Federal Trade Commission Republicans are beginning to signal their Trump-era policies, including a friendlier approach to mergers with fewer challenges based on "weak or factually unsupported theories," a more hands-off take on artificial intelligence, and a heavy emphasis on combating alleged online censorship of conservatives.
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TOP NEWS

FTC GOP Focusing On Merger 'Friction,' AI, 'Censorship'

By Bryan Koenig

Federal Trade Commission Republicans are beginning to signal their Trump-era policies, including a friendlier approach to mergers with fewer challenges based on "weak or factually unsupported theories," a more hands-off take on artificial intelligence, and a heavy emphasis on combating alleged online censorship of conservatives.

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Texas' Google Ad Tech Trial Delayed From March To August

By Jared Foretek

A Texas federal judge has pushed back the trial date for a group of Texas-led states' antitrust suit against Google over its digital advertising business, moving the scheduled start from March to August.

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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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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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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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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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Jeld-Wen Appealing Forced Factory Sale To 4th Circ., Again

By Bryan Koenig

Jeld-Wen Inc. is taking another trip to the Fourth Circuit to fight an order forcing it to sell a door skin factory, filing a notice of appeal Thursday after a Virginia federal judge said a $115 million price is fair.

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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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MERGER REVIEW

UnitedHealth Drops Bid To Toss Home Health Deal Challenge

By Matthew Perlman

UnitedHealth Group and home health and hospice giant Amedisys Inc. dropped their bid to toss a case challenging their $3.3 billion merger after enforcers detailed the home health and hospice markets they allege will be hurt by the deal.

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POLICY & REGULATION

Dem Sens. Re-Introduce Bill To Stop Algorithmic Price-Fixing

By Matthew Perlman

A group of Democratic senators has re-introduced a bill that would prevent companies from using common software and shared data to set prices through algorithms, an issue that's been the subject of mounting litigation in the rental housing market and other sectors.

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LITIGATION

Drug Cos. Urge Full Fed. Circ. To Hear Teva Orange Book Row

By Andrew Karpan

The branded pharmaceutical industry is lining up behind a legal effort from Israeli drugmaker Teva that wants the full Federal Circuit to hear a dispute over delisting patents from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Orange Book.

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Pot Co. Jushi Can't End Rival Shop's Antitrust Claims

By Julie Manganis

Cannabis distributor Jushi Holdings could plausibly be shown to have taken advantage of a Massachusetts town's retail marijuana permitting process and conspired with the sellers of a shop it purchased in 2021 to block a competitor from opening nearby, a Massachusetts federal judge ruled.

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In Microchip Feud, Fed. Circ. Says PTAB Error Was 'Harmless'

By Andrew Karpan

The Federal Circuit handed down a precedential decision Thursday finding that a claim construction error made by patent board judges was "harmless," declining to breathe new life into claims asserted against Microchip Technology.

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Amazon Patent Suit Was Wrongly Sent To Calif., Tech Co. Says

By Andrea Keckley

Software company VirtaMove Corp. has argued that its patent infringement lawsuit against Amazon and two affiliates was wrongly transferred from Texas to California, saying it dismissed the case against two of the three defendants before the court's order went out.

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SEC 'Exposes Lunacy' Through Its Dueling Suits, PE Firm Says

By Catherine Marfin

A South Carolina private equity fund said Thursday the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is trying to gut it through a Florida lawsuit, telling a Texas judge the commission made "out of touch statements" on how the litigation will harm its business.

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XPO Says Ex-Account Execs Poached Its Customers For Rival

By Ryan Harroff

Logistics company XPO Inc. is accusing two ex-employees of violating their nonsolicitation and confidentiality agreements by poaching its clients after leaving to work for a rival firm, but the workers say the contracts are unenforceable, anyway.

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Harvard Biotech Patent Case Ends With Mid-Trial Deal

By Elliot Weld

Harvard University and biotech developer 10x Genomics Inc. on Thursday reached a settlement agreement with rival developer Vizgen Inc. after three days of trial, ending a case over alleged infringement of tissue sample analyzation patents.

