Feb. 8, 2022

Good morning! Pfizer won’t be allowed to intervene, just yet at least, in a lawsuit from doctors seeking data the FDA relied on to license the company’s COVID-19 vaccine. Plus, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling said Alabama can use an electoral map that was faulted for racial bias, and the U.S. Justice Department’s bankruptcy watchdog is objecting to the Boy Scouts of America’s proposed reorganization plan. ICYMI, the D.C. Circuit has a thing about acronyms. It’s Tuesday, and we’re in the zone. Let’s go!

Filling in today for Diana Novak Jones is our colleague Karen Sloan, who reports on law firms, law schools, and the business of law. Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here.

Judge delays ruling on Pfizer’s bid to jump into FDA vaccine records case

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

A Texas federal judge will not immediately rule on whether to allow Pfizer Inc to intervene in a federal public records lawsuit that seeks information from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about its licensing of the pharmaceutical company’s COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer’s lawyers at DLA Piper last month sought to jump into the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas to protect against the public disclosure of any confidential business information, including trade secrets.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman said in a new order he will defer ruling on Pfizer’s motion “until a conflict is imminent or has, in fact, manifested.” He weighed arguments at a hearing last month from Pfizer and the plaintiffs, Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, who questioned the timing of the company's move to get involved in the case.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys at Siri & Glimstad argued Pfizer did not have “any need now to intervene to protect any trade secrets because plaintiff has not sought to challenge any redactions.” The plaintiffs argued Pfizer still could work with the FDA to help the agency publicly release records that are responsive to the lawsuit.

Pittman earlier ordered the FDA to begin processing tens of thousands of pages a month in response to the lawsuit. The agency drew criticism from an initial plan that would have taken more than 50 years to process and release requested records.

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Industry buzz

No LOL: Veteran appellate lawyer Donald Verrilli of Munger Tolles knows the D.C. Circuit has an aversion to acronyms, and so he took a step to minimize a “Dear Counsel” letter from the clerk’s office about uncommon abbreviations in briefs. (Reuters)
Which law schools' grads crush the bar exam? A new study highlights lower-ranked law schools with impressive pass rates on the attorney licensing test. (Reuters)
Cybersecurity startup Snyk has found its next top lawyer at cloud-communications firm Twilio, with the hiring of Karyn Smith as its new chief legal officer. (Reuters)
Latham & Watkins represented Frontier Group Holdings in its $2.9 billion acquisition of rival Spirit Airlines, which was represented by Debevoise & Plimpton. (Reuters)

Number of the day:

$225,000,000

REUTERS/Amir Cohen

That’s the settlement amount between Teva Pharmaceutical and Texas, as the drugmaker resolves claims that it fueled an opioid epidemic in the state by improperly marketing addictive pain medications. Teva agreed to pay $150 million over 15 years and provide $75 million worth of generic Narcan, a medication used to counter the effects of opioid overdoses. The deal is the largest Teva has struck in the more than 3,500 lawsuits it faces seeking to hold it and other drug companies responsible for an opioid abuse epidemic, Nate Raymond writes. Read more about the deal.

Columnist spotlight: Ripple lawyers' advice on digital tokens set for unsealing in key SEC case

A decade ago, outside lawyers for the blockchain company Ripple Labs wrote two memos on legal issues arising from the company’s plans to issue digital tokens. When the SEC sued Ripple and two execs in December 2020 for the unregistered sale of those tokens, it said those memos provided Ripple knew it was on thin ice. Ripple has countered that its lawyers said the tokens were not securities. The memos themselves have been sealed, and the filings that mention them in the SEC’s closely watched case have been redacted. But that’s about to change. Alison Frankel explains why a new unsealing order is important for crypto regulation.

Check out other recent pieces from all our columnists: Alison Frankel, Jenna Greene and Hassan Kanu.

"Dismantling the mandatory Texas State Bar after its over eight decades of service to the people of Texas would thus be a wrenching change that would jeopardize the smooth functioning of Texas’s legal system."

