FBI agents were unable to strike a deal Thursday that would block the federal government from releasing a list of FBI employees who investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, but the U.S. Department of Justice told a judge it does not immediately intend to make that information public.
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TOP NEWS

No Imminent Plans To Publish Jan. 6 FBI Agents List, DOJ Says

By Ali Sullivan

FBI agents were unable to strike a deal Thursday that would block the federal government from releasing a list of FBI employees who investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, but the U.S. Department of Justice told a judge it does not immediately intend to make that information public.

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Wash. Judge Latest To Halt Trump Birthright Citizenship Edict

By Rachel Riley

A Washington federal judge on Thursday became the latest judge to block President Donald Trump's order limiting birthright citizenship amid a legal challenge by four states, keeping enforcement on hold and calling out the president for trying to amend the U.S. Constitution "under the guise of an executive order."

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Meta AI Used 'Astonishing' Load Of Pirated Works, Writers Say

By Hailey Konnath

Meta Platforms allegedly downloaded tens of millions of pirated copyrighted works from peer-to-peer networks to train its Llama artificial intelligence product, and its employees repeatedly discussed this "illegal" strategy with lawyers, with one engineer writing, doing so "from a corporate laptop doesn't feel right," according to internal communications unsealed in copyright infringement litigation Wednesday.

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Sam Altman Calls Musk's Claim Of Ban On Rivals 'False'

By Jared Foretek

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the key claim made in a preliminary injunction request from Elon Musk in their ongoing investment spat is false, saying in a new declaration that he never told OpenAI investors that they wouldn't be able to invest in the company if they also invested in Musk's xAI.

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Judge Questions Firm's Candor In Apple, Amazon Docs Row

By Greg Lamm

A Washington federal judge said on Thursday there was "troubling shifting" around Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP's explanation of texts and emails with a client who disappeared from a proposed class action targeting Amazon and Apple, while also saying it might not matter because the firm found substitute plaintiffs.

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TikTok Moderators Alleging Harm Face Uphill Cert. Battle

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge suggested on Thursday there might be too many individualized issues to certify a class of thousands of current and former TikTok content moderators in a suit alleging the social media platform is responsible for mental health issues the workers developed after being exposed to graphic content.

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UFC Fighters Get Final Approval For $375M Settlement

By Elaine Briseño

A Nevada federal judge granted final approval Thursday to a $375 million settlement in a more than a decade-long class action in which fighters accused UFC of suppressing their wages, according to a lead attorney on the case.

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SECURITIES

GSK's Zantac Woes Gave Investors Heartburn, Suit Says

By Katryna Perera

The maker of heartburn and acid reflux relief tablet Zantac has been hit with a shareholder suit in Pennsylvania federal court alleging that the company suffered stock price losses after it was revealed that for nearly 40 years the company knew that Zantac contained high levels of a cancer-causing compound.

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Earthlink Investors' Attys Score $28M In Merger Suit

By Nadia Dreid

The attorneys who helped Earthlink investors score an $85 million settlement with the company after they said they were tricked into approving a $1.1 billion merger with a failing telecommunications company will be walking away with almost $28 million for their trouble.

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Block's Dorsey, Others Face Derivative Suit Over AML Woes

By Emilie Ruscoe

Officers and directors of Square and Cash App parent company Block Inc. face a shareholder derivative complaint over alleged anti-money laundering compliance failures weeks after the company reached an $80 million settlement of related claims with state banking regulators.

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EMPLOYMENT & BENEFITS

HP Defeats Ex-Worker's Suit Over 401(k) Forfeitures

By Grace Elletson

A California federal judge dismissed a proposed class action claiming HP Inc. should have used forfeited funds in its 401(k) plan to pay down administrative fees instead of its own contributions, stating the former worker behind the case hasn't shown the tech company did anything wrong.

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Papa John's Franchisee Fails To Pay All Wages, Worker Says

By Emmy Freedman

A Papa John's franchise owner failed to properly pay workers minimum wage and overtime pay and did not provide workers with meal and rest periods, according to a lawsuit filed in California state court.

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Inspection Workers Get Collective Status In Wage Suit

By Emmy Freedman

A Pennsylvania federal judge on Thursday signed off on a collective of inspectors accusing an inspection services firm of shorting them on wages, saying the employees showed in their suit that they were all subject to the same pay policy and thus sufficiently similar.

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Mobility Scooter Co. Gets Nod For $2.1M Deal In ESOP Fight

By Grace Elletson

A Pennsylvania federal judge gave initial approval to a $2.1 million deal Thursday that would resolve a class action claiming a mobility scooter company invested funds from its employee stock ownership plan into dismally performing Treasury bills and cash equivalents.

