Good morning. Antitrust appears to be a rare opportunity for bipartisanship, as Google and Live Nation faced pressure from both Republicans and Democrats over their dominance in their respective markets this week. Plus, Greenberg Traurig is told it needs to try a little harder to cut ties with the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, and Serta Simmons Bedding enters bankruptcy. It’s Wednesday already — let’s do this.
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Google, Ticketmaster see new bipartisan squeeze on antitrust front |
Two companies in the span of just hours on Tuesday drew bipartisan criticism over their respective market dominance, potentially posing new hurdles to technology companies and others facing questions about alleged violations of competition law.
The U.S. Justice Department’s massive new antitrust lawsuit against Google, accusing it of abusing its dominance in the digital ad market, will put new litigation pressure on the technology company amid a host of other pending competition-focused cases and immunity disputes. The DOJ’s complaint in Alexandria, Virginia, federal court was joined by Republican and Democratic attorneys general from eight states, Diane Bartz and David Shepardson report. Google said the government was "doubling down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation” and raise advertising fees. Freshfields partner Eric Mahr, co-chair of the firm’s antitrust team, is defending Google in the new case.
The Google lawsuit came just as U.S. Senators from both sides of the aisle had assailed the market power of Live Nation Entertainment and its subsidiary Ticketmaster, after the fiasco last year involving the sale of Taylor Swift concert tickets. At the U.S. Capitol, Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee said the Live Nation debacle suggested "new legislation or perhaps just better enforcement of existing laws might be needed to protect the American people." Live Nation’s chief financial officer told the panel, “We need to do better and we will do better.”
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Get expert insights on the tension between blockchain technology and data privacy, legal issues relating to the use of AI, the new universal proxy rules, and much more in the latest issue of Practical Law The Journal. |
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Attorneys at law firm Greenberg Traurig who represented Kanye West in a copyright case must work harder to reach the rapper to notify him that they are cutting ties and abandoning his defense in an ongoing copyright lawsuit over his allegedly unauthorized sampling of a song by Chicago musician Marshall Jefferson, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres said. (Reuters)
Atlanta-founded Smith, Gambrell & Russell and Chicago-based Freeborn & Peters said they will combine to form a new 400-attorney firm. The tie-up continues robust dealmaking among law firms at the start of the new year. (Reuters)
President Joe Biden is not renominating two of his picks to serve as federal judges whose nominations had stalled in the last Congress after a key Republican senator objected to one and a vacancy another was nominated to fill disappeared. William Pocan and Jorge Rodriguez are among 45 judicial nominees who had not won Senate confirmation before 2022 ended. (Reuters)
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Reed Smith will soon have a new leader as Alexander "Sandy" Thomas, global managing partner and executive committee chair, steps down. Thomas, at the helm since 2013, will serve as the first chief legal officer of D.C.-based Kids in Need of Defense. Casey Ryan, global head of legal personnel, will succeed Thomas. (Reuters)
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That’s the amount of debt burdening Serta Simmons Bedding, which accounts for nearly one-fifth of U.S. bedding sales, according to the company’s bankruptcy filings. The Doraville, Georgia-based company filed for Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas, saying it was pushed to insolvency by increased material costs and an unsustainable amount of debt maturing this year. It hopes to win court approval for its restructuring as soon as May 8.
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Federal-court shareholder class actions challenging run-of-the-mill M&A transactions appear to be going the way of dinosaurs and dodo birds — but if companies facing one of these cases needed an extra incentive to resist settling, they got it on Monday from the 7th Circuit. Alison Frankel has analysis of the appellate court’s ruling that D&O insurers are off the hook for the $21 million that Joy Global and its deal partner Komatsu Mining paid to settle shareholder M&A class actions back in 2017 and 2018, when these cases were often settled for millions of dollars. The ruling “should stiffen the litigation resolve of any company that’s sued in federal court for allegedly violating the Exchange Act by misrepresenting the true value of a target company.”