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Judge Puts Atty On Hook For Fees For Conduct In TM Trial

By Ivan Moreno

A California judge ordered an attorney who represented a microphone manufacturer that lost a trade dress infringement trial to be jointly responsible with his client for attorney fees and costs as a sanction for his conduct during the case.

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JPMorgan's State Trade Secret Data Row Claim Axed, For Now

By Rae Ann Varona

A federal judge in Delaware has ruled that JPMorgan Chase & Co. sufficiently alleged Argus Information & Advisory Services violated a federal trade secrets law by allegedly misusing anonymized credit card data collected from banks, but said JPMorgan's contention Argus violated a Delaware trade secret law could not stand.

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Trump's Federal Worker Buyout Plan Put On Hold

By Brian Dowling

A Massachusetts federal judge on Thursday put on hold the Trump administration's "deferred resignation" program for federal employees, delaying the deadline for workers to accept the offer until Monday while the court weighs the legality of the move.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

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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Poetic Justice? Drake's 'Not Like Us' Suit May Alter Music Biz

Drake v. Universal Music Group, over Kendrick Lamar's diss track "Not Like Us," represents a pivotal moment in the intersection of music, law and corporate accountability, raising questions about the role of record labels in shaping artist rivalries and the limits of free speech, says Enrico Trevisani at Michelman & Robinson.

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Critical Steps For Navigating Intensified OFAC Enforcement

The largely overlooked SkyGeek settlement from the end of 2024 heralds the arrival of the Office of Foreign Assets Control's long anticipated enhanced enforcement posture and clearly demonstrates the sanctions-compliance benefits of immediately responding to blocked payments, says Jeremy Paner at Hughes Hubbard.

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How FTC Consumer Protection May Fare Under Reg Freeze

Attorneys at Crowell & Moring consider how President Donald Trump's executive order directing agencies to freeze all pending rulemaking activity may frustrate any Federal Trade Commission efforts to change or eliminate rules that made it across the finish line before the inauguration.

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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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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

Arete Law Group

Bell Davis & Pitt PA

Berger Montague

Bernstein Litowitz

Bird & Bird

Bivonas Law LLP

Brozynski & Dalton

Bryan Cave

Cahill Gordon

Campbell & Williams

Carney Bates

Carpmaels & Ransford

Clark Hill

Clifford Chance

Clyde & Co

Cohen Milstein

Continental PLLC

Cooley LLP

Covington & Burling

Crowell & Moring

Crowley Fleck

DLA Piper

Davis Wright Tremaine

Dechert LLP

Dentons

Fieldfisher

Foley & Lardner

Foley Hoag

Fox Williams

Freshfields

Gallagher Evelius

Gallivan White

Gentry Locke

Gibbs & Bruns

Gibson Dunn

Goodwin Procter

Goody Law Group

Guerra LLP

Guttman Buschner

Hagens Berman

Herbert Smith Freehills

Hicks Johnson

Hill Dickinson

Holland & Knight

Hueston Hennigan

Hughes Hubbard

Hunton Andrews

Irwin Mitchell

Johnson Fistel

Jones Day

Joseph Saveri Law Firm

Keller Postman

Kemp Jones

Keoghs LLP

Kilpatrick Townsend

Kirkland & Ellis

Knobbe Martens

Kramon & Graham

Kressin Meador

Lanier Law Firm

Latham & Watkins

Lauro & Singer

Lerch Early

Lewis Silkin

Lynch Chappell

McCoy Leavitt

McGuireWoods

Michelman & Robinson

Morgan & Morgan

Morgan Lewis

Morris James

Morris Nichols

Morrison Foerster

Morvillo Abramowitz

Munger Tolles

Murphy Anderson PLLC

Norton Rose

Orrick Herrington

Paul Weiss

Penningtons Manches

Procopio Cory

Proskauer Rose

Quinn Emanuel

RBG Legal Services Ltd.

