Feature

NJ Toxic Spill Rule May Hamper Property Sales, Panelists Say

By Carla Baranauckas

A New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection regulation expected to take effect this summer could slow property sales and lead to increased litigation as attorneys and real estate investors grapple with stricter requirements for reporting toxic spills, experts speaking Thursday at the State Bar Association's annual meeting in Atlantic City said.

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Analysis

House Tax Bill's Foreign Rules May Finish Off Energy Perks

By Kat Lucero

House Republicans' mammoth tax bill proposes phasing out two popular clean electricity business tax credits, but additional restrictions on eligible development projects' foreign business ties could have the same effect as immediately repealing them.

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$666M Pipeline Verdict 'Poster Child' For Reduction, Judge Told

By Cara Salvatore

Lawyers for Greenpeace urged a North Dakota state judge Thursday to significantly reduce a $666 million verdict over claims that it falsely disparaged the Dakota Access pipeline amid environmental protests, with the jury having awarded ten times more on certain claims than even the pipeline's builder wanted.

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Regulatory Rollback Orders Legally Risky, FERC Chair Says

By Keith Goldberg

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is attempting to comply with executive orders that aim to roll back federal regulations, but Chairman Mark Christie said Thursday that implementing the orders could open FERC up to lawsuits and potentially courtroom defeats.

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Brief

Energy Dept. Expands Review Of $15B Worth Of Grants

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

The U.S. Department of Energy said on Thursday that it's scrutinizing 179 grant awards worth $15 billion that it said were issued under the Biden administration.

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Brief

Senate Confirms Trump's Pick For EPA General Counsel

By Juan-Carlos Rodriguez

The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted to confirm Sean Donahue as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's general counsel.

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Toshiba Unit Can't Get Bench Trial In Hydro Plant Dispute

By Carolyn Muyskens

A Toshiba subsidiary lost a bid to have a breach-of-contract case related to an upgrade of a Michigan hydroelectric power plant tried by a judge instead of a jury, the court rejecting an attempt to invoke a parent company's waiver of its right to a jury trial.

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Feds' Memo In Filing Mishap Is Privileged, NY Judge Says

By Linda Chiem

A New York federal judge has determined that the federal government's mistakenly filed memo in litigation over Manhattan's congestion pricing program is privileged and cannot be cited in the parties' arguments, but the memo won't be sealed because it's already been widely reported on.

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Ore. Tribe Looks To Redefine Columbia Basin Fishing Rights

By Crystal Owens

An Oregon tribe is asking a federal court to open up a decades-old case that reserved fishing rights for the state's Indigenous nations, arguing that it must redefine the nature and scope of its off-reservation rights in order to obtain a fair share of the Columbia Basin's resources.

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Wis. Tribe Urges Army Corps To Reject Enbridge Line 5 Permit

By Crystal Owens

Members of a Wisconsin tribe are urging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to deny Enbridge Energy Inc. a permit that will allow it to reroute its Line 5 pipeline around and upstream its reservation, arguing that, if allowed, hundreds of downstream wetlands and streams would be polluted by the project.

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Unions, Groups Seek Injunction To Block Gov't Restructuring

By Beverly Banks

A California federal judge must greenlight a nationwide injunction to stop multiple federal agencies from moving ahead with implementing reorganization and mass termination plans linked to an executive order, a coalition of unions and groups argued, making their request on the heels of a temporary restraining order.

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Battery Recycler Cites 'Green' Funding Uncertainties In Ch. 15

By Clara Geoghegan

Lithium battery recycler Li-Cycle asked a New York bankruptcy judge to recognize its Canadian insolvency, saying the current political climate has made investors wary of infusing money needed to tap a $475 million U.S. federal loan.

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Insurer Wants Smokestack Demo Cos. To Pay For Damage

By Matthew Santoni

Erie Insurance is seeking to make the companies that demolished two smokestacks at a former Western Pennsylvania coal-fired power plant pay $375,000 for damage that flying dust, debris and shock waves did to a neighboring property, according to a lawsuit filed in state court.

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NC Furniture Maker Gets Pretrial Win On Helene Coverage

By Ryan Harroff

A federal judge gave a North Carolina furniture manufacturer a pretrial win in its suit seeking Hurricane Helene coverage from Fireman's Fund Insurance Co., ruling that the policy at issue had an exclusion for flood damages but that the exclusion had a carve-out for "named storms."

