The North Carolina Attorney General's Office urged the state's highest court Thursday to undo what it characterized as a glaring rate hike for Duke Energy Carolinas compared to what a sister entity received, saying state regulators offered no justification for the jump.
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MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2025 Law360 iOS App Law360 Android App Follow Law360 on Facebook Follow Law360 on LinkedIn Follow Law360 on Twitter

TOP NEWS

Duke Rate Hike Discrepancy Lacks Reason, NC Justices Hear

By Hayley Fowler

The North Carolina Attorney General's Office urged the state's highest court Thursday to undo what it characterized as a glaring rate hike for Duke Energy Carolinas compared to what a sister entity received, saying state regulators offered no justification for the jump.

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More US Attorneys Out In Three States

By Ryan Harroff

U.S. Attorney Dena J. King of the Western District of North Carolina announced that she is stepping down from her role as the district's top prosecutor, joining her counterparts in California's Southern District and the District of Maryland in the recent parade of U.S. attorneys to leave their posts since President Donald Trump retook the White House.

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4th Judge Rejects Trump's Take On Birthright Citizenship

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts federal judge on Thursday joined three other U.S. district courts in blocking President Donald Trump's executive order limiting birthright citizenship, rejecting the administration's interpretation of the 14th Amendment.

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Roundup

NC Biz Court Bulletin: Defaulted Notes, EB-5 Investor Fraud

By Hayley Fowler

The North Carolina Business Court has been handed in the first half of February a receivership case involving a defaulted $17.5 million promissory note, a fraud suit by Chinese EB-5 investors and a request to depose the chief legal officer of Smithfield Foods Inc.

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Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2025 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2025 editorial advisory boards.

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LITIGATION

Packaging Co. To Pay $6.25M Over Shuttered NC Paper Mill

By Gina Kim

Food and beverage packaging company Pactiv Evergreen has agreed to pay $6.25 million to settle the state of North Carolina's lawsuit seeking to recoup $12 million in financial incentives to keep a local mill operating in the town of Canton, after suddenly closing its facility in 2023.

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Insurers Say Adjuster Must Cover $66M Suit Over Boat Death

By Elizabeth Daley

Insurers told a North Carolina federal court that a company they contracted with failed to perform its agreed-upon adjustment duties on claims related to a 2021 fatal Florida boat accident and didn't pay legal fees when a more than $66 million suit erupted over the incident.

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FOURTH CIRCUIT

NASCAR Asks 4th Circ. To Quash Injunctions In Antitrust Row

By Elaine Briseño

NASCAR urged the Fourth Circuit in an opening brief to reverse injunctions that forced the organization to offer charter contracts to two teams suing the organization for alleged antitrust violations, arguing that any of the lower court's "many errors warrants reversal" and could have broader implications.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

In-House Counsel Pointers For Preserving Atty-Client Privilege

Several recent rulings illustrate the challenges in-house counsel can face when attempting to preserve attorney-client privilege, but a few best practices can help safeguard communications and effectively assert the privilege in an increasingly scrutinized corporate environment, says Daniel Garrie at Law & Forensics.

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LEGAL INDUSTRY

FTC Political Appointees Told To Break Up With 'Leftist' ABA

By Lauren Berg

Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew N. Ferguson told agency staff in a letter that political appointees cannot hold leadership positions in the American Bar Association, attend its events or renew their memberships, citing the ABA's "leftist advocacy and its recent attacks" on the Trump administration's agenda.

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Adams Case Careens Toward 'Messy' Hearing, Experts Say

By Phillip Bantz

The Manhattan federal judge overseeing the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams is unlikely to rubber stamp a request from the U.S. Department of Justice to toss the case and may instead hold a hearing on the matter, which could get "messy" and "embarrassing," experts say.

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Brief

House Judiciary Courts Chair Previews 'Rogue' Judges Bill

By Courtney Bublé

The chair of the House Judiciary Committee's courts panel is working on legislation to prevent "rogue rulings" by federal judges, which he plans to introduce on Tuesday, following adverse rulings for the Trump administration and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

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Munger Tolles Gets $10M Retainer To Rep LA In Fire Litigation

By Rachel Scharf

Munger Tolles & Olson LLP has signed a $10 million retainer agreement to represent the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in a series of lawsuits alleging it irresponsibly left a local reservoir empty ahead of last month's devastating Palisades Fire.

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Analysis

Trump Aims To End Limits On President's Power To Fire

By Katie Buehler

President Donald Trump has his sights set on taking down a 90-year-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling that protects certain government officials from being fired, a U.S. Department of Justice letter confirms, and he plans to leverage his prior legal victories to deliver the precedent's death knell and expand presidential power.

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NY Leads Lateral Associate Pay Growth, Up $100K In 5 Years

By Xiumei Dong

Competition for lateral associates in top U.S. legal markets, including New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., has soared over the past five years, as law firms compete fiercely for top talent, according to a recent report from global legal recruitment firm Major Lindsey & Africa.

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Diddy, Jay-Z Rape Lawsuit Dropped Amid Legal Ethics Battle

By Rachel Scharf

An anonymous woman dropped her New York federal court lawsuit accusing Sean "Diddy" Combs and Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter of raping a teenager together, claims that launched a bitter ethics feud between personal injury attorney Tony Buzbee and Jay-Z's lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP.

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Buchalter, Parker Milliken Get Stay In $19M Theft Suit

By Craig Clough

A California judge on Friday granted a stay to Buchalter PC and Parker Milliken Clark O'Hara & Samuelian APC while the law firms appeal a decision denying their bid to arbitrate a lawsuit accusing them of conspiring to help their client bilk nearly $20 million from some trusts in a Ponzi scheme.

