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Public Policy

  • June 09, 2025

    Unions Win Injunction In OPM, DOGE Privacy Suit

    A New York federal judge on Monday granted a preliminary injunction bid against the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in a lawsuit accusing it of unlawfully disclosing employees' personal information to the Department of Government Efficiency, saying OPM granted broad access to the information despite there being no "credible need."

  • June 09, 2025

    Trump Executive Order Revamps US Cybersecurity Policy

    President Donald Trump has moved to "reprioritize" the nation's cybersecurity efforts by issuing an executive order scrapping the provisions of prior directives issued by the past two Democratic administrations while focusing on measures such as mandating more secure software development and the latest encryption protocols. 

  • June 09, 2025

    Newsom Sues Trump Over 'Illegal' National Guard Deployment

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom sued President Donald Trump on Monday over the administration's "illegal" takeover of the state's National Guard unit in response to protests in Los Angeles sparked by federal immigration raids, saying the move exceeded "the bounds of lawful executive authority."

  • June 09, 2025

    SEC's Atkins Floats 'Innovation Exemption' For Crypto

    U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Paul Atkins said Monday that he's directed agency staff to mull rulemaking that would protect developers of decentralized finance platforms and enable registered firms to interact with their "DeFi" systems, including through a potential "innovation exemption" framework.

  • June 09, 2025

    Colo. Justices Spell Out Burden Of Proof For Gov't Immunity

    The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday articulated for the first time the burden of proof required in tort cases against public entities, ruling that a woman's slip-and-fall claims failed to eclipse Jefferson County's immunity under a state law.

  • June 09, 2025

    CFPB Will Move Ahead With Rest Of Calif. Debt Relief Suit

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau told a California federal court on Monday that its new Trump-appointed leadership has decided to proceed with a debt relief services enforcement lawsuit that was paused after control of the agency changed hands in February.

  • June 09, 2025

    Treasury Warns Of Iranian 'Shadow Banking,' Oil Smuggling

    The Treasury Department has laid out red flags that financial institutions should monitor for identifying and reporting possible sanctions evasion schemes and other suspicious activity tied to the Islamic Republic of Iran, including illicit oil smuggling and the use of "shadow banking" networks.

  • June 09, 2025

    Florida Will Ask 11th Circ. To Revive Trans Health Suit

    The state of Florida indicated Friday it will ask the Eleventh Circuit to reopen its lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenging a rule setting coverage requirements on employers for gender-affirming care, despite the new administration's reversal on the rule.

  • June 09, 2025

    Nev. Dem Threatens To Block Commerce Picks Over BEAD

    A Nevada senator derided the U.S. Department of Commerce's overhaul of the government's $42.5 billion broadband deployment program and threatened to put a Senate hold on some of President Donald Trump's agency nominees until her state's federal funding is restored.

  • June 09, 2025

    COVID Funds Bribery Scheme Gets Ex-Calif. Official 5 Years

    A former member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors was sentenced to five years in prison Monday in California federal court after admitting to steering $10 million worth of COVID-19 relief funds to a nonprofit linked to his daughter, in return for more than $500,000 in bribes. 

  • June 09, 2025

    EchoStar Questions FCC Process In SpaceX, VTel Fight

    EchoStar said the Federal Communications Commission should not be "pulling the rug out from" under it as it fights to keep the spectrum rights it got from T-Mobile, arguing that it was being unfairly singled out by SpaceX and VTel, who want the commission to review the buildout of Dish's network.

  • June 09, 2025

    RFK Jr. Fires CDC's Entire 17-Member Vaccine Advisory Panel

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Monday that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed every member of the committee that provides advice and guidance on the use of vaccines to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pledging to replace them with his preferred picks.

  • June 09, 2025

    Fed. Circ. Weighs AI Co.'s Standing In Fight With Intel Agency

    Federal Circuit judges grappled Monday with how to define exactly who could challenge the administration of federal contracts, in an en banc hearing of Percipient.ai's suit accusing the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency of bypassing certain requirements in a 2021 contract with CACI.