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AI Startup Perplexity Seeks $14B Valuation, And More Rumors

By Tom Zanki

Perplexity is in talks for a new funding round that would value the artificial intelligence startup at $14 billion, OpenAI is reworking a multibillion-dollar agreement with Microsoft Corp. in order to free up its plans for an initial public offering, and Dutch power grid operator TenneT is considering selling a stake in its German division for up to $13 billion.

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Enviro Justice Efforts After Trump's Disparate Impact Order

The Trump administration's recent executive order directing the U.S. Department of Justice to unwind disparate impact regulations may end some Biden-era environmental justice initiatives — but it will not end all efforts, whether by state or federal regulators or private litigants, to address issues in environmentally overburdened communities, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

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Only Certainty About FAR Reform Order Is Its Uncertainty

The president’s recent order overhauling the Federal Acquisition Regulation, which both contractors and agencies rely on to ensure predictability and consistency in federal procurement, lacks key details about its implementation, which will likely eliminate many safeguards that ensure contractors are treated fairly and that procurements are awarded in a reasonable manner, say attorneys at Miles & Stockbridge.

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Series

Teaching Business Law Makes Me A Better Lawyer

Teaching business law to college students has rekindled my sense of purpose as a lawyer — I am more mindful of the importance of the rule of law and the benefits of our common law system, which helps me maintain a clearer perspective on work, says David Feldman at Feldman Legal Advisors.

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9th Circ. Mulls DOJ Shield Of Jones Day VW Documents

By Linda Chiem

A Ninth Circuit panel on Friday questioned whether it could force the U.S. Department of Justice to hand over confidential Volkswagen documents it obtained through a grand jury subpoena that were part of Jones Day's internal investigation into the automaker's 2015 emissions-cheating scandal.

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Attys With 'Borrowed' Claims Can't Skip Inquiry, Lumen Says

By Jared Foretek

Telecommunications company Lumen has told the Colorado Supreme Court that attorneys still need to conduct their own "objectively reasonable inquiry" when borrowing claims from outside litigants, in the hopes of beating a shareholder suit that took allegations from other cases despite attorneys not speaking to the witnesses.

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Trump Calls On Justices To Stay Block Of Gov't Restructuring

By Beverly Banks

President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to pause a California federal judge's order temporarily halting agencies from implementing an executive order to plan reorganizations and reductions in force, claiming the lower court's decision has caused confusion and wasted taxpayer dollars.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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Jackson Walker Criticizes JC Penney Fee Suit As 'Money Grab'

By Emily Sawicki

Jackson Walker LLP wants out of a fee suit brought by former client J.C. Penney, arguing that the bankrupt department store's wind-down debtors entered claims as a "leverage play and a money grab" after learning that a firm partner had engaged in a yearslong undisclosed relationship with a Texas bankruptcy judge.

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Progressive, Kanner & Pintaluga Slam Accident Data Suit

By Ryan Harroff

Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. and Kanner & Pintaluga PA have filed separate motions in Texas federal court to dismiss a proposed class action accusing the two of conspiring to share auto crash victims' private information against state and federal law, with each arguing that the allegations, as the insurer put it, "make no sense."

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5th Circ. Asked To Undo Houston Firm's 'Absurd' PPP Denial

By Catherine Marfin

A Houston firm asked the Fifth Circuit to reverse the U.S. Small Business Administration's "absurd" denial of its loan forgiveness under a COVID-19-era program, writing that a "good faith but mistaken answer" to an application question would have produced a different result under changed guidelines.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Hogan Lovells and the Fomby Law Firm lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that courts must weigh the full sequence of events — not just the instant a threat arises — when deciding if police used excessive force.

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American Arbitration Assoc. Accused Of Pro-Corp. Monopoly

By Bonnie Eslinger

The American Arbitration Association monopolizes the market for consumer arbitration and is "an unfair forum where consumers lose" to corporate defendants, according to a proposed consumer class action filed in Arizona federal court.

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Susman Godfrey Expands DEI Scholarships Amid Trump Fight

By Emily Johnson

Susman Godfrey LLP announced Friday that the firm has expanded a scholarship program for law students of color to a total of $100,000 — up from $70,000 the firm handed out last year — amid criticism from the Trump administration that the prizes constitute racial discrimination as the firm battles the government over an executive order targeting it.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

An SEC enforcement officer has told business leaders to expect more empathy from the agency, as well as fewer outside compliance monitors. And an ousted ATF chief counsel is fighting back by co-founding a boutique law firm to defend federal workers in employment battles.

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