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Almost Everyone Hates The Judiciary's Amicus Rule Revamp

By Jeff Overley

Policymakers for the federal judiciary Friday did what often seems impossible in a polarized nation, uniting powerful advocates for defense counsel, trial lawyers, corporations and consumers on a controversial issue. Unfortunately for the policymakers, those advocates were united by antipathy for major rule changes affecting amicus brief filers.

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House Dems Amplify ABA Decision On High Court Ethics

By Courtney Bublé

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee's courts panel urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to adopt a binding and enforceable code of ethics after the American Bar Association's policy-making body advocated for such.

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Melgren Takes Senior Status, Opening Kansas Seat For Trump

By Courtney Bublé

Chief U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren of the District of Kansas will take senior status later this year, bringing the total of current and upcoming judicial vacancies President Donald Trump has available to fill to 53.

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

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen Spice Girls star Mel B's ex-husband bring a defamation claim against the publisher of The Sun, a hotel sue a former director convicted of embezzling its funds for breach of fiduciary duty, and comedian Russell Brand face a sexual abuse claim. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Rewarding Ex-Atty For Killing Wife Is Unjust, Ga. Court Told

By Emily Johnson

The administrator of the estate of the wife of a former BigLaw attorney urged a Georgia state court to block the husband's bid to designate the settlement proceeds of a wrongful death suit, arguing that it "does not seem just to reward" him after he "did, in fact, shoot and kill his wife."

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Amid a slew of Trump administration actions this week that will impact corporate legal departments, the Federal Communications Commission announced it will investigate Comcast and NBCUniversal over their diversity efforts.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Morris Nichols Arsht & Tunnell LLP and Kirkland & Ellis LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a Delaware federal judge ruled that tech startup ROSS Intelligence infringed copyrighted material from Thomson Reuters' Westlaw platform to create a competing legal research tool powered by artificial intelligence.

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LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS

AVA Law Group

Bailey & Dixon

Bass Berry

Brooks Pierce

Browne Jacobson LLP

Brownstein Hyatt

Buchalter APC

Buzbee Law Firm

Charles Russell Speechlys

Cheeley Law Group

Clyde & Co

Crowell & Moring

Curis Law

DAC Beachcroft

DLA Piper

DWF LLP

Deka Chambers

Dykema

Edwin Coe

Fieldfisher

Gaslowitz Frankel

Gibson Dunn

Goldberg Segalla

Goodwin Procter

Goody Law Group

Greenberg Gross

Halpern May

Hausfeld LLP

Hill Dickinson

Hogan Lovells

Howes Percival

Husch Blackwell

Irwin Mitchell

Jenner & Block

Jones Day

Joshua R. Furman Law

Kasowitz Benson

Kemmer Law

Kennedys Law LLP

King & Spalding

Kirkland & Ellis

Latham & Watkins

Lewis Baach

Manatt Phelps

McGuireWoods

Mishcon de Reya

Moore & Van Allen

Morgan & Morgan

Morris Nichols

Munger Tolles

Nelson Mullins

Parker Milliken

Paul Weiss

Pryor Cashman

Quinn Emanuel

Reed Smith

Robin Frazer Clark PC

Seila Law

Sher Tremonte

Shumaker Loop

Sidley Austin

Skadden Arps

Troutman

Ward & Smith

Weil Gotshal

Winston & Strawn

gunnercooke LLP

COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

Ageas SA/NV

Amazon.com Inc.

American Association for Justice

American Bar Association

American Civil Liberties Union

Amicus

Anthropic PBC

Apple Inc.

British Broadcasting Corp.

Bucyrus International, Inc.

C.R. Bard Inc.

Cato Institute

Chevron Corp.

Cisco Systems Inc.

Clear Blue Insurance Group

Comcast Corp.

Corporate Legal Operations Consortium

Curis Inc.

Disney Consumer Products Inc.

Duke Energy Corp.

Duquesne University

Enterprise Holdings Inc.

Epic Games Inc.

Federalist Society

Gallup Inc.

Google LLC

Hawaiian Electric Co. Inc.

If P&C Insurance Ltd.

International Brotherhood of Boilermakers Iron Ship Builders Blacksmiths Forgers & Helpers

JUUL Labs Inc.

Jupiter Fund Management PLC

KPMG International

Lambda Legal Defense & Educational Fund

Landry's Restaurants Inc.

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

MS Amlin PLC

MTV Networks Co.

Major Lindsey & Africa LLC

Marvel Entertainment LLC

Mediterranean Shipping Co. SA

Meta Platforms Inc.

NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund Inc.

NBCUniversal Media LLC

Nascar Digital Media LLC

National Federation of Independent Business

National Rifle Association of America

Netflix Inc.

New York City Bar Association

Northern Trust Corp.

PG&E Corp.

Pactiv Corp.

Pactiv Evergreen Inc.

Plains All American Pipeline L.P.

Pro Publica Inc.

Public Co. Accounting Oversight Board

ROSS Intelligence

Slack Technologies Inc.

Smithfield Foods Inc.

Spotify Technology SA

State Bar of Texas

The Walt Disney Co.

Thomson Reuters Corp.

Twitter Inc.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

UBS Group AG

Walmart Inc.

YouTube Inc.

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

Companies House

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Executive Office of the President

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

Federal Housing Finance Agency

Federal Reserve System

Federal Trade Commission

Georgia Supreme Court

Illinois Supreme Court

Judicial Conference of the United States

National Labor Relations Board

New York Attorney General's Office

New York State Police

North Carolina Attorney General's Office

North Carolina Department of Justice

North Carolina Utilities Commission

U.S. Agency for International Development

U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission

U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

U.S. Department of Commerce

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland

U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington

U.S. Office Of Special Counsel

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

U.S. Senate

U.S. Supreme Court

UK High Court