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"I agree it looks bad, but when you look closely at it, you realize it’s not that bad." |
Experts discuss a case currently at the 11th Circuit about federal agencies' power to mandate masks on public transportation, and the lawsuit's potential impact on future pandemics. |
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will meet for its first hearing in the new year on President Joe Biden's judicial nominees. The panel will take up five nominees: Charnelle Bjelkengren for the Eastern District of Washington; Matthew Brookman for the Southern District of Indiana; Michael Farbiarz and and Robert Kirsch for New Jersey’s federal trial court; and Orelia Eleta Merchant for the Eastern District of New York. Biden on Monday renominated 17 more candidates for the federal bench who had not won Senate confirmation before 2022 ended. Biden resubmitted 25 other circuit and district court picks on Jan. 3.
The 4th Circuit will consider whether to uphold a ruling that found North Carolina's state employee health plan was unlawfully discriminatory by excluding gender-affirming healthcare treatments for transgender people. U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs in June ruled for several transgender people or their parents. Lawyers from Lambda Legal, Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, Harris Wiltshire and McDermott are representing plaintiffs.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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The creators of "Better Call Saul" and their attorneys from Jenner & Block asked U.S. District Judge Paul Gardephe to dismiss Liberty Tax Service's lawsuit objecting to an episode of the hit crime drama that depicted a business called Sweet Liberty Tax Services, saying the case "stretches the reach of trademark and defamation laws beyond their breaking point." Liberty Tax had sued AMC Networks and Sony Pictures Television over the depiction, but AMC and Sony said the episode was "fully protected" by the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. (Reuters)
The 8th Circuit reversed a judge's order that barred Block Inc, formerly Square, from using its name in conjunction with its tax-preparation app during a trademark dispute with H&R Block. The evidence of consumer confusion was not strong enough to support a federal judge's preliminary order stopping Block from using "Block" in connection with Cash App Taxes, the appellate court said. (Reuters)
AstraZeneca's cancer treatment Imjudo infringes Bristol Myers patents related to its drug Yervoy, Bristol Myers said in a lawsuit in Delaware federal court. AstraZeneca said it would respond to the complaint at the “appropriate time.” (Reuters)
Google’s Perkins Coie lawyers denied that the tech company was biased against the RNC, refuting claims that Gmail was routing email messages from the political group to users’ spam boxes in Gmail. Google argued that the actions of recipients of RNC emails drive how and where they see messages. (Reuters)
Conservation groups including the Center for Biological Diversity and WildEarth Guardians and New Mexico residents sued the Interior Department in New Mexico federal court, claiming the Biden administration backed Trump-era oil and gas lease sales on nearly 6,000 acres of land, despite those sales being rushed through during Trump's final days without adequate environmental reviews. (Reuters)
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Gibson Dunn added C. Lee Wilson as a New York-based partner focused on bankruptcy, M&A, and shareholder-related litigation. Wilson previously was at Jones Day. (Gibson Dunn)
Day Pitney brought on Michael Schwartz in the firm’s New York office as a partner in its private client department. He previously was co-chair of the trusts and estates group at Curtis Mallet-Prevost. (Day Pitney)
Melissa Hatch O’Donnell rejoined Troutman Pepper as a partner in the firm’s health sciences litigation practice group in Philadelphia. O’Donnell was most recently in-house at Cigna. (Troutman)
Kramer Levin added Robert Bendiner Weiss as a partner in the firm’s investment management group, based in the New York office. He was previously at K&L Gates. (Kramer Levin)
Baker Donelson added shareholder Carla Murphy to the firm’s labor and employment group, based in Baltimore. Murphy was previously at Ober Kaler. (Baker Donelson)
Andrew Pratt jumped to Hinshaw & Culbertson, where he will be a Minneapolis-based partner. He was previously at RBC Capital Markets. (Hinshaw)
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You may have heard that legal cannabis companies are shut out of the country’s bankruptcy process, but did you know that businesses that work with the cannabis industry can be barred from the process as well? Joseph Cioffi, Massimo Giugliano and Anna Pinna of Davis+Gilbert explain why the prohibition can impact vendors and other cannabis-adjacent companies – and why a few recent court rulings give reason to believe that is changing.
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Correction: Tuesday’s edition of The Daily Docket incorrectly identified the number of judges renominated to the federal bench by President Joe Biden on Monday. Biden renominated 17. |
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