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Steel Co., Ex-Worker To Settle 401(k) Mismanagement Suit

By Patrick Hoff

A steel manufacturer agreed to settle a proposed class action claiming it loaded its 401(k) plan with unreasonable fees and risky investment options, the worker leading the suit told a Florida federal court.

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PRODUCT LIABILITY

Tom's 'Natural' Kids Toothpaste Has Lead, Arsenic, Dad Says

By Rae Ann Varona

Tom's of Maine and its parent company Colgate-Palmolive have "egregiously" failed to disclose that its "Silly Strawberry" children's toothpaste has dangerous levels of lead and arsenic, a New York dad alleged in a proposed false advertising class action filed Thursday in New York federal court.

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Abbott Tells Judge To Keep Formula Cases In Federal Court

By Lauraann Wood

Abbott Laboratories urged an Illinois federal judge on Thursday to keep six previously remanded lawsuits over allegedly harmful preterm baby formula in federal court after local hospitals' dismissal prompted their second removal, arguing the hospitals were only in the suits to avoid federal jurisdiction.

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Buyers Want Kratom Cos. Addiction Suit To Go On

By Jonathan Capriel

Two California kratom manufacturers shouldn't be allowed to escape a lawsuit claiming they failed to warn about the "highly addictive" nature of their products, a proposed class of consumers argued, pointing to a podcast where a company executive suggested their products were more potent than morphine.

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CYBERSECURITY & PRIVACY

Travelers' $6M Data Breach Settlement Nabs Final OK

By Elizabeth Daley

A New York federal judge gave a final stamp of approval to a $6 million deal ending a proposed class action alleging Travelers failed to protect people's personally identifiable information prior to a 2021 data breach.

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Allstate Collected, Sold Driver Data, Suit Alleges

By Celeste Bott

Allstate unlawfully collected the driving data of at least 45 million policyholders through software integrated in third-party mobile apps, using information about their driving behavior as a basis for denying coverage, hiking up auto insurance premiums, or dropping them from coverage altogether, according to a proposed class action filed in Illinois federal court Wednesday.

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LIFE SCIENCES

CooperSurgical Hit With IVF Embryo Loss Class Claims

By Ryan Harroff

A proposed class has sued CooperSurgical Inc. over embryos lost to its defective culture medium for in vitro fertilization, in the latest complaint in a series of individual lawsuits brought against the company after its 2023 recall of the product.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

The Post-Macquarie Securities Fraud-By-Omission Landscape

While the U.S. Supreme Court's 2024 opinion in Macquarie v. Moab distinguished inactionable "pure omissions" from actionable "half-truths," the line between the two concepts in practice is still unclear, presenting challenges for lower courts parsing statements that often fall within the gray area of "misleading by omission," say attorneys at Katten.

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Managing Transatlantic Antitrust Investigations And Litigation

As transatlantic competition regulators cooperate more closely and European antitrust investigations increasingly spark follow-up civil suits in the U.S., companies must understand how to simultaneously juggle high-stakes multigovernment investigations and manage the risks of expensive new claims across jurisdictions, say lawyers at Paul Weiss.

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AI Will Soon Transform The E-Discovery Industrial Complex

Todd Itami at Covington discusses how generative artificial intelligence will reshape the current e-discovery paradigm, replacing the blunt instrument of data handling with a laser scalpel of fully integrated enterprise solutions — after first making e-discovery processes technically and legally harder.

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LEGAL INDUSTRY

BigLaw Firms Saw Double-Digit Profit Growth In 2024

By Aebra Coe

Last year was "one of the strongest years on record" for U.S. law firm financial results, according to Citi Global Wealth at Work Law Firm Group head Gretta Rusanow, with a survey by the bank of mostly large law firms showing a 16.6% increase in profits and a 12.3% increase in revenue over 2023.

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Legal Sector Gains 900 Jobs In January Amid Data Revisions

By Xiumei Dong

The U.S. legal sector started the year with a modest boost, adding 900 jobs in January, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday following the agency's annual employment data revision that also lifted earlier job figures from the past year. 

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Dentons US Names Capital Markets Leader Managing Partner

By Anna Sanders

Dentons tapped capital markets partner and regulatory team leader John Holahan to serve as U.S. managing partner, the firm announced Friday.

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Injury Attys In Hot Water Over Possible AI-Hallucinated Cites

By Lauren Berg

Morgan & Morgan PA and the Goody Law Group on Friday withdrew pretrial motions in a personal injury lawsuit against Walmart over an allegedly defective hoverboard after a Florida federal court ordered the firms to explain why the filings contained what appears to be case law hallucinated by generative artificial intelligence.

