Good morning. A whistleblower who claims Twitter hasn’t been forthcoming about its security issues could shift the litigation winds in Elon Musk’s favor, experts say. Plus, bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network is pinning some blame on a supposed crypto pioneer, and the Idaho federal judge weighing the government’s abortion-rights lawsuit is expected to rule today. It’s Wednesday, but it definitely feels like Thursday to us. Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here. |
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New allegations from a Twitter whistleblower could boost billionaire Elon Musk’s case against the social media giant by adding a new angle of potential attack and a little chaos to the mix, experts told Tom Hals.
Twitter has sued Musk to enforce his planned $44 billion acquisition of the company, and Musk has countersued, claiming Twitter wasn’t upfront about the number of bot and spam accounts on its platform. But now Twitter’s former security chief Peiter Zatko has come forward with claims that it failed to properly disclose weaknesses in its security and data privacy. Legal experts say the whistleblower could be useful for Musk because it could be easier for him to prove Twitter wasn’t forthcoming about its security issues than to show it misrepresented the number of spam accounts.
A hearing is scheduled in the case before Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick today – read how the whistleblower complaint could come up. |
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| 2022 State of Corporate Law Departments Report
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Based on data driven and reliable insights: -2,000+ telephone interviews with in-house counsel -1,000+ survey responses -Detailed spend data from the Legal Department Operations (LDO) Index |
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2022 State of Corporate Law Departments Report
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Based on data driven and reliable insights: - 2,000+ telephone interviews with in-house counsel
- 1,000+ survey responses
- Detailed spend data from the Legal Department Operations (LDO) Index
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Musician Eddy Grant’s attorneys Brian Caplan, Robert Clarida and Brett Van Benthysen of Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt won the chance to depose former U.S. President Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff and social media director Dan Scavino, just a few weeks after they deposed the former president himself. Grant, the hitmaker behind “Electric Avenue,” sued Trump and his campaign over a video they tweeted that used his song. (Reuters)
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Paul Weiss brought on two new partners from Winston & Strawn, beefing up its financial industry litigation bench and expanding its work for longtime client Goldman Sachs. Robert Sperling and Staci Yablon, who represent Goldman in litigation over Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund, have joined as partners in New York. (Reuters)
- Holland & Hart brought on a group of six private client and tax attorneys to advise high net worth clients in Salt Lake City, a hot market for law firm growth over the past year. (Reuters)
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That’s the median “real income,” adjusted for inflation, of U.S. lawyers in 2020 – down from $129,389 in 2001, according to a paper slated to appear in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Economics and Finance. In contrast, the authors found that real income—which refers to an individual’s purchasing power— of all U.S. workers increased nearly 4% during that period. Read why lawyers are making less now.
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There’s a lot of sound and fury in the class action bar about the propriety of so-called cy pres-only settlements, in which all of the settlement money goes to charity instead of to class members. But according to a pair of briefs filed on Monday by Google LLC and class counsel who negotiated a $13 million cy pres-only settlement to resolve allegations that Google Street View vehicles swept up private wireless data, there’s not much significance to the controversy. The briefs contend that these sorts of deals are so rare that it’s not worth the justices’ time to meddle with them. How rare? Only 18 such settlements were approved before 2018, according to a study cited by Google and class counsel – and only two have been approved since then. Alison Frankel dives into their arguments against Supreme Court review.
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The managing partner of the Avellum law firm in Ukraine tells Reuters reporter Dave Thomas that legal business has returned to Kyiv but hopes for a quick end to the war have subsided. |
—Attorneys for Gerald Groff, a former U.S. Postal Service mail carrier who is petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether he was entitled to take Sundays off work to observe the Sabbath. Groff sued the USPS after it refused to give him a blanket exception to work on Sundays, saying the agency violated federal antidiscrimination law by failing to accommodate his religious practice. His attorneys from First Liberty Institute, Independence Law Center, Baker Botts and Church State Law Council have asked the high court to take up the case and overturn its 1977 ruling that said employers do not have to grant religious accommodations that would impose "more than a de minimis cost." Over the last two years, several conservative justices have said that ruling should be revisited. Read more about the case.
