Louisiana’s interest in how to apply its law and its apparent approval of a hospital merger outweighed the national interest at the next step of enforcing federal antitrust law, assuming the latter would even apply. It was not necessary to resolve whether section 13(b) of the FTC Act or section 12 of the Clayton Act governed a question of personal jurisdiction over a party to a merger who was not present in the District of Columbia because transfer would b...
The OCC granted its conditional approval for Flagstar to purchase some of the failed bank’s assets, including certain loan portfolios, cash, and the wealth management and broker-dealer business. The O...
Though the Eleventh Circuit panel disagreed about whether the employee had to demonstrate the meeting accommodations served “essential functions,” the record suggested he had made such a showing. The Eleventh Circuit reinstated a deaf employee’s ADA claim alleging that O’Reilly Auto Parts violated the ADA when it failed to provide him with reasonable accommodations regarding nightly pre-shift safety meetings and disciplinary proceedings involving his attendance issues. Mostly reversing the…
The Florida governor asserts that the judge’s prior comments in two unrelated creates an irresistible inference of bias and prejudgment in the pending matter. Chief Judge Mark E. Walker issued an order indicating that the court will take no action, scheduling or otherwise, until it rules on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other defendants’ motion for disqualification in Walt Disney’s federal lawsuit against him. Those other defendants are members of the Central Florida Tourism District…
Legislation that would require critical electric infrastructure operators to report significant cyber incidents to the Department of Energy within 48 hours cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday by a vote of 49-1. The Critical Electric Infrastructure Cybersecurity Incident Reporting Act (HR 1160) would direct DoE to engage in a rulemaking to determine what sorts of incidents should be reported and other implementation details. “Cyber attacks on energy infrastructure reached…
A suit arguing that compliance with a state law on abortion reporting was impossible because Kentucky had not released the forms was rendered moot when Kentucky released the forms. In a case in which Planned Parenthood and other medical professionals successfully obtained an injunction preventing the state of Kentucky from enforcing a law requiring that the medical professionals transmit abortion data to the state, the Sixth Circuit has ruled on appeal that the case was now moot because…
The settlement ends a lawsuit brought by the CFPB alleging that Citizens Bank illegally placed onerous requirements on customers who reported errors and disputes concerning their credit cards. Citizens Bank has agreed to pay $9 million and amend its credit card practices to settle a lawsuit brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) alleging that Citizens Bank failed to manage and respond to customers’ credit card disputes. The lawsuit had alleged that Citizens Bank wrongfully…
Under the facts of the case, the DTSA did not permit the software provider to recover an unjust enrichment award of avoided costs from a competitor. Healthcare software provider TriZetto Group, Inc., was not entitled to an award of development costs a competitor avoided in creating a competing software product using TriZetto’s trade secrets, the U.S Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has held. Evidence at trial supported a jury’s determination that TriZetto’s former business partner,…
Avnet, which opted out of a direct purchasers class, was awarded damages by a jury finding a conspiracy to fix the prices of aluminum and tantalum capacitors in the U.S. market. A jury in the federal district court for the Northern District of California has found capacitor makers Nippon Chemi-con Corporation (NCC) and United Chemi-con, Inc. (UCC) liable for antitrust violations, including price fixing and conspiracy, in the U.S. capacitor market. Avnet, a semi-conductor distributor which had…
Refraining from applying the fraudulent misjoinder doctrine does not leave Meta entirely without an avenue to pursue the remedy it seeks. A products liability suit brought by the parents of a minor child against social media companies Meta Platforms, Snap, Inc., and Snapchat, LLC, alleging that the companies’ platforms exposed their child to mental and physical harm, was remanded to Connecticut state court. As part of the same action, the parents brought claims against two Connecticut…
Under the de minimis doctrine, “[w]hen the matter in issue concerns only a few seconds or minutes of work beyond the scheduled working hours, such trifles may be disregarded.” Time spent by a class of Customer Connexx LLC call center employees booting up and shutting down their computers was not ultimately compensable under the FLSA, a federal district court in Nevada held. On remand from a Ninth Circuit decision that found the employees’ boot-up and login time potentially compensable as…
Employers should benefit from a shift away from the lenient two-step process standard, and this could help them negotiate a more reasonable settlement. An appeals court just raised the bar for employees seeking to notify other pot...
The speed of development of AI tools has been staggering. Each week in 2023 feels like years’ worth of innovation. Ever-more-powerful AI tools arrive daily to push the boundary of possibility forward. They also raise many types of...
Gensler emphasized the need for rule amendments to protect investors from fund illiquidity and dilution in times of market stress. SEC Chair Gary Gensler spoke to the Investment Company Institute (ICI) about Commission fund propos...
Doing business as Icomtech, the defendants solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars from more than 170 individuals in the U.S. and other countries, supposedly to trade bitcoin and other digital assets. The CFTC filed a civil enf...
The Belgian Data Protection Authority (DPA) has determined that transfers of personal tax data of Belgian “Accidental Americans” by the Belgian Federal Public Service Finance (FPS Finance) to U.S. tax authorities under the intergo...
The National Authority for Protection of Data (ANDP), Brazil’s data protection authority, has announced its intention to standardize the interpretation of the General Law for the Protection of Personal Data (LGPD) as it relates to...
The packaging revealed the contents in easily understood conspicuous writings, and even listed the weight of individual packages. Concluding that a consumer failed to plausibly allege that a reasonable consumer would be materially...
Lawsuit alleges 9Lives, Kibbles ‘n Bits and Meow Mix pet foods are labeled as being healthy for pets even though they contain harmful substances. A class action filed in the Northern District of California against The J.M. Smucker...
Data from the fourth quarter of 2022 data suggest a $5.5+ billion reduction on an annual basis going forward, though fees still totaled $7.7 billion in 2022. With fourth quarter 2022 data now in, a recent study by the Consumer Fin...
CFPB publishes a blog post indicating that price dispersion exists throughout the mortgage industry, and buyers can save on average $100 a month or more by comparison shopping. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recen...
Because the login credentials were used in the “technological manner” by which they were original authorized, it did not matter who owned the credentials now. The employee of a media agency with authorized access to a third party’...
The court dismissed the photographer’s claims for secondary copyright infringement, DMCA, and Lanham Act, leaving only direct infringement claims. The federal district court in San Francisco has dismissed claims for secondary copy...
An Illinois court dismissed a case alleging Dollar General falsely labeled lidocaine patch packaging, finding the label would not deceive a reasonable consumer. A proposed class action suit brought against Dollar General Corporati...
The court finds that the first-to-file rule applies and justifies sending the lawsuit to the Eastern District of New York, where three related putative class actions have already been combined. JetBlue Airways Corp. and American A...
The patient’s fourth amended complaint did not sufficiently allege any product defect or failure to warn on the part of the manufacturer. In an action brought against a medical device manufacturer by a woman who suffered serious i...
A medical stapler manufacturer’s arguments were not sufficient to dismiss a woman’s product liability claims alleging that the manufacturer negligently manufactured the stapler that caused her injuries when it failed to fire any s...