—Vinson & Elkins senior partner Thomas Leatherbury, in a new brief for the Texas bar asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decline to take up a First Amendment challenge to mandatory bar dues. Lawyers in Texas and Oklahoma, in a separate case, have asked the justices to reconsider the high court’s 1990 decision upholding requirements that lawyers pay dues to state bar associations, saying compulsory dues improperly subsidize political speech. Leatherbury told the court in the Texas case: “Over the past two years, this court has rejected four similar requests for it to revisit its integrated-bar precedents. The court should do the same here.”

Coming up today

The 9th Circuit will hear arguments in nine separate cases by government employees trying to limit unions' power to deduct dues from their paychecks and prevent them from resigning as members. The cases seek to expand upon a landmark 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said public-sector unions cannot require nonmembers to pay fees toward collective bargaining.
The U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee on courts and oversight will hold a hearing titled “Abusing Chapter 11: Corporate Efforts to Side-Step Accountability Through Bankruptcy.” Cravath partner Paul Zumbro, head of the firm’s financial restructuring and reorganization practice, is set to testify with other panelists including retired U.S. bankruptcy judge Judith Fitzgerald, now a shareholder in Pittsburgh at Tucker Arensberg; Kevin Maclay of Caplin & Drysdale; and David Skeel of the Penn Law. Watch a live video feed on the committee’s site at 3 p.m. EST.
A Massachusetts federal magistrate judge will hold a status hearing in the U.S. prosecution of a Kremlin-linked businessman charged with helping carry out a $82 million insider trading scheme that allowed him and others to profit from corporate information stolen through hacking. Vladislav Klyushin, owner of a Moscow-based information technology company that prosecutors said had extensive ties to the Russian government, was extradited in December from Switzerland to face federal charges pending in Boston.

Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.

In the courts

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to let Alabama use a Republican-backed map of the state's U.S. congressional districts that a lower court found likely discriminates against Black voters. Five of the six conservative justices were in the majority, with conservative Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. joining the court's three liberal justices in dissent. (Reuters)
The U.S. Justice Department’s bankruptcy watchdog is objecting to the Boy Scouts of America’s proposed reorganization plan and underlying $2.7 billion sex abuse litigation settlement, saying it provides impermissible legal protections to insurers and the youth organization’s local councils, among others. (Reuters)
Tesla disclosed Monday that U.S. securities regulators hit the electric car company with a subpoena in November related to an SEC settlement that required CEO Elon Musk's tweets on material information to be vetted. Musk triggered a stock sell-off in November after asking his Twitter followers if he should sell 10% of his stake in the company. (Reuters)
The estates of Robin Williams and George Carlin, along with comedians Bill Engvall, Ron White, and Andrew Dice Clay, are suing Pandora Media Inc. claiming the online music service owes royalties for using their jokes. The lawsuits ask for damages ranging from over $4 million for Williams' estate to nearly $13 million for White. (Reuters)

Industry moves

Weil Gotshal said Robert Rizzo joined the firm’s New York office as a partner in the global private equity practice. Rizzo joins the firm from Willkie Farr. (Reuters)
King & Spalding said Zach Cochran has joined the firm in Atlanta as a corporate, finance and investments partner. Cochran earlier was a senior corporate counsel at Redwood City, California-based C3.AI Inc. (King & Spalding)
Latham brought on David Freedman as a New York-based partner focused on real estate. He earlier practiced at Alston & Bird. (Latham)
K&L Gates added labor and employment partner Dominic Fleeton in Melbourne, Australia. He returns to the firm from Kingston Reid. (K&L Gates)
McGuireWoods said healthcare-focused corporate partner Rubin Pusha III joined the firm’s office in Chicago. Pusha arrives at the firm from Hall Render. (McGuireWoods)
Haynes and Boone hired Lauren Brodgon as a Houston-based energy litigation partner. Brogdon earlier practiced at Norton Rose. (Haynes and Boone)

Lawyer speak: Impact of COVID delays on examination of trademark applications

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office went almost fully remote at the start of the pandemic and now takes about seven months to conduct initial examinations of new trademark applications, writes Ian Block of Neal Gerber & Eisenberg. That’s about four months longer than it took before the pandemic. Read more about what the additional time means for trademark applicants and brand owners.

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