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U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise, Idaho, is expected to rule today on the DOJ’s motion to temporarily block the state’s law banning nearly all abortions. The DOJ sued in August, arguing that the law runs afoul of the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which protects women’s rights to emergency care. At a hearing on the government’s preliminary injunction motion on Monday, Winmill seemed to agree that the pressure the law puts on doctors could discourage them from offering emergency abortions to women who need them.
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Free Speech Systems, the parent of far-right website InfoWars, is asking a Texas bankruptcy judge to block an upcoming defamation trial over owner Alex Jones' repeated false claims about the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting. Parents of children slain in the shooting and their attorneys from Cain & Skarnulis and Byman & Associates have asked U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher M. Lopez to allow their Connecticut defamation case to proceed in September, even though FSS's bankruptcy would normally shield it from other court cases. The Connecticut court has already found Jones liable for defamation, and the trial would determine how much Jones and FSS must pay.
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California Superior Court Judge Evelio Grillo in Oakland, California, is holding a hearing on Tesla’s bid to throw out a lawsuit by the state's Department of Civil Rights accusing the electric car maker of widespread race discrimination at an assembly plant in Fremont. The suit claims the plant was racially segregated, with Black workers relegated to the lowest tiers of work. Tesla, which is facing a series of other discrimination lawsuits brought by employees, says the case is politically motivated. Read more about the hearing.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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Bankrupt crypto lender Celsius Network sued a former investment manager, alleging he lost or stole tens of millions of dollars in assets. Celsius accuses Jason Stone and his company KeyFi of "gross negligence" and "extraordinarily inept" crypto investing, after Stone falsely portrayed himself as a pioneer in the field. (Reuters)
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Drugmaker Indivior can’t dodge a lawsuit brought by 42 state attorneys general accusing it of using illegal tactics to shield its opioid addiction treatment Suboxone from generic competition. U.S. District Judge Mitchell Goldberg in Philadelphia concluded a reasonable jury could find that Indivior's switch from a pill to an oral film form of the drug in 2009 was intended to extend its monopoly just as generic manufacturers were poised to begin selling their own pills, a strategy known as product hopping. (Reuters)
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Meta Platforms reached a $37.5 million settlement of a lawsuit accusing the Facebook parent of violating users' privacy by tracking their movements through their smartphones without permission. If approved, the deal struck by Meta’s counsel at Gibson Dunn and plaintiffs’ counsel from Tycko & Zavareei would resolve claims that Facebook violated California law and its own privacy policy by gathering data from users who turned off Location Services on their mobile devices. (Reuters)
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Fox Sports has settled a lawsuit brought by team owners and executives from the 1980s-era United States Football League over Fox's name and branding for its new league of the same name. The terms of the settlement are confidential, but Fox attorney David Bernstein of Debevoise & Plimpton said the network has an exclusive license to USFL trademarks and "looks forward to the second season of USFL spring football next year." (Reuters)
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Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner said it has appointed Ravi Nayer as a partner in its business and commercial disputes team. He joins Bryan Cave’s London office from rival firm Quinn Emanuel. (Reuters)
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DLA Piper is continuing to expand its competition practice with the addition of Laurent Geelhand. Geelhand is the managing partner of Hausfeld’s Paris and Brussels offices, and heads the firm’s automotive, transport and logistics practice group in Europe. (Reuters)
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Greenberg Traurig added Diane Reynolds, formerly with McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney & Carpenter, to its corporate practice in New Jersey. (Greenberg Traurig)
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Polsinelli added Kurt Erskine as an Atlanta-based government investigations partner. He previously served as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. (Polsinelli)
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Fox Rothschild hired Dallas-based entertainment and sports partner Christian Dennie, who previously practiced at Barlow Garsek. (Fox Rothschild)
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Akerman said Bruce Lowry joined the firm as a partner in its data centers and digital infrastructure practice in Chicago. Lowry formerly was at Bryan Cave. (Akerman)
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