Good morning. Welcome back to The Daily Docket, your new go-to morning newsletter from Westlaw Today for the latest on courts, lawyers and the legal profession. Teva is facing an indictment, Black ex-players feel cheated in the NFL's concussion settlement, Pennsylvania bar examiners are dissing on diploma privilege and Alaska's now-former AG was caught sending a lot of texts to a junior state employee. Let's go!
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DOJ charges Teva in generic drug price-fixing probe The U.S. Department of Justice's years-long probe into allegations that generic drugmakers conspired to fix prices for medications led Tuesday to charges against the industry's biggest generic manufacturer: Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.
An indictment filed in federal court in Philadelphia alleged Teva's U.S. arm conspired with rivals Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Apotex, Taro Pharmaceuticals and Novartis' Sandoz unit to boost prices for treatments for ailments including heart disease, arthritis and seizures. Prosecutors said consumers were overcharged by more than $350 million.
Glenmark is facing related charges, while five other companies including Taro, Apotex and Sandoz have agreed to pay more than $426 million in criminal penalties. Unlike those five, Teva refused to agree to a settlement that would have required it to pay a criminal penalty and admit wrongdoing, Reuters reported.
Teva said based on an internal review of the claims, it had concluded it did not engage in price fixing. Its lawyers could not be identified, but it has been represented by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in related antitrust litigation by state attorneys general and private plaintiffs.
NFL discriminates against Black ex-players in concussion settlement: lawsuit The NFL's landmark settlement resolving claims by retired football players suffering concussion-related injuries has an "unacceptable flaw," according to a lawsuit: It discriminates against Black players.
Two NFL retirees, Kevin Henry and Najeh Davenport, in a proposed class action filed on Tuesday in Philadelphia federal court alleged the league's process for evaluating head-injury claims uses a formula that made it less likely Black ex-players would receive settlement payouts. They said it did so through "race-norming," or manipulating test scores in a way that assumed Black ex-players began with worse cognitive functioning than white ex-players.
"We think it's pretty clear that nothing in the settlement agreement requires the use of race-norming," said Cy Smith, a Zuckerman Spaeder lawyer who filed the lawsuit, which seeks to end that practice.
The NFL called the lawsuit "misguided." It said the settlement, which is uncapped and has already paid out $700 million-plus to retired players, always contemplated using "recognized statistical techniques" to account for demographic differences such as age, education and race.
Pennsylvania bar examiners fight diploma privilege demands
Should Pennsylvania join four other states in temporarily granting recent law school graduates diploma privilege instead of forcing them to take a bar exam during the COVID-19 pandemic? No, state bar examiners told the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The Pennsylvania Board of Examiners defended its decision to proceed with the already-delayed Oct. 5-7 test now being held online in response to a group of applicants who argue requiring the exam in these circumstances violates their rights under the state's constitution to pursue their chosen occupation.
Applicants represented by Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney's Michael Engle and Temple University law professor Louis Natali last week asked the state’s top court to abandon the test and grant licenses to law school graduates set to take it. They cited the risks of cyberattacks, which occurred in Michigan when examiners used the same software provider for its July virtual test.
The board acknowledged a remote exam "is far from perfect” but said it could not adequately ensure minimal standards for licensed lawyers without it. Engle countered that nothing in the board’s filing establishes an “untested” online bar exam could properly evaluate who deserves a license.
Coming up today
"This, however, amounts to arguing that a fraudulent state of mind does not exist until it is discovered. While this suggestion might succeed in a quantum physics lab, it does not succeed before a court of law."
Alaska AG resigns over ‘uncomfortable’ texts to junior state employee
Alaska Attorney General Kevin Clarkson, a Republican, resigned on Tuesday after details about 558 text messages he sent in about one month to a younger female state employee emerged that he acknowledged placed her in an “uncomfortable position.”
That's a lot of texts.
He was initially placed on a month-long administrative leave of absence without pay, the outlets reported. In a statement to a blog called Must Read Alaska, Clarkson apologized for "unintentionally" placing the woman "in an uncomfortable environment in her workplace."
Industry buzz
In the courts
Columnist spotlight: Amazon backs proposed California product liability law for online sellers (with conditions) Amazon’s spent years warding off product liability suits by consumers who used its website to buy merchandise from third-party vendors, so it’s a big deal that the online retailer has thrown its support behind a proposed law that would resolve any uncertainty in favor of consumers, Alison Frankel writes. What’s the catch? Amazon has one condition. It says it will back the bill as long as other online retailers can’t evade the law based on how they earn revenue for selling products from outside vendors.
Lawyer speak: Compensation and human capital management in the COVID-19 era
The pandemic has placed employee-employer relations in the spotlight. In a recent article, Freshfields attorneys Maj Vaseghi, Lori Goodman and Thomas Lair discuss guidance on compensation, employee health and safety and redefining corporate culture amid COVID-19 -- and the implications for the 2021 proxy season.
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