is unregulated.

  • July 02, 2024

    Paxton Slammed For 'Intolerable' Bid To Shutter El Paso Org

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's efforts to shut down a Catholic nonprofit he has accused of smuggling and harboring migrants is "outrageous and intolerable," an El Paso County judge ruled Tuesday, blasting him for using his administrative power to push "his own personal beliefs or political agenda."

  • July 02, 2024

    Captioning Providers Worried About FCC Rate Cuts

    Companies that provide captioned telephone service for people with hearing and speech disabilities are criticizing a Federal Communications Commission proposal to reduce rates paid to providers, saying that successive rate cuts could jeopardize their credit lines and diminish their ability to raise capital if the agency doesn't change course.

  • July 02, 2024

    House Dems Urge More F-16 Training For Ukrainian Pilots

    Fifteen House Democrats implored the U.S. Department of Defense on Monday to support Ukraine's request to train 10 additional pilots on F-16 fighter jets this year.

  • July 02, 2024

    Court Must Toss Customs Broker's Unripe Suit, Feds Say

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection pushed to dismiss a customs broker's suit over its allegedly unlawful removal from two programs that expedite import entries at the border, saying its decisions were not final and are, therefore, not ready for judicial review.

  • July 02, 2024

    ​​​​​​​Top Groups Lobbying The FCC

    The Federal Communications Commission heard from advocates nearly 150 times in June on issues including broadband map accuracy, next-generation 911, prison phone rates, a new missing-persons code and rules to restrict bulk billing in apartment buildings.

  • July 02, 2024

    Turkish Co. Says Feds Mistook Tax Exemptions For Subsidies

    A Turkish steel company challenged new countervailing duties on steel concrete rebar, telling the U.S. Court of International Trade that the federal government allegedly misidentified a widely available tax exemption as a subsidy providing an unfair market advantage.

  • July 02, 2024

    Gov't Urged To Gauge TransDigm Deals' Effect On Defense Biz

    Three Democratic lawmakers are pressing the U.S. Department of Defense and antitrust enforcers to review an aerospace company's recent acquisition of two other companies, citing antitrust and price gouging concerns.

  • July 02, 2024

    Colo. City Housing Authority Says Board Can't Be Fired At Will

    A Colorado city's ordinance violates state law because it gives the mayor the power to replace the commissioners of the city's housing authority without just cause, the housing authority has claimed in Colorado state court.

  • July 02, 2024

    Pharma Co. Scores Exit In Investor Suit Over Primate Imports

    A Massachusetts federal judge tossed every claim in a proposed class action claiming that pharmaceutical company Charles River Laboratories and its executives concealed their involvement in the illegal importation of nonhuman primates for research, ruling that the disputed statements are not false or misleading.

  • July 02, 2024

    DOL Sends Final Rule On Mental Health Parity To White House

    The U.S. Department of Labor transmitted a final rule to the White House for review designed to boost employer health plans' compliance with a law requiring equal coverage of mental health and substance use disorder treatments compared to physical care, according to a regulatory filing posted online.

  • July 02, 2024

    CFPB's Founding Fair Lending Chief Heads For Exit

    Patrice Ficklin, the longtime top fair lending official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is leaving the agency later this month after more than a decade leading its efforts to oversee the financial industry's compliance with federal laws banning credit discrimination.

  • July 02, 2024

    McKinsey Wants To Arbitrate Ex-Partner's Defamation Suit

    McKinsey & Co. has urged a New York state judge to send to arbitration or dismiss a former partner's defamation lawsuit alleging the consulting giant tried to make him a scapegoat for purported evidence destruction amid a U.S. Department of Justice probe into McKinsey's work with opioid makers.

  • July 02, 2024

    'Angry' Connecticut AG Probing Music Festival Fiasco

    Connecticut Attorney General William Tong on Tuesday announced that his office has launched an investigation into a three-day rock music festival organized by Capulet Entertainment LLC that drew big-name bands before the venue changed at the last minute, leading numerous acts to drop out and forcing attendees to abandon their outdoor camping plans.

  • July 02, 2024

    Justices Revive FERC Solar Fight, Citing Chevron Ruling

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the D.C. Circuit to rethink its approval of a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission decision granting market benefits for a small-scale solar energy project in Montana following the justices' blockbuster decision upending judicial deference to regulatory agencies.

  • July 02, 2024

    Native American Activist Leonard Peltier Denied Parole

    The U.S. Parole Commission on Tuesday denied parole for Leonard Peltier, a Native American activist serving a life sentence for his conviction in the 1975 slayings of two FBI agents, despite an array of calls for clemency over the years from such luminaries as Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama, as well as tribes, civil rights groups and federal lawmakers.

  • July 02, 2024

    Mont. Revenue Drops $180M From Last Fiscal Year

    Montana collected $180 million less in general fund revenue during the fiscal year that ended in June than it did in the previous year, the state Department of Revenue said in a preliminary report.

  • July 02, 2024

    Data Analysis Shows Swift Influx In EPA Brownfield Grants

    A Law360 Real Estate Authority analysis of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's brownfield grant awards since the program's inception shows a steep increase in funding, particularly in funding of cleanups, since the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was passed in 2021. 

  • July 02, 2024

    Congress Urges DOJ To Probe TikTok Kids' Privacy Concerns

    A bipartisan group of lawmakers urged the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday to quickly review the Federal Trade Commission's complaint referral against TikTok and its parent company ByteDance Ltd. for possibly violating a children's privacy law.

  • July 02, 2024

    After Fischer, Judge Releases Atty Convicted In Jan. 6 Riot

    A D.C. federal judge ordered the release of a Georgia attorney imprisoned for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, saying his pending appeal would likely result in his freedom after the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed an obstruction of Congress law used to convict him and others involved in the assault.

  • July 02, 2024

    Mass. Panel Won't Cut Tax Value Over Denied Building Permits

    The owner of commercial property in Massachusetts failed to show that local denials of building permits impacted the tax value of the property, a state panel said in a decision released Tuesday, rejecting the owner's appeal of a local assessment.

  • July 02, 2024

    Sentencing Relief Law Gets Another Supreme Court Look

    The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider whether a sentencing reduction provision in the First Step Act can apply to defendants whose sentences prior to the 2018 law are vacated and who are resentenced with the statute in effect.

  • July 02, 2024

    Interior Dept. OKs Atlantic Shores South Wind Project

    The U.S. Department of the Interior on Tuesday said it's approving the Atlantic Shores South offshore wind project, the ninth such commercial-scale project given a green light by the Biden administration.

Expert Analysis

  • The Legal Issues Raised In Minn. Rate Exportation Opt-Out Bill

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    A recent Minnesota House bill would amend state law by opting out of the federal interest rate preemption and introduce several legal gray areas if passed, including issues regarding loan location, rates on credit card loans and values of state charters, says Karen Grandstrand at Fredrikson & Byron.

  • 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.

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