Telecommunications

  • June 25, 2024

    Sinclair Accused Of Violating Video Privacy Law

    Sinclair Inc. was hit with a lawsuit in Illinois state court Monday alleging it uses tracking technology to see which videos users watch on its tennis streaming service and target advertisements to them accordingly, in violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act.

  • June 25, 2024

    Noteholder Deal Spares Telecom WOM From Ch. 11 Dismissal

    Chilean telecommunications company WOM told Delaware's bankruptcy court it reached a deal with a group of noteholders and the unsecured creditors committee to resolve their bid to dismiss the debtor's bankruptcy case. 

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • June 24, 2024

    DC Circ. Affirms Verizon Win In Conspiracy Defamation Row

    The D.C. Circuit upheld the toss of a conservative commentator's defamation suit over a Yahoo News podcast that covered the 2016 killing of a Democratic National Committee staffer and the conspiracy theories the homicide produced, ruling that the commentator's allegations fell short of the actual malice threshold.

  • June 24, 2024

    Harvard Prof Calls NFL Sunday Ticket 'Highly Anticompetitive'

    A Harvard law professor testified Monday in a multibillion-dollar antitrust lawsuit over the NFL's Sunday Ticket that pooling teams' television rights into exclusive deals is not like Beyoncé having an exclusive music distributor — as an NFL expert testified — but like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish pooling rights.

  • June 24, 2024

    Apple, Amazon Assail Hagens Berman's Class Rep 'Charade'

    Apple and Amazon.com blasted Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP for trying to "have it both ways" in an antitrust suit over a pact between the companies restricting Amazon iPhone and iPad sales to approved vendors, arguing the firm cannot withdraw its original named plaintiff without forcing him to testify.

  • June 24, 2024

    Sirius XM Made Millions Off Hidden Royalty Fee, Suit Alleges

    Sirius XM Radio Inc. has been tricking customers into paying an extra 21% every month by tacking a hidden "royalty fee" onto bills, according to a new proposed class action alleging that the fee is responsible for every bit of the company's profits for the last several years.

  • June 24, 2024

    Broadband Advocates Urge FCC To Revisit Subsidy Fees

    Advocates for broadband expansion are asking the Federal Communications Commission to revisit an April decision that exempted internet service providers, at least for now, from contributions to the FCC's telecom subsidy program.

  • June 24, 2024

    AT&T Must Keep Basic Services Intact, Calif. Regulators Say

    California regulators have required AT&T to maintain its commitment to basic phone service by denying its bid to withdraw as a "carrier of last resort," a decision that has prompted the company to pursue legislation that would maintain the designation only for rural communities that have limited options for telecom service.

  • June 24, 2024

    Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

    Amendments to Delaware's General Corporation Law topped the news out of the Court of Chancery again last week, as the hotly contested measure sailed through the state's legislature. Tesla and its shareholders continued their tug-of-war over attorney fees for Chancery litigation about Elon Musk's pay package, and new cases were filed involving biotechs, car rental companies, workout platforms, telecom towers, and a cargo ship fire in Brazil.

  • June 24, 2024

    Defense Contractor Gresham Inks $83M SPAC Merger

    Defense contractor Gresham Worldwide Inc. and special-purpose acquisition company Ault Disruptive Technologies Corp. agreed Monday to merge in a deal that values Gresham at $83 million and enlarges the company's profile, steered by two law firms.

  • June 24, 2024

    High Court Passes On Religious Webcasters' Royalty Hike Suit

    The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to review the federal Copyright Royalty Board's latest hike in royalty rates webcasters must pay to play audio recordings, turning away a radio trade group's appeal challenging one of the increases on religious freedom and administrative procedure grounds.

  • June 21, 2024

    Drug Cos., IP Attys Back Cellect In High Court Efforts

    A petition by patent litigation outfit Cellect that is looking to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to wade into a double patenting dispute has drawn support from even more lawyers as well as a handful of major drugmakers and small tech companies like Sonos.

