Retail & E-Commerce

  • February 27, 2025

    DOJ Tells DC Circ. To Keep Apple Out Of Google Case

    The U.S. Department of Justice is urging the D.C. Circuit to keep Apple out of its remedies case against Google, arguing that Apple "sat on its hands" for years despite knowing from the outset of the litigation that its default search agreement with Google was at stake.

  • February 27, 2025

    Abbott Beats Ill. Customers' Similac Metals Suit

    Similac customers who say Abbott Laboratories illegally failed to warn the public about heavy metals in its infant formula cannot take those claims to trial because they haven't established damages, an Illinois federal judge said Wednesday.

  • February 27, 2025

    Starbucks, Patent Exec Reach Deal In Atty Defamation Case

    A patent-licensing company executive and Starbucks Corp. on Thursday settled a defamation suit over statements made by an attorney for Starbucks just days after the plaintiffs fired back on the company's attempt to exit the suit.

  • February 27, 2025

    Fried Frank Rips RICO Sanctions Bid As Intimidation Tactic

    Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP and its client Tristar Products Inc. are pushing back on a motion for sanctions for bringing an anti-racketeering lawsuit against Telebrands Corp., arguing the bid is a "clear effort to intimidate" the plaintiffs and to impose additional cost and burden on them.

  • February 27, 2025

    DC AG Says 25 Unlicensed Pot Shops Have Been Shut Down

    The Washington, D.C., attorney general on Thursday announced that 25 unlicensed cannabis retailers have been shut down as a result of the district's efforts to enforce its cannabis regulations over the last six months.

  • February 27, 2025

    Anthropic Could Hit $62B Valuation, And More Deal Rumors

    AI startup Anthropic is close to securing funding at a $61.5 billion valuation, Bain Capital is mulling a sale of Rocket Software at a $10 billion valuation, and various additional private equity players are considering transactions across food, healthcare and finance. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other notable deal rumors from the past week.

  • February 27, 2025

    DraftKings To Pay $10M In NFT Proposed Class Settlement

    DraftKings Inc. will pay $10 million to users of the sports betting site who owned nonfungible tokens offered through its marketplace, according to a proposed settlement in the putative class action.

  • February 26, 2025

    Mercedes-Benz Drivers Win Class Cert. In Fla. Airbag MDL

    A Florida federal judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation over defective Takata airbags granted certification to several single and multistate class of Mercedes-Benz drivers on Wednesday, finding common issues connect the cases and that they can be efficiently managed in a single trial.

  • February 26, 2025

    Wash. Biz Group Fears Amazon Loss In Price-Gouging Suit

    Washington's largest business group is siding with Amazon's bid to dismiss a proposed class action alleging price-gouging during the COVID pandemic, in an amicus brief Wednesday that said consumers want to impose a flawed reading of consumer protection law that would leave businesses in limbo guessing what is fair or unfair.

  • February 26, 2025

    Lindell Says Defamation Jury Should See 118-Page Attack Doc

    My Pillow Inc. CEO Mike Lindell has urged a Colorado federal court to admit a highly critical 118-page opinion document into former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer's upcoming defamation trial, though Coomer has called the document "hearsay within hearsay."

  • February 26, 2025

    COVID Plausible Cause For Tire Price Hikes, Judge Says

    Consumers, dealerships and other tire purchasers will need more than claims of pretextual explanations for price hikes by Bridgestone, Goodyear, Michelin and other producers after an Ohio federal judge dismissed the "unsupported conclusion" that the pandemic doesn't explain their claims of consolidated price fixing.

  • February 26, 2025

    Fuel Co. Trustee Accuses Ex-Owners Of $100M Buyout Fraud

    The founders and former majority owners of the bankrupt fuel distributor Mountain Express Oil Co. were hit with a lawsuit by the company's trustee Monday alleging that they took nearly $100 million out of the business through a bogus stock buyout that pushed it to the brink of insolvency.

  • February 26, 2025

    Joann To Wind Down Operations After Judge Approves Plan

    A Delaware bankruptcy judge on Wednesday approved renowned fabric and crafts retailer Joann Inc. to wind down its operations after a "global consensus" was reached among the debtor, lender and creditors committee, allowing the 80-year-old chain to hold going-out-of-business sales.

  • February 26, 2025

    38 AGs Push For Crackdown On Organized Retail Crime

    A bipartisan coalition of attorneys general from 38 states and territories is urging Congress to take legislative action against organized retail crime, warning in a new letter that the problem has reached unprecedented levels and is straining state enforcement resources.

