 //sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591700&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=31431446&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
//sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591701&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=31431446&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
//sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591702&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=31431446&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
//sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591703&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=31431446&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
//sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=126591704&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=31431446&stpe=pixel” width=”2″ height=”6″ border=”0″ /> |
|
|
|
| //sli.reutersmedia.net/imp?s=874768&li=&e=gjjtuyu768@gmail.com&p=31431446&stpe=static” border=”0″ style=”max-height:12px;” /> |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Good morning. Indicted crypto mogul Sam Bankman-Fried is mounting his defenses, and he’s going after Sullivan & Cromwell for helping prosecutors. California’s top court seems hesitant to hold employers liable for workers who take home COVID and infect others. Plus, the SEC today takes on Covington in D.C. court; George Santos faces criminal charges in Brooklyn; and Donald Trump is on the hook for $5 million after a jury backed E. Jean Carroll’s sexual assault and defamation claims. Slow news day, huh?
Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here.
|
Indicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried launched his defense against a raft of fraud, money laundering and campaign finance charges, asking a judge to designate FTX’s current leadership and the exchange’s attorneys at law firm Sullivan & Cromwell as part of the “prosecution team,” reports Andrew Goudsward.