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Plaintiffs Lawyers Swarm Los Angeles Post-Fires

By Brandon Lowrey

A deadly wildfire may be among the first covered by a new state fund that reimburses at-fault utility companies. This could mean billions of dollars for plaintiffs lawyers, and, if past fires are any indication, frustration and confusion for some victims.

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4th Circ. Says LeClairRyan Founder May Duck Tax Liability

By Jack Karp

Defunct law firm LeClairRyan PLLC's operating agreement did not bar founder Gary LeClair from jumping ship in time to potentially dodge massive tax bills tied to the firm's collapse, the Fourth Circuit ruled Friday.

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Goldstein's Pro Se Filing Irks Feds Amid Murky Atty Situation

By Elliot Weld

Prosecutors have asked a Maryland federal judge to strike a pro se motion from Tom Goldstein in his tax evasion case, saying the U.S. Supreme Court attorney and SCOTUSblog publisher shouldn't be allowed to personally make arguments to the court when he is represented by several experienced lawyers.

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2nd Circ. Orders In-House Counsel Docs In Grand Jury Case

By Parker Quinlan

The Second Circuit on Friday ruled that an in-house attorney for a publicly traded company under federal investigation in New York must turn over communications as part of a grand jury investigation under the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege.

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Analysis

Del.'s Quiet Ambition To Tweak Chancery, Stem Feared DExit

By Jeff Montgomery

Anxious over claims that stockholder-tilted decisions by Delaware's Court of Chancery will trigger more companies to follow Tesla, SpaceX, Meta and Dropbox to other states, Delaware policymakers are taking a hard look at the venerable business court's processes, hoping to slow a feared rush to DExit.

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DC Prosecutor Axed Jan. 6 Case Against Client, Group Says

By Lauren Berg

A legal group filed a bar complaint in Missouri Thursday against President Donald Trump's top prosecutor in Washington, D.C., saying the attorney violated rules of professional conduct when, in his new government role, he moved to dismiss charges related to the U.S. Capitol attack against his own client.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Aebra Coe and Kevin Penton

Lawyers from Latham & Watkins LLP and Proskauer Rose LLP kick off this week's Law360 Legal Lions, with a jury decision ending a $500 million antitrust lawsuit against their clients, U.S. Soccer and Major League Soccer.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

General counsel will be scrutinizing their companies' DEI policies after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the U.S. Department of Justice to probe and penalize illegal diversity policies in the private and public sectors. Outside the DOJ, legal professionals, including in-house attorneys, reported high job satisfaction in a recent survey, likely leading to lower turnover. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen Investec Bank PLC sue two diamond tycoons, London florist Nikki Tibbles file a claim against an "imitator company," a direct descendant of the Cartier family launch a claim, and a Coronation Street actor hit footballer Joe Bunney with a defamation claim. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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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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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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Promo that reads 2024 Practice Groups of the Year Promo that reads Law360 Pulse In-House Counsel Satisfaction Survey

LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS

Addleshaw Goddard

Akerman LLP

Alston & Bird

Arete Law Group

Asher Kelly

Berger Montague

Bernstein Litowitz

Bird & Bird

Bivonas Law LLP

Boies Schiller

Bruckner Burch

Bryan Cave

Burke Vullo

Bursor & Fisher

Cafferty Clobes

Cahill Gordon

Campbell & Williams

Carney Bates

Carpmaels & Ransford

Clark Hill

Cleary Gottlieb

Clifford Chance

Clyde & Co

Cohen Milstein

Continental PLLC

Cooley LLP

Cotchett Pitre

Covington & Burling

Crowley Fleck

DLA Piper

David Boies

Davis Wright Tremaine

Dechert LLP

Dentons

DiCello Levitt

Engstrom Lee

Fieldfisher

Finkelstein Blankinship

Fox Williams

Freeman Mathis

Gainey McKenna

Gentry Locke

Gibson Dunn

Goodrich & Geist

Goody Law Group

Grabar Law

Guerra LLP

Guttman Buschner

Hagens Berman

Herbert Smith Freehills

Hicks Johnson

Hill Dickinson

Hill Ward Henderson

Holland & Knight

Hueston Hennigan

Irwin Mitchell

Jackson Lewis PC

Johnson Fistel

Jones Day

Joseph Saveri Law Firm

Josephson Dunlap

Katten Muchin

Keller Postman

Kemp Jones

Keoghs LLP

Kessler Topaz

Kirkland & Ellis

Koskoff Koskoff

Latham & Watkins

Lauro & Singer

Lerch Early

Lewis Silkin

Lowey Dannenberg

Lynch Carpenter

Mark S. Zaid PC

McCoy Leavitt

Milberg Coleman

Mooradian Law

Morgan & Morgan

Morgan Lewis

Morrison Foerster

Morvillo Abramowitz

Munger Tolles

Murphy Anderson PLLC

Norton Rose

Orrick Herrington

Paul Weiss

Penningtons Manches

Proskauer Rose

Quinn Emanuel

RBG Legal Services Ltd.

