Good morning. FTC Chair Lina Khan is heading to Capitol Hill today for an oversight hearing, an appearance that comes as her agency will ask the 9th Circuit to block Microsoft's $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard, our colleague Diane Bartz reports. Plus, a law firm that's been dogged by its founders' emails just lost more partners; Gibson Dunn defeated a disqualification bid; and Elon Musk's Twitter was hit with a $500 million employee benefits suit. Another scorcher of a legal news day.
Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here. |
Graeme Jennings/Pool via REUTERS |
FTC Chair Lina Khan will appear today before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee, where the progressive antitrust enforcer is expected to face tough questions amid a string of court setbacks, Diane Bartz reports Committee Chair Rep. Jim Jordan said the hearing would focus on what he called "mismanagement of the FTC" and “politicized rulemakings."
Khan has angered companies and other trade groups by pushing the FTC to be more aggressive in investigations and enforcement.
Khan’s appearance comes just two days after a California federal judge ruled against the FTC’s bid to block Microsoft’s $69 billion purchase of “Call of Duty” maker Activision Blizzard. The agency on Wednesday filed a court notice saying it will appeal the order to the 9th Circuit.
The agency under Khan also lost a fight to stop Facebook parent Meta from buying virtual reality content maker Within Unlimited, and an internal FTC judge ruled for Illumina's purchase of Grail. That challenge was initially brought under the Trump administration, and the FTC has asked the 5th Circuit to review the administrative judge’s decision.
|
|
|
-
Two Georgia election workers suing Rudy Giuliani for defamation asked a U.S. judge to decide the case in their favor, accusing the former New York mayor and personal lawyer for Donald Trump of failing to preserve important evidence. The election workers said Giuliani did not take steps to retain documents and messages as required in the litigation. An adviser to Giuliani said the evidence requests were “deliberately overly burdensome.” (Reuters)
-
Gibson Dunn fended off an attempt by Viasat to disqualify the law firm from representing rival satellite communications company Western Digital in the companies' patent dispute in Texas federal court. Viasat said Gibson Dunn represents it in other matters and moved to disqualify it from the case on ethical grounds after Western Digital's lead attorney joined the Los Angeles-founded firm. (Reuters)
-
Religious rights litigation firm Becket Fund won $2.2 million in legal fees for its work challenging an HHS rule in a lawsuit filed in 2016. The Biden administration had opposed the compensation bid as excessive. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor spurned the opposition, but slightly reduced the overall amount D.C.-based Becket Fund sought. (Reuters)
-
A U.S. Senate panel approved FCC nominee Anna Gomez for a key fifth seat on the telecommunications agency. Democrats have been stymied since 2021 from gaining a majority on the five-member regulator. Gomez would join the FCC from the State Department, where she is a senior adviser in the cyberspace and digital policy bureau. (Reuters)
|
That’s how much Twitter is accused of refusing to pay in severance benefits to thousands of employees who were laid off after Elon Musk acquired the company. The proposed class action was filed in San Francisco federal court by Courtney McMillian, who oversaw Twitter's employee benefits programs as its "head of total rewards" before she was laid off in January. Twitter had no comment on the case, which was filed by plaintiffs’ firm Sanford Heisler. The complaint marked the latest employment suit against the social media company.
|
Class action settlements that deliver money only to nonprofits instead of class members have become vanishingly rare, with only a handful proposed in the last several years. And now a new ruling from a Delaware federal judge seems likely to hasten the complete extinction of these unusual deals. Alison Frankel has the details.
|
"This is a sad and sorry state of affairs." |
—U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan, who sentenced a U.S. subsidiary of financial services and insurance company Allianz to pay $6 billion after it pleaded guilty to charges it defrauded investors in a group of funds that collapsed in 2020. Prosecutors said the subsidiary, Allianz Global Investors U.S., had misled investors about the Structured Alpha funds’ risks. Once with more than $11 billion in assets under management, the funds lost more than $7 billion as COVID-19 roiled markets in February and March 2020.
|
|
|
-
In San Jose federal court, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila will weigh claims that Disney’s business contracts have artificially driven up the cost of video streaming services such as YouTube TV and DirecTV Stream in violation of U.S. antitrust law. Consumers, represented by attorneys at Bathe Dunne, alleged in a pair of lawsuits that Disney's ownership of the sports TV programmer ESPN — part of the base package for a YouTube TV subscription — has allowed the company to "set a price floor" in the market for TV streaming. Disney's attorneys at Farella Braun and Cravath contend that plaintiffs "misconstrue basic antitrust and economic concepts."