  • June 09, 2025

    Enviro Groups, Tribes Can Intervene In Coal Leasing Ban Row

    A Wyoming federal judge allowed a coalition of tribes and environmental groups to intervene in a challenge to the Biden administration's 2024 decision ending new coal leasing on public lands in the Powder River Basin, citing the groups' participation in prior suits over leasing at the site.

  • June 09, 2025

    Carebourn Opposes SEC's Bid To Remand 'Dealer' Case

    Financial firm Carebourn Capital LP on Monday urged the Eighth Circuit to reject the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's bid to remand a $12 million unregistered dealer judgment the agency won, arguing the SEC is trying to skirt the case's liability issues.

  • June 09, 2025

    2nd Circ. Weighs Menendez Bail Bid Over Evidence Mishap

    The Second Circuit questioned Monday whether providing excluded evidence to the jury in former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez's bribery trial is the type of error that can justify bail pending appeal.

  • June 09, 2025

    Trump Orders Targeting DEI, LGBTQ+ Funding Partly Blocked

    A California federal judge Monday blocked portions of President Donald Trump's executive orders targeting diversity and inclusion policies and programs serving the LGBTQ+ community, saying a group of nonprofits is likely to succeed in showing that stripping their federal funding violates their constitutional rights.

  • June 09, 2025

    DOJ's KKR Suit Turning M&A 'Into A Trap,' PE Group Says

    A private equity trade group is seeking to back KKR's bid to dismiss a Justice Department lawsuit seeking fines that could top $650 million for allegedly hiding key documentation and entire transactions from merger notification, arguing that enforcers are trying to create a brand new requirement for "perfect" filings.

  • June 09, 2025

    Okla. Says High Court Shouldn't Skip 10th Circ. PBM Ruling

    Oklahoma told the U.S. Supreme Court the federal government wrongly suggested that the justices bypass the state's challenge to a Tenth Circuit decision nullifying parts of a state law regulating pharmacy benefit managers, arguing Monday that the solicitor general doesn't recognize the magnitude of the issue.

  • June 09, 2025

    Senate Confirms Brett Shumate To Head DOJ Civil Division

    The Senate voted 51-41 along party lines on Monday evening to confirm Brett Shumate to be assistant attorney general for the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

  • June 09, 2025

    Veteran Appeals VA Discontinuation Of Trans Health Coverage

    A transgender woman urged a veterans appeals court Monday to find that the Veterans Health Administration is wrongly refusing to refill her prescriptions for hormone therapy following a federal notice discontinuing gender-affirming care for veterans.

  • June 09, 2025

    Senate Confirms Gibson Dunn Partner For EPA's No. 2 Post

    The U.S. Senate on Monday confirmed David Fotouhi, a partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP, to serve in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's No. 2 post.

  • June 09, 2025

    DC Judge Won't Intervene In CPB Board Firings

    A D.C. federal judge declined to block President Donald Trump's attempt to fire three members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's board, ruling that Trump likely had authority to remove them while noting the CPB has since changed its own rules to protect its members from removal moving forward.

  • June 09, 2025

    Judge Denies Obstructing ICE As Disciplinary Hearing Begins

    An attorney for a Massachusetts state judge, who was accused of plotting to let a man wanted by immigration agents escape out of a back door of a courthouse in 2018, said at the start of a disciplinary inquiry Monday that the judge did not know about the plan, pointing the finger at the wanted man's lawyer.

  • June 09, 2025

    Feds Approve Mont. Coal Mine Expansion Amid Controversy

    The Interior Department has said it will expand by nine years the mining plan for a Montana coal mine at the center of litigation over the mine's environmental impacts, authorizing Signal Peak Energy to recover 57 million tons of coal in a move that aligns with the Trump administration's energy emergency directive.

Expert Analysis

  • Traversing The Shifting Sands Of ESG Reporting Compliance

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    Multinational corporations have increasingly found themselves between a rock and a hard place attempting to comply with EU and California ESG requirements while not running afoul of expanding U.S. anti-ESG regimes, but focusing on what is material to shareholder value and establishing strong governance can help, say attorneys at MoFo.

