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November 14, 2024
Crypto And Private Fund Groups Push SEC On Dealer Rule
Crypto industry groups and private fund associations tag-teamed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday during a hearing over two cases relating to the agency's expanded definition of securities dealers, telling a Texas federal court that the new rule marked a dramatic overreach by the regulator.
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November 14, 2024
Cisco Asks Albright To Ax $65.7M IP Verdict, Seeks New Trial
Cisco Systems Inc. has asked U.S. District Judge Alan Albright to throw out a Texas jury's verdict holding the technology behemoth liable for infringing a patent related to conference calls, saying Cisco suffered "immense" prejudice at trial and that the jury's $65.7 million damages award is "excessive."
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November 14, 2024
Split 5th Circ. Affirms SEC's Kroger Proxy Decision
A divided Fifth Circuit on Thursday rejected a "purely theoretical" challenge brought by conservative shareholders unhappy that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission greenlighted the exclusion of a shareholder proposal from Kroger Co.'s 2023 ballot, noting that the case was moot since the company authorized a vote on the proposal anyway.
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November 14, 2024
EEOC Says Texas, Think Tank Can't Scrap Bostock Guidance
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission urged a federal court to shoot down Texas' challenge to workplace harassment guidance the agency issued based on the U.S. Supreme Court's Bostock decision, arguing the state failed to demonstrate that the guidelines had caused them any harm.
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November 14, 2024
Red State AGs Sue SEC Over Crypto Policy
A coalition of 18 Republican attorneys general led by Kentucky sued the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday for allegedly treading on the states' authority through a "regulatory landgrab" into the cryptocurrency industry.
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November 14, 2024
Texas Court Tosses Devon Energy Suit Over NM Rig Injuries
A Texas appeals panel on Thursday threw out a Louisiana worker's suit against Devon Energy Corp. over injuries he sustained while working at a New Mexico drilling rig, saying the trial court was wrong to find that the company had enough contact with Texas to be "at home" and under the court's jurisdiction.
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November 14, 2024
Houston Back Wages Trial Was 'Circus,' Atty Tells Court
A California attorney who lost his bid for back wages from a Houston commercial litigation firm where he was formerly an associate asked a Texas appeals court to order a new trial, writing that his former law firm's attorneys "turned the trial into a circus" about his personal life.
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November 14, 2024
Whole Foods Workers Seek Massive Class In 401(k) Fee Suit
Former Whole Foods employees have asked a Texas federal judge to turn their suit against the company into a class action, saying they'd like to represent nearly 100,000 current and former employees in litigation accusing the grocery chain of mismanaging its 401(k) plan.
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November 14, 2024
Ovintiv Buys Montney Assets For $2.4B, Sells Others For $2B
Natural gas producer Ovintiv Inc. said Thursday it will purchase certain Montney Basin assets in Canada from Paramount Resources Ltd. in an all-cash deal worth about $2.38 billion, and also announced plans to divest its Uinta Basin assets in a sale to FourPoint Resources Ltd. and its private equity partners for $2 billion, with at least five law firms advising on the deals.
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November 14, 2024
Texas Bar Eyes Ban On Lawyers Partnering With Non-Attys
A proposed ethics opinion from the State Bar of Texas says lawyers practicing in the Lone Star State cannot partner with law firms offering legal services in other jurisdictions if the partnership includes a non-lawyer, even if such arrangements are permitted in the jurisdiction where the law firm is based.
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November 14, 2024
Texas Judge Recuses Himself From Microsoft Patent Case
Chief U.S. District Judge Rodney Gilstrap of the Eastern District of Texas has recused himself, without stating a reason, from a patent infringement case that German company ParTec AG has lodged against Microsoft over the tech giant's artificial intelligence supercomputer.
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November 14, 2024
Diamond Sports' Ch. 11 Plan Gets Nod With Amazon Deal
Diamond Sports Group received approval for its Chapter 11 plan Thursday from a Texas bankruptcy court, clearing the way for its continued broadcast of 27 professional sports teams and new streaming options through a deal with Amazon.
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November 14, 2024
Texas Boutique First To Match Milbank's Year-End Bonus
Texas-based litigation boutique Vartabedian Hester & Haynes LLP confirmed on Thursday that it will match Milbank LLP's year-end bonus scale, offering its associates BigLaw-level compensation along with an additional special bonus.
