Over a dozen state attorneys general are set to file suit challenging Elon Musk and Department of Government Efficiency staffers' access to people's sensitive personal information through government payment systems, New York Attorney General Letitia James' office announced Thursday.
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TOP NEWS

State AGs To Sue Over DOGE Access To Payment Systems

By Rae Ann Varona

Over a dozen state attorneys general are set to file suit challenging Elon Musk and Department of Government Efficiency staffers' access to people's sensitive personal information through government payment systems, New York Attorney General Letitia James' office announced Thursday.

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Musk's Access To Records Blocked In DOGE, Treasury Suit

By Sarah Jarvis

A Washington, D.C., federal judge on Thursday approved a consent order blocking Elon Musk and additional Department of Government Efficiency employees from accessing the federal government's payment systems, although a "special government employee" will have limited access as the Treasury Department and suing plaintiffs spar over a preliminary injunction.

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Dealers Sue VW Unit Over Deposits For New Trucks, SUVs

By Carolina Bolado

More than two dozen Audi and Volkswagen dealers in Florida have sued a Volkswagen unit, claiming it is violating a state law barring automakers from selling vehicles directly to the public by accepting $100 deposits for electric trucks and SUVs scheduled for release in 2027.

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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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House Bill Aims To Ban DeepSeek On Gov't Devices

By Allison Grande

A pair of U.S. House lawmakers on Thursday rolled out bipartisan legislation that would prohibit the installation of Chinese company DeepSeek's chatbot app on government-issued devices, citing "alarming" national security threats similar to those that have propelled efforts to ban video app TikTok nationwide.

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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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Judges Balk At CFPB's Stay Bids In Capital One, SoLo Suits

By Jon Hill

Two federal judges have turned down requests from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to suspend activity in ongoing enforcement lawsuits amid its acting director's litigation freeze, including in the agency's case against Capital One NA.

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Illinois Judge Extends Hold On Swipe Fee Law To More Banks

By Katryna Perera

An Illinois federal judge on Thursday expanded a preliminary injunction against Illinois' controversial swipe fee law, adding out-of-state banks to the list of financial institutions shielded from having to comply with the law when it takes effect later this year, while declining to add federal credit unions to the list.

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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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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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POLICY & REGULATION

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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Carr Names Project 2025 Co-Author As FCC General Counsel

By Christopher Cole

A Michigan State University law professor and onetime Jones Day litigator known for his involvement in Project 2025 and criticism of Big Tech will serve as the Federal Communications Commission's top lawyer.

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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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CFPB's Frotman To Depart As General Counsel

By Jon Hill

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's top lawyer is resigning, Law360 has learned, marking the latest high-level exit from the agency following President Donald Trump's firing of its former director Rohit Chopra.

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Leave Power Limits Alone In CBRS Airwaves, FCC Told

By Nadia Dreid

The Federal Communications Commission is looking at overhauling the Citizens Broadband Radio Service, but a coalition of band users have come together to urge the agency to reject proposals to allow high power use in the midband spectrum.

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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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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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CFTC Signals Openness To Regulate Sports Event Contracts

By Alex Lawson

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced a public roundtable to discuss its regulation of contracts tied to high-profile sporting events Wednesday, with the acting chair bemoaning the commission's current policy as a "sinkhole of legal uncertainty."

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Analysis

​​​​​​​Top Groups Lobbying The FCC

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission heard from interest groups and companies around two dozen times in January, on issues ranging from consumer consent to receive telemarketing calls to UScellular's contested $4.4 billion plan to sell its wireless operations to T-Mobile.

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Brief

Stay On Right Side Of Payola Rules, FCC Warns Stations

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission is warning radio broadcasters not to accept freebies from music artists in exchange for boosted airtime.

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Brief

FCC Says No To Ohio Group's Bid For Low Power FM Station

By Nadia Dreid

An Ohio church has come out on top in its battle to be awarded the rights to launch a low power FM station in its neck of the woods after the group it was up against was accused of knowingly listing a manager's dead grandmother on a license renewal application.

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LITIGATION

Kraken Co-Founder Accuses 'Elite' SF Condo Of Political Bias

By Dorothy Atkins

Crypto-exchange Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell sued the owner of a landmark condominium — dubbed "Susie's Building" — in California state court Wednesday, claiming the property's allegedly "elite" Democratic shareholders discriminated against him by blocking his efforts to buy a condo due to his conservative views and role in the crypto industry.

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'Novel' Kia, Hyundai Theft Liability Theory Faces 6th Circ. Test

By Carolyn Muyskens

A Sixth Circuit panel wrestled Thursday with whether to endorse a theory that automakers Kia and Hyundai could be liable for victims' injuries from crashes involving vehicles stolen during a TikTok-spurred wave of car thefts.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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PEOPLE

EIP Grows US Team With 2 Pranger Law Attys

By Andrea Keckley

Global intellectual property firm EIP said Wednesday it has hired two attorneys from Pranger Law PC, including the head of its patent prosecution team.

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

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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Expect Scrutiny Of Banks To Persist, Even Under Trump

Although the change in administrations brings some measure of uncertainty as to the nature of bank compliance oversight, if regulators in Washington, D.C., attempt to dilute the vigilance of federal superintendence, the states are waiting in the wings to fill the void, say attorneys at Polsinelli.