  • June 21, 2024

    Google Ditches Wiretap Suit Over AI Customer Service Calls

    A California federal judge has tossed, for now, a proposed class action accusing Google LLC of using a "human-like" customer service product powered by generative artificial intelligence to illegally eavesdrop on Verizon users' calls, finding that Google was exempt from liability because it was acting as Verizon's agent.

  • June 21, 2024

    SC Agency Asks 4th Circ. To Rethink Google Ad Subpoena

    South Carolina's parks and tourism department wants the Fourth Circuit to reconsider its order mandating the agency turn over documents about its own online advertising efforts to Google to aid the tech behemoth in a fight against several states accusing it of monopolization.

  • June 21, 2024

    Ex-Trump Aide Must Face Hunter Biden's Data Hack Suit

    A California federal judge has refused to toss Hunter Biden's lawsuit accusing a former Trump White House aide of obtaining and publishing emails and photos purportedly taken from his laptop, finding Biden sufficiently alleged the aide illegally accessed a "protected computer" defined under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. 

  • June 21, 2024

    Texas Fines Major Carriers $10.2M For Deceptive Advertising

    Some of the nation's biggest mobile carriers — including AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon — have inked a $10 million deal with Texas to end the state's probe into what the Lonestar State says are the carriers' "deceptive and misleading" advertising practices.

  • June 21, 2024

    4th Circ. Revives TCPA Suit Over Fax Promoting Free Webinar

    A chiropractic office in Ohio on Friday succeeded in reviving its putative class action against a healthcare technology company accused of sending junk faxes, with the Fourth Circuit finding the communication counts as an unsolicited advertisement under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

  • June 21, 2024

    DC Better Match For Net Neutrality Suits, 6th Circ. Told

    A public interest group urged the Sixth Circuit to move lawsuits over the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules to the D.C. Circuit, saying the lottery that put the cases in Cincinnati was not enacted to keep litigation out of D.C.

  • June 21, 2024

    Zoom Latest Tech Giant Accused Of Infringing NM Co.'s Patent

    A New Mexico company has hit videoconferencing behemoth Zoom with a patent suit in Colorado federal court, alleging that Zoom is knowingly infringing a patent for identifying voices across multiple telephone networks.

  • June 21, 2024

    Off The Bench: ACC-FSU Rematch, Supreme Win For Fla. Tribe

    In this week's Off The Bench, the next round of venue tug-of-war begins between the Atlantic Coast Conference and Florida State University, the U.S. Supreme Court hands Florida and the Seminole Tribe a lucrative gaming win, and Roger Goodell and Jerry Jones defend the NFL's handling of its Sunday Ticket package.

  • June 21, 2024

    Rip And Replace 'Ruinous' Without Fed Funds, Carriers Say

    A rural telecoms trade group is warning the Federal Communications Commission of potentially "ruinous" financial predicaments for small carriers if the "rip and replace" program targeting Chinese-made telecommunications equipment isn't fully funded soon, saying in a new filing that carriers are considering reducing service because of the lack of funding.

  • June 21, 2024

    Apple Can't Challenge £853M IPhone Battery Class Action

    Apple failed in its bid to challenge an £853 million ($1 billion) proposed class action that accuses it of concealing problems with batteries in the phones of 24 million customers, after an appeals court found Friday the claim had prospects of success.

  • June 21, 2024

    Paul Hastings Bankruptcy Ace Joins Greenberg Traurig

    Greenberg Traurig LLP added a Houston-based veteran bankruptcy attorney from Paul Hastings as a new shareholder.

Expert Analysis

  • How Policymakers Can Preserve The Promise Of Global Trade

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    Global trade faces increasing challenges but could experience a resurgence if long-held approaches adjust and the U.S. accounts for factors that undermine free trade's continuing viability, such as regional trading blocs and the increasing speed of technological advancement, says David Jividen at White & Case.

  • Meta Data Scraping Case Has Lessons For Platforms, AI Cos.

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    The California federal court ruling that artificial intelligence company Bright Data's scraping of public data from Meta social media sites does not constitute a breach of contract signals that platforms should review their terms of service and AI companies could face broad implications for their training of algorithms, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.