  • An Unrestrained, Bright-Eyed View Of Legal AI's Future

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    Todd Itami at Covington offers a bright-eyed, laughing-all-the-way, skydive look at what the legal industry could look like after an artificial intelligence revolution, which he believes may happen much sooner and more dramatically than we expect.

  • Ban On Reputation Risk May Help Bank Enforcement Defense

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    The Comptroller of the Currency and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s recent commitment to stop examining banks for reputation risk could help defendants in enforcement actions challenge unfavorable assessments and support defendants' arguments for lower civil money penalties, says Brendan Clegg at Luse Gorman.

  • Tracking The Evolution In Litigation Finance

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    Despite continued innovation, litigation finance remains an immature market with borrowers recieving significantly different terms as lenders learn to value cases, which firms need a strong handle on to ensure lending terms do not overwhelm collateral value, says Robert Wilkins at Lightfoot Franklin.

  • Assessing Market Manipulation Claims In Energy Markets

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    Today's energy markets are conducive to sudden price changes, breakdowns in pricing linkages and substantial shifts in trading patterns, so it's necessary to take a holistic view when evaluating allegations of market manipulation, say Maximilian Bredendiek, Greg Leonard and Manuel Vasconcelos at Cornerstone Research.

  • Opinion

    In Vape Case, Justices Must Focus On Agencies' Results

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    With the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in U.S. Food and Drug Administration v. Wages and White Lion Investments having put off the question of whether agency decisions arrived at erroneously are always invalid, the court should give the results of agency actions more weight than the reasoning behind them when it revisits this case, says Jonathan Sheffield at Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

  • How Int'l Arbitration Could Factor In Tariff Dispute Resolution

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    As tariffs complicate international business contracts, the robust legal infrastructure supporting international arbitration can provide a more solid base for recovery of rewards than foreign court judgments, say attorneys at Foley & Lardner.

  • How Calif., NY Could Fill Consumer Finance Regulatory Void

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    California and New York have historically taken the lead in consumer financial protection, and both show signs of becoming even more active in this area during the second Trump administration amid an enforcement pullback at the federal level, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Series

    Volunteer Firefighting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    While practicing corporate law and firefighting may appear incongruous, the latter benefits my legal career by reminding me of the importance of humility, perspective and education, says Nicholas Passaro at Ford.

  • Tax Takeaways From Georgia's 2025 Legislative Session

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    Attorneys at Eversheds Sutherland discuss tax-related measures passed by the Georgia Legislature during the session that adjourned on April 4, which included a decrease in income tax rates, an extension of the time in which to a protest tax assessment and cleanup provisions related to launching the state’s new tax court next year.

  • Unpacking FTC's New Stance On Standard-Essential Patents

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    Under its new chairman, Andrew Ferguson, the Federal Trade Commission is likely to bring more stand-alone Section 5 cases to challenge anticompetitive conduct, and it will be important for companies to see how the FTC responds to allegations of patent holdup by standard-essential patent holders committed to fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms, say attorneys at Mayer Brown.

  • Limit On SEC Enforcement Authority May Mean Fewer Actions

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    Following a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission final rule revoking the Enforcement Division director's long-standing authority to issue formal investigation orders, it's clear the division is headed for a new era of limited autonomy, marked by a significantly slower pace of SEC investigations, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.

  • How Lenders Should Prepare For Crypto As Collateral

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    Amid the administration's desire to position the U.S. as a digital banking leader, lenders should prepare for customers seeking to use cryptocurrency as collateral for financing, consider which rules govern these transactions, and assess their ability to obtain or maintain control of the virtual funds, say attorneys at Frost Brown.

  • Calif. Antitrust Laws May Turn More Zealous Than US Regs

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    California is poised in the next 18 months to significantly expand its antitrust laws, broadening the scope of liability and creating a premerger review process that could be more expansive than review under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, say attorneys at Munger Tolles.

  • As SEC, CFTC Retreat, Who Will Police The Crypto Markets?

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    As the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission pull back from policing the crypto markets, the Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have the authority to pick up the slack — although recent events raise doubts that they will do so, say attorneys at Skadden.

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