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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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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

Alston & Bird

Arete Law Group

Bass Sox

Bernstein Litowitz

Bilzin Sumberg

Bird & Bird

Bivonas Law LLP

Brozynski & Dalton

Bryan Cave

Bursor & Fisher

Cahill Gordon

Carney Bates

Carpmaels & Ransford

Cleary Gottlieb

Clifford Chance

Clyde & Co

Continental PLLC

Cotchett Pitre

Covington & Burling

Crowell & Moring

Crowley Fleck

DLA Piper

Davis Wright Tremaine

Dentons

Fieldfisher

Fox Williams

Freshfields

Gainey McKenna

Gallagher Evelius

Gallivan White

Gentry Locke

Gibbs & Bruns

Gibson Dunn

Goodwin Procter

Goody Law Group

Grabar Law

Guerra LLP

Guttman Buschner

Hagens Berman

Herbert Smith Freehills

Hicks Johnson

Hill Dickinson

Holland & Knight

Hueston Hennigan

Hughes Hubbard

Irwin Mitchell

Johnson Fistel

Jones Day

Keller Postman

Keoghs LLP

Kirkland & Ellis

Kramon & Graham

Kressin Meador

Kurkin Forehand

Lanier Law Firm

Latham & Watkins

Lauro & Singer

Lerch Early

Lewis Silkin

Lowey Dannenberg

Lynch Carpenter

McCoy Leavitt

McGlinchey Stafford

Michael Best & Friedrich LLP

Milberg Coleman

Morgan & Morgan

Morgan Lewis

Morvillo Abramowitz

Munger Tolles

Murphy Anderson PLLC

Nixon Peabody

Norton Rose

O'Melveny & Myers

Orrick Herrington

Paul Weiss

Penningtons Manches

Polsinelli PC

Pranger Law

Proskauer Rose

Quinn Emanuel

RBG Legal Services Ltd.

RWK Goodman

Reed Smith

Reynolds Porter

Rigrodsky Law

Robbins Geller

Ropes & Gray

Sheppard Mullin

Sidley Austin

Simmons & Simmons

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Skadden Arps

Stevens & Bolton

Tavenner & Beran PLC

Theodora Oringher

Tostrud Law Group

Umberg & Zipser

Venable LLP

Walker Morris LLP

Weil Gotshal

Willenken LLP

Williams & Connolly

WilmerHale

Withersworldwide

Wright Lindsey

COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

AT&T Inc.

AccuWeather Inc.

Aetna Inc.

Agri Stats Inc.

Amazon.com Inc.

Amedisys Inc.

American Airlines Group Inc.

American Bankers Association

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.

Apple Inc.

Argo Group International Holdings Ltd.

Arity LLC

Atos SE

Audi AG

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

China Mobile Ltd.

Colgate-Palmolive Co.

Conference of State Bank Supervisors

Consumer Action

Consumer Federation of America

Credit Suisse Group AG

Democracy Forward Foundation

EarthLink Inc.

Electronic Privacy Information Center

Exxon Mobil Corp.

Fordham University

Globant SA

Google LLC

Hatch Henderson Fivel LLC

Horizon Therapeutics PLC

Howden Broking Group Ltd.

Hyundai Motor Co.

IDEX Corp.

Illinois Bankers Association

Illinois Credit Union League Inc.

Instagram Inc.

Investec PLC

Jetson Electric Bikes LLC

Kia Corp.

LHC Group Inc.

LexisNexis Legal & Professional

LinkedIn Corp.

Lockheed Martin 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

MasterCard Inc.

McKinsey & Co. Inc.

Mediterranean Shipping Co. SA

Meta Platforms Inc.

Michigan State University

Moelis & Co.

MultiPlan Corp.

NICE Ltd.

NICE inContact

National Association of Government Employees

National Consumer Law Center Inc.

Netflix Inc.

Neurocrine Biosciences Inc.

New York Law School

Option Care Health Inc.

PG&E Corp.

Palantir Technologies Inc.

Pershing Square Capital Management LP

Public Citizen Inc.

Purdue Pharma LP

RELX PLC

RealPage Inc.

Robert Half Inc.

Rutter's Holdings Inc.

Service Employees International Union

Southern California Edison Co.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

Spectrum Management Holding Co.

State Bar of California

Station Casinos LLC

T-Mobile US Inc.

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.

United Policyholders

United States Cellular Corp.

UnitedHealth Group Inc.

UnitedLex Corp.

University of Virginia

Verizon Communications Inc.

Volkswagen AG

Walmart Inc.

Wells Fargo & Co.

Windstream Holdings Inc.

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Executive Office of the President

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Federal Trade Commission

Food and Drug Administration

Illinois Attorney General's Office

Information Commissioner's Office

Maryland Attorney General's Office

National Credit Union Administration

National Labor Relations Board

National Telecommunications and Information Administration

New York Attorney General's Office

New York Department of Financial Services

Office of Foreign Assets Control

Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

Office of the Federal Register

Ohio Supreme Court

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

U.S. Agency for International Development

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. Court of Appeals for the Sixth 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 Central District of California

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland

U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts

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 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 Illinois

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

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 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 Wyoming