RWK Goodman

Reed Smith

Reynolds Porter

Rigrodsky Law

Robbins Geller

Roberts Attorneys

Ropes & Gray

Sheppard Mullin

Sidley Austin

Simmons & Simmons

Skadden Arps

Steptoe LLP

Steven Williams Law

Stevens & Bolton

Swanson Martin

Tavenner & Beran PLC

Theodora Oringher

Toberoff & Associates

Tostrud Law Group

Umberg & Zipser

Venable LLP

Ventura Hersey

Wachtell Lipton

Walker Morris LLP

Warner Angle

Weil Gotshal

Wenzel Fenton

Willenken LLP

WilmerHale

Winston & Strawn

Withersworldwide

Wright Lindsey

Zimmerman Reed

COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

Abbott Laboratories

Acadia Pharmaceuticals

AccuWeather Inc.

Amazon.com Inc.

American Airlines Group Inc.

American Federation of Government Employees

American Federation of State County & Municipal Employees

Amgen Inc.

Apple Inc.

Argo Group International Holdings Ltd.

Arity LLC

Atos SE

Atrium Staffing Services Ltd.

Barclays PLC

Bibby Financial Services Ltd.

Block Inc.

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association

Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

ByteDance Ltd.

California Earthquake Authority

Canon Inc.

Cartier SA

Cash App

Colgate-Palmolive Co.

Conference of State Bank Supervisors

CooperSurgical Inc.

Credit Suisse Group AG

Dell Technologies Inc.

Democracy Forward Foundation

Deutsche Bank AG

E-House (China) Holdings Ltd.

EarthLink Inc.

Exxon Mobil Corp.

Fordham University

Gerdau

Givaudan

Globant SA

Google LLC

HP Inc.

Hatch Henderson Fivel LLC

Howden Broking Group Ltd.

IDEX Corp.

Illinois Brick Co.

Instagram Inc.

International Flavors & Fragrances Inc.

Investec PLC

Jetson Electric Bikes LLC

LexisNexis Legal & Professional

LinkedIn Corp.

London Stock Exchange Group PLC

Longford Capital Management LP

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

MGA Entertainment Inc.

Macquarie Group Ltd.

Macquarie Infrastructure Corp.

Major League Soccer LLC

Major Lindsey & Africa LLC

McKinsey & Co. Inc.

Mediterranean Shipping Co. SA

Meta Platforms Inc.

Michigan State University

Microsoft Corp.

Moelis & Co.

MoneyGram International Inc.

NICE Ltd.

NICE inContact

National Association of Government Employees

Netflix Inc.

Neurocrine Biosciences Inc.

New York Law School

PG&E Corp.

Palantir Technologies Inc.

Papa John's International Inc.

Pershing Square Capital Management LP

Pride Mobility Products Corp.

Public Citizen Inc.

Purdue Pharma LP

RELX PLC

Robert Half Inc.

Rutter's Holdings Inc.

Southern California Edison Co.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

State Bar of California

Station Casinos LLC

TUI AG

Tempur Sealy International Inc.

Tesla Inc.

The Allstate Corp.

The Florida Bar

The PNC Financial Services Group Inc.

The Travelers Cos. Inc.

TikTok Inc.

Toyota Motor Corp.

TripAdvisor Inc.

Twitter Inc.

Ultimate Fighting Championship Ltd.

United Policyholders

UnitedLex Corp.

University of Virginia

Walmart Inc.

Wells Fargo & Co.

Windstream Holdings Inc.

YouTube Inc.

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Competition Appeal Tribunal

Competition and Markets Authority

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

European Commission

European Medicines Agency

European Union

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Trade Commission

Food and Drug Administration

Illinois Attorney General's Office

Information Commissioner's Office

Internal Revenue Service

National Labor Relations Board

New York Department of Financial Services

Oregon Department of Justice

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

U.S. Army

U.S. Attorney's Office

U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland

U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

U.S. Department of Commerce

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Labor

U.S. Department of the Treasury

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut

U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland

U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey

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

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

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

U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida

U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

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

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

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 Pennsylvania

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

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

U.S. Supreme Court

UK High Court

United States District Court for the District of Nevada

United States District Court for the District of Wyoming

Washington Attorney General's Office