  • Opinion

    Judicial Independence Is Imperative This Election Year

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    As the next election nears, the judges involved in the upcoming trials against former President Donald Trump increasingly face political pressures and threats of violence — revealing the urgent need to safeguard judicial independence and uphold the rule of law, says Benes Aldana at the National Judicial College.

  • Document Retention Best Practices To Lower Litigation Risks

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    As new technologies emerge and terabytes of data can be within the purview of a single discovery request, businesses small and large should take four document management steps to effectively minimize risks of litigation and discovery sanctions long before litigation ensues, says Kimbrilee Weber at Norris McLaughlin.

  • Series

    Riding My Peloton Bike Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Using the Peloton platform for cycling, running, rowing and more taught me that fostering a mind-body connection will not only benefit you physically and emotionally, but also inspire stamina, focus, discipline and empathy in your legal career, says Christopher Ward at Polsinelli.

  • Spartan Arbitration Tactics Against Well-Funded Opponents

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    Like the ancient Spartans who held off a numerically superior Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae, trial attorneys and clients faced with arbitration against an opponent with a bigger war chest can take a strategic approach to create a pass to victory, say Kostas Katsiris and Benjamin Argyle at Venable.

  • Takeaways From Groundbreaking Data Transfer Order

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    A recent first-of-its-kind executive order and related proposed rulemaking lay the groundwork for important outbound U.S. data protections, but they may have unintended consequences related to the types of data and the subjects within their scope, say attorneys at Kirkland.

  • Infringement Policy Lessons From 4th Circ. Sony Music Ruling

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    The Fourth Circuit's recent decision in Sony Music v. Cox Communications, which in part held that the internet service provider was liable for contributing to music copyright infringement, highlights the importance of reasonable policies to terminate repeat infringers, and provides guidance for litigating claims of secondary liability, say Benjamin Marks and Alexandra Blankman at Weil.

  • What Recent Study Shows About AI's Promise For Legal Tasks

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    Amid both skepticism and excitement about the promise of generative artificial intelligence in legal contexts, the first randomized controlled trial studying its impact on basic lawyering tasks shows mixed but promising results, and underscores the need for attorneys to proactively engage with AI, says Daniel Schwarcz at University of Minnesota Law School.

  • The Epic Antitrust Cases And Challenges Of Injunctive Relief

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    The Epic cases against Apple and Google offer a window into the courts' considerable challenges in Big Tech litigation and establishing injunctive relief that enhances competition and benefits consumers, say Kelly Lear Nordby and Jon Tomlin at Ankura Consulting.

  • Litigation Inspiration: A Source Of Untapped Fulfillment

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    As increasing numbers of attorneys struggle with stress and mental health issues, business litigators can find protection against burnout by remembering their important role in society — because fulfillment in one’s work isn’t just reserved for public interest lawyers, say Bennett Rawicki and Peter Bigelow at Hilgers Graben.

  • Series

    Skiing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    A lifetime of skiing has helped me develop important professional skills, and taught me that embracing challenges with a spirit of adventure can allow lawyers to push boundaries, expand their capabilities and ultimately excel in their careers, says Andrea Przybysz at Tucker Ellis.

  • High Court Social Media Speech Ruling Could Implicate AI

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    In Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether certain state laws can restrict content moderation by social media platforms, but the eventual decision could also provide insight into whether the first amendment protects artificial intelligence speech, say Joseph Meadows and Quyen Dang at GRSM50.

  • Think Like A Lawyer: Forget Everything You Know About IRAC

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    The mode of legal reasoning most students learn in law school, often called “Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion,” or IRAC, erroneously frames analysis as a separate, discrete step, resulting in disorganized briefs and untold obfuscation — but the fix is pretty simple, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.

  • BT Case May Shape UK Class Action Landscape

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    The first opt-out collective action trial commenced in Le Patourel v. BT in the U.K. Competition Appeal Tribunal last month, regarding BT's abuse of dominance by overcharging millions of customers, will likely provide clarification on damages and funder returns in collective actions, which could significantly affect the class action regime, say lawyers at RPC.

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