  • February 26, 2025

    Party City Approved To Sell IP, Assets For $20.6M In Ch. 11

    A Texas bankruptcy judge on Wednesday blessed retailer Party City's bid to sell its brand name and other intellectual property to an affiliate of pop culture merchandiser Ad Populum for $20.6 million, rejecting a challenge to the deal by franchise owners that claimed the buyer was ill-equipped to take on contracts with their stores.

  • February 26, 2025

    Dollar Tree Reaches Deal To Exit Manager's FMLA Suit

    Dollar Tree struck a deal to resolve a former manager's lawsuit accusing the company of interfering with her rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act when she asked to take time off to care for her disabled son, a filing in Pennsylvania federal court said.

  • February 25, 2025

    Retailer Pushes To Ax 2,400 Web Tracking Arbitration Claims

    Children's clothing retailer Janie & Jack LLC is attempting to stave off more than 2,400 arbitration claims filed by individuals over the company's allegedly unlawful website tracking practices, telling a California federal court that the website visitors are "weaponizing" an arbitration agreement that doesn't even apply to them. 

  • February 25, 2025

    Walgreens Inks $595M Deal To End COVID-19 Testing Suit

    Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. has agreed to pay $595 million to a lab testing and diagnostics company to put to rest a dispute over COVID-19 tests, according to a Monday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

  • February 25, 2025

    GreenSky Loan Class Action Certified In Calif. Court

    A California federal judge has granted class certification to consumers suing GreenSky Inc. over alleged unlawful loan transaction fees, finding that expert analysis showed merchants likely passed these fees onto borrowers, but also granted summary judgment to the lending company on claims related to performance fees over the lack of evidence that consumers had to pay them.

  • February 25, 2025

    9th Circ. Won't Revive Consumers' Qualcomm Antitrust Suit

    The Ninth Circuit Tuesday declined to revive cellphone buyers' antitrust suit against Qualcomm, backing a California district court's rejection of the consumers' claim that Qualcomm's policy of refusing to sell chips to cellular manufacturers that did not license its patents ran afoul of California antitrust law.

  • February 25, 2025

    WestRock Blamed For Toxic Vapors In Worker's Injury Suit

    The WestRock packaging company has been hit with a negligence suit in Washington federal court by a worker who claims exposure to fumes from a chemical spill while doing repairs at a Pacific Northwest paper mill caused him to suffer a collapsed lung and later be diagnosed with a tumor.

  • February 25, 2025

    GoDaddy, Tech Co. Quietly Agree To Kill Antitrust Suit

    The world's largest domain registrar, GoDaddy, has come to terms with the company behind an antitrust suit claiming that it blackballed the tech company from its platform, according to documents filed recently in Virginia federal court.

  • February 25, 2025

    Meta Says 9th Circ. Shouldn't Touch Antitrust Cert. Denial

    The Ninth Circuit should refuse to take up the appeal of a proposed class that was denied certification due to its novel theory that Meta Platforms Inc. would have been forced to pay users for the use of their data if it hadn't lied about how it was using it, the social media behemoth has told the court.

  • February 25, 2025

    Kroger Seeks More Sanctions For Prolific Consumer Atty

    Kroger is urging an Illinois federal judge to sanction prolific consumer advocate lawyer Spencer Sheehan for filing a meritless suit over the effectiveness of its lidocaine patches, citing his "history of filing frivolous lawsuits across the nation" and a "troubling pattern of recklessness and abuse of the federal judiciary" for which he has been sanctioned three other times.

  • February 25, 2025

    Petrochemical Cos. Want Judge Out Of Plastic Recycling Row

    Petrochemical companies called on a Missouri federal judge to recuse himself from a proposed class action accusing them of misleading customers about the recyclability of plastic, saying his wife has a direct interest in the case as a Kansas City city council member.

Expert Analysis

  • How Judiciary Can Minimize AI Risks In Secondary Sources

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    Because courts’ standing orders on generative artificial intelligence and other safeguards do not address the risk of hallucinations in secondary source materials, the judiciary should consider enlisting legal publishers and database hosts to protect against AI-generated inaccuracies, say attorneys at Lankler Siffert & Wohl.

  • False Patent Marking Claims Find New Home In Lanham Act

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    While the Patent Act may have closed the courthouse doors for many false patent marking claims, the Federal Circuit, in its recent decision in Crocs v. Effervescent, may be opening a window to these types of claims under the Lanham Act, says John Cordani at Robinson & Cole.