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November 14, 2024
The Onion Buys Alex Jones' Infowars At Ch. 7 Auction
Satirical news website The Onion has purchased Alex Jones' Infowars at a Chapter 7 bankruptcy auction, according to a Thursday announcement by the firm representing Sandy Hook shooting survivors who won a $1.4 billion defamation award over his claims the massacre was a hoax.
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November 13, 2024
Nvidia, Microsoft Rip Antitrust Suit And Its 'Imaginary' Cartel
Nvidia and Microsoft have urged a Texas federal judge to toss a startup's suit alleging that they engaged in an anticompetitive conspiracy to fix prices for graphic processing units used in powering artificial intelligence, with Nvidia saying the startup's "low patent quality" is just as likely to have caused purported injuries.
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November 13, 2024
Tempur Sealy Has 'Keys' To Merger, Mattress Firm CEO Says
Mattress Firm's CEO told a Houston judge Wednesday that he has not had any involvement in Tempur Sealy's post-acquisition agreements with mattress suppliers, testifying that Tempur's board chairman and CEO is the one "driving" the deal.
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November 13, 2024
Texas Court OKs Med Mal Death Suit, Expert Report
A Texas appellate court has declined to dismiss a medical malpractice suit accusing an emergency medical clinic of failing to diagnose a man's heart disease which caused his fatal cardiac arrest, saying the plaintiffs' medical expert's mandatory report satisfies state guidelines.
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November 13, 2024
Google Says $20M Thermostat IP Verdict Was 'Manufactured'
Google is making its argument to the full Federal Circuit that a $20 million verdict the tech giant was hit with in the Western District of Texas was "manufactured" by an expert hired by a competing smart-home energy startup.
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November 13, 2024
Fed. Circ. Judges Frown On Custom Emoji Patent
A patent covering the development of customizable emojis died at the Federal Circuit on Wednesday, after judges there rejected an appeal of an administrative board ruling that knocked out all of the patent's claims.
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November 13, 2024
Short-Term Rental Owners 'Unreasonable,' Dallas Tells Court
A Dallas short-term rental advocacy organization loves to focus on property rights, but it never considered the rights of neighbors who want safe neighborhoods and don't want to live next to an active business, a city attorney told a Fifth Court of Appeals panel during oral arguments Wednesday.
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November 13, 2024
Fed. Circ. Won't Send Microchip Patent Suit To NY
The Federal Circuit on Wednesday denied a bid from a Chicago tech manufacturer to transfer a Texas case brought by an ex-Microsoft executive's private equity-funded patent litigation outfit, saying the manufacturer didn't show that the lower court erred in refusing to ship the case to New York.
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November 13, 2024
Frontier Stockholders Vote In Favor Of $20B Verizon Deal
Frontier Communications stockholders approved the company's planned $20 billion sale to Verizon Communications Inc. on Wednesday, despite prior pushback from select investors and recommendations from top proxy advisory firms to abstain.
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November 13, 2024
Texas Fights Contractor Wage Hike After 9th Circ. Ruling
The recent Ninth Circuit decision deeming President Joe Biden's increase of federal contractors' hourly minimum wage unlawful clarified that the government's position that it could mandate the hike is absurd, the state of Texas told the Fifth Circuit in its case also challenging the wage hike.
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November 13, 2024
Instant Brands Equity Owner Accused Of Lying To Lenders
The litigation trustee for bankrupt kitchenware maker Instant Brands Wednesday filed suit in Texas bankruptcy court accusing the company's equity owner of lying to lenders and sending the company into Chapter 11 in order to collect $200 million in dividends.
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November 13, 2024
Jones Day Gains Winston & Strawn Corporate Pro In Dallas
Jones Day said Wednesday that it has brought on a former Winston & Strawn LLP attorney in Dallas with extensive corporate experience, particularly within the energy and infrastructure arena.
Expert Analysis
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Law Firms Should Move From Reactive To Proactive Marketing
Most law firm marketing and business development teams operate in silos, leading to an ad hoc, reactive approach, but shifting to a culture of proactive planning — beginning with comprehensive campaigns — can help firms effectively execute their broader business strategy, says Paul Manuele at PR Manuele Consulting.
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Opinion
The Big Issues A BigLaw Associates' Union Could Address
A BigLaw associates’ union could address a number of issues that have the potential to meaningfully improve working conditions, diversity and attorney well-being — from restructured billable hour requirements to origination credit allocation, return-to-office mandates and more, says Tara Rhoades at The Sanity Plea.