RWK Goodman

Reed Smith

Reynolds Porter

Robbins Geller

Robinson Bradshaw

Ropes & Gray

Russ August & Kabat

SML Avvocati

Sheppard Mullin

Sidley Austin

Simmons & Simmons

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Skadden Arps

Stevens & Bolton

Strang Scott

Tavenner & Beran PLC

Tensegrity Law

Theodora Oringher

Toberoff & Associates

Tymann Davis

Umberg & Zipser

Venable LLP

Wachtell Lipton

Walker Morris LLP

Warner Angle

Weil Gotshal

Willenken LLP

WilmerHale

Withersworldwide

Wollmuth Maher

Wright Lindsey

Young Conaway

COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

10x Genomics Inc.

AccuWeather Inc.

Aetna Inc.

Agri Stats Inc.

Amazon.com Inc.

Amedisys Inc.

American Airlines Group Inc.

American Bar Association

American Federation of Government Employees

American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations

American Federation of State County & Municipal Employees

Amgen Inc.

Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Apple Inc.

Argo Group International Holdings Ltd.

Argus Information & Advisory Services LLC

AstraZeneca PLC

Atos SE

Barclays PLC

Bibby Financial Services Ltd.

Biotechnology Innovation Organization

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association

Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

California Earthquake Authority

Canon Inc.

Cartier SA

Credit Suisse Group AG

Dell Technologies Inc.

Democracy Forward Foundation

EarthLink Inc.

Exxon Mobil Corp.

Fordham University

Givaudan

Globant SA

Google LLC

Harvard University

Hatch Henderson Fivel LLC

Horizon Therapeutics PLC

Howden Broking Group Ltd.

IDEX Corp.

Illinois Brick Co.

Instagram Inc.

International Flavors & Fragrances Inc.

Investec PLC

JELD-WEN Inc.

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Jetson Electric Bikes LLC

Jushi Holdings Inc.

LHC Group Inc.

LexisNexis Legal & Professional

LinkedIn Corp.

London Stock Exchange Group PLC

Longford Capital Management LP

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

MGA Entertainment Inc.

Major League Soccer LLC

Major Lindsey & Africa LLC

McKinsey & Co. Inc.

Mediterranean Shipping Co. SA

Meta Platforms Inc.

Michigan State University

Microchip Technology Inc.

Microsoft Corp.

Moelis & Co.

MultiPlan Corp.

NICE Ltd.

NICE inContact

National Association of Government Employees

Netflix Inc.

Neurocrine Biosciences Inc.

New York Law School

Option Care Health Inc.

PG&E Corp.

Palantir Technologies Inc.

Pershing Square Capital Management LP

Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America

Public Citizen Inc.

Purdue Pharma LP

RELX PLC

RealPage Inc.

Robert Half Inc.

Rutter's Holdings Inc.

Sanofi

Southern California Edison Co.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

State Bar of California

Station Casinos LLC

Steves & Sons Inc.

TUI AG

Tempur Sealy International Inc.

Tesla Inc.

The Florida Bar

The PNC Financial Services Group Inc.

Toyota Motor Corp.

TransUnion LLC

TripAdvisor Inc.

Twitter Inc.

Ultimate Fighting Championship Ltd.

United Policyholders

UnitedHealth Group Inc.

UnitedLex Corp.

Universal Music Group NV

University of Virginia

Walmart Inc.

Wells Fargo & Co.

Windstream Holdings Inc.

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Competition Appeal Tribunal

Competition and Markets Authority

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

European Commission

European Union

Executive Office of the President

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Trade Commission

Food and Drug Administration

Illinois Attorney General's Office

Information Commissioner's Office

Maryland Attorney General's Office

National Labor Relations Board

New York Attorney General's Office

Office of Foreign Assets Control

Office of the Federal Register

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 Federal Circuit

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 Delaware

U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland

U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts

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 Texas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

U.S. Office of Personnel Management

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