  • A Look At Calif. Biz Code And The Fight Over Customer Lists

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    To ensure Uniform Trade Secret Act security, California staffing agencies and their attorneys should review Section 16607 of the state Business Code, which prohibits contracts that restrain employees from engaging in other lawful types of business, to understand the process for determining whether a customer list constitutes a trade secret, says Skye Daley at Buchalter.

  • How Attorneys Can Break Free From Career Enmeshment

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    Ambitious attorneys can sometimes experience career enmeshment — when your sense of self-worth becomes unhealthily tangled up in your legal vocation — but taking the time to discover and realign with your core personal values can help you recover your identity, says Janna Koretz at Azimuth Psychological.

  • Where Can Privacy Plaintiffs Sue When Injury Is Online?

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    Website owners need to understand wiretapping laws to understand whether they may be sued for activity tracking in California or Pennsylvania courts, where the statutory damages for violations of half-century-old laws can be substantial — and a recent Third Circuit decision suggests establishing specific jurisdiction is not as easy as 1-2-3, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • Short-Seller Implications Of 10th Circ.'s Overstock Decision

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    The Tenth Circuit's Oct. 15 decision in Overstock Securities Litigation provides clarity on the pleading standard for a market manipulation claim under the Exchange Act, and suggests that short sellers might not be able to rely on the fraud-on-the-market presumption typically invoked by securities plaintiffs, say attorneys at Paul Weiss.

  • Lawyers With Disabilities Are Seeking Equity, Not Pity

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    Attorneys living with disabilities face extra challenges — including the need for special accommodations, the fear of stigmatization and the risk of being tokenized — but if given equitable opportunities, they can still rise to the top of their field, says Kate Reder Sheikh, a former attorney and legal recruiter at Major Lindsey & Africa.

  • Opinion

    Judicial Committee Best Venue For Litigation Funding Rules

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    The Advisory Committee on Civil Rules' recent decision to consider developing a rule for litigation funding disclosure is a welcome development, ensuring that the result will be the product of a thorough, inclusive and deliberative process that appropriately balances all interests, says Stewart Ackerly at Statera Capital.

  • The Strategic Advantages Of Appointing A Law Firm CEO

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    The impact on law firms of the recent CrowdStrike outage underscores that the business of law is no longer merely about providing supplemental support for legal practice — and helps explain why some law firms are appointing dedicated, full-time CEOs to navigate the challenges of the modern legal landscape, says Jennifer Johnson at Calibrate Strategies.

  • Planning For Cyber Incident Reporting Requirements In Sports

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    Attorneys at Wiley discuss the proposed rules under the Cybersecurity Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act that would impose extensive reporting requirements on professional and collegiate athletic organizations, universities and sports venues, including defining a covered entity and analyzing the types of events that would trigger reporting.

  • Fed. Circ. Ruling May Signal Software Patent Landscape Shift

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    The Federal Circuit's recent ruling in Broadband iTV, despite similarities to past decisions, chose to rely on prior cases finding patent-ineligible claims directed to receiving and displaying information, which may undermine one of the few areas of perceived predictability in the patent eligibility landscape, say attorneys at King & Wood.

  • FDIC Guidance Puts Next-Gen ATMs In Regulatory Spotlight

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    The boring existence of ATMs is changing thanks to the emergence of new-age interactive teller machines, prompting the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to sound off in a potentially influential August letter to branches on which services might need regulatory approval, says Thomas Walker at Jones Walker.

  • Series

    Beekeeping Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    The practice of patent law and beekeeping are not typically associated, but taking care of honeybees has enriched my legal practice by highlighting the importance of hands-on experience, continuous learning, mentorship and more, says David Longo at Oblon McClelland.

  • Amazon Holiday Pay Case Underscores Overtime Challenges

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    The recent Hamilton v. Amazon.com Services LLC decision in the Colorado Supreme Court underscores why employers must always consult applicable state law and regulations — in addition to federal law — when determining how to properly pay employees who work more than 40 hours in a workweek, says James Looby at Vedder Price.

  • Understanding New ACH Network Anti-Fraud Rules

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    Many of the National Automated Clearing House Association’s recent amendments to ACH network risk management rules went into effect this month, so financial institutions and corporations must review and update their internal policies as needed, says Aisha Hall at Taft.

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