-
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan will hold a pretrial conference in the prosecution of entrepreneur Charlie Javice on charges of defrauding JPMorgan into buying her now-shuttered college financial aid startup Frank. A grand jury indictment charged Javice with securities fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy. It also seeks the forfeiture of millions of dollars from her accounts. Javice, represented by Quinn Emanuel’s Samuel Nitze, has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors have also charged Olivier Amar, Frank's chief growth officer, with the same fraud charges.
- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh is scheduled to speak at the Eighth Circuit Judicial Conference in Bloomington, Minnesota. Kavanaugh will be in conversation with 8th Circuit Judge Lavenski Smith and U.S. District Judge Sarah Pitlyk.
|
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes. |
-
An Arizona man filed a defamation lawsuit against Fox News, alleging the network spread a false conspiracy theory that he played a key role in the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump. Ray Epps, who voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, said Fox knowingly and recklessly spread claims that he was an undercover FBI agent who instigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack as part of a government plot to discredit Trump. (Reuters)
-
The 8th Circuit temporarily blocked a Biden administration plan to improve cybersecurity for public water systems after Republican-led states complained it would thrust burdensome costs on small and rural water suppliers. The court issued a stay temporarily suspending the EPA’s cybersecurity plan while a legal challenge filed by the state attorneys general of Missouri, Arkansas and Iowa runs its course. (Reuters)
-
Facebook owner Meta will contest EU antitrust charges at a closed hearing today in a bid to stave off a possible hefty fine after regulators charged it with tying its classified advertisements service to its social network. The European Commission sent a charge sheet to the world's most popular social network last December, singling out two practices that showed that Meta abused its market power. (Reuters)
-
Mozambique's former finance minister Manuel Chang was extradited to the U.S. from South Africa to face charges for his alleged role in a $2 billion debt scandal, the South African justice ministry said. Chang, who has denied wrongdoing, had been detained in South Africa since 2018, when he was arrested at the request of the U.S. on charges related to loans obtained from Credit Suisse and Russia's VTB bank that were guaranteed by the Mozambique government and signed off on by Chang. (Reuters)
|
|
|
-
Milbank hired New York-based partners Derek Winokur and Edward Lemanowicz from Dechert. Winokur, former co-head of Dechert's private equity practice, joined Milbank's corporate group. Lemanowicz joined the firm's tax group. (Reuters)
- K&L Gates added intellectual property partner David Easwaran in the firm’s Charlotte, North Carolina, office. He was previously at Womble Bond Dickinson. (Reuters)
-
Hinshaw added partners Stephen Masley and Margaret Cascino and senior counsel Ralph Confreda Jr to the firm’s consumer financial services team. The group was previously at McGlinchey Stafford. (Hinshaw)
-
Akin added Patrick Dundas as a New York-based partner in the firm’s investment management practice. He was previously at Schulte Roth. (Akin)
-
Labor and employment law firm Littler added Bren Thomas as a partner based out of its Irvine, California, and Las Vegas offices. Thomas was previously at Jackson Lewis. (Littler)
-
Ted Huffman joined Katten as a partner in its class action and consumer finance litigation practice. Huffman, based in Dallas, was previously at Hunton Andrews Kurth. (Katten)
|
|
|
Sponsors are not involved in the creation of newsletter or other Reuters news content.
Get Reuters News App
Want to stop receiving this newsletter? Unsubscribe here.
To manage which newsletters you're subscribed to, click here.
|
|
|
|