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Opinion
It's Time For A BigLaw Associates' Union
As BigLaw faces a steady stream of criticism about its employment policies and practices, an associates union could effect real change — and it could start with law students organizing around opposition to recent recruiting trends, says Tara Rhoades at The Sanity Plea.
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How Justices Upended The Administrative Procedure Act
In its recent Loper Bright, Corner Post and Jarkesy decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court fundamentally changed the Administrative Procedure Act in ways that undermine Congress and the executive branch, shift power to the judiciary, curtail public and business input, and create great uncertainty, say Alene Taber and Beth Hummer at Hanson Bridgett.
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Parsing FY 2024 DOJ Criminal Healthcare Fraud Enforcement
While the U.S. Department of Justice's Criminal Division's strike force on healthcare fraud enforcement action shows an impressive doubling of criminal indictments, a closer look at the data offers important clues about underlying trends, including the comparably modest, accompanying increase in associated intended loss, say Roderick Thomas and Kathleen Cooperstein at Wiley.
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2 Years Of Waco: How Patent Case Distribution Has Changed
A look at the two years since the Western District of Texas randomization order was issued and an analysis of how judges in the district adjudicate cases assigned pursuant to the Waco wheel provides insights that may aid patent practitioners, says David Dyer at Norton Rose Fulbright.
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Considerations As State AGs Step Up Privacy Enforcement
As new state privacy laws take effect, businesses are facing an increasingly complex patchwork of compliance obligations and risk of scrutiny by attorneys general, but companies can gain a competitive edge by building consumer trust and staying ahead of regulatory trends, say Ann-Marie Luciano and Meghan Stoppel at Cozen O’Connor.
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Vendor Rights Lessons From 2 Chapter 11 Cases
A Texas federal court’s recent critical vendor order in the Zachry Holdings Chapter 11 filing, as well as a settlement between Rite Aid and McKesson in New Jersey federal court last year, shows why suppliers must object to critical vendor motions that do not recognize creditors' legal rights, says David Conaway at Shumaker.
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Opinion
Texas Judges Ignored ERISA's Core To Stall Fiduciary Rule
Two recent rulings from Texas federal courts, which rely on a plainly wrong reading of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to effectively strike a forthcoming rule that would impose functional fiduciary duties onto sellers of investment services, may expose financially unsophisticated 401(k) participants to peddlers of misleading advice, says Mark DeBofsky at DeBofsky Law.
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Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Is My Counterclaim Bound To Fall?
A Pennsylvania federal court’s recent dismissal of the defendants’ counterclaims in Morgan v. Noss should remind attorneys to avoid the temptation to repackage a claim’s facts and law into a mirror-image counterclaim, as this approach will often result in a waste of time and resources, says Matthew Selmasska at Kaufman Dolowich.
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Daubert Motion Trends In Patent Cases Reveal Damages Shift
A review of all 2023 Daubert decisions in patent cases reveals certain trends and insights, and highlights the complexity and diversity in these cases, particularly in relation to lost profits and reasonable royalty damages opinions, say Sherry Zhang and Joanne Johnson at Ocean Tomo.
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Series
Playing Dungeons & Dragons Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Playing Dungeons & Dragons – a tabletop role-playing game – helped pave the way for my legal career by providing me with foundational skills such as persuasion and team building, says Derrick Carman at Robins Kaplan.
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Bid Protest Spotlight: Misplaced Info, Trade-Offs, Proteges
James Tucker at MoFo examines three recent decisions concerning the consequences of providing solicited information in the wrong section of a bid proposal, the limits of agency discretion in technical merit, best-value trade-off evaluations, and the weight of the experience and capabilities of small businesses in mentor-protégé joint venture qualification.
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Class Action Law Makes An LLC A 'Jurisdictional Platypus'
The applicability of Section 1332(d)(10) of the Class Action Fairness Act is still widely misunderstood — and given the ambiguous nature of limited liability companies, the law will likely continue to confound courts and litigants — so parties should be prepared for a range of outcomes, says Andrew Gunem at Strauss Borrelli.
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Jarkesy Ruling May Redefine Jury Role In Patent Fraud
Regardless of whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s Jarkesy ruling implicates the direction of inequitable conduct, which requires showing that the patentee made material statements or omissions to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the decision has created opportunities for defendants to argue more substantively for jury trials than ever before, say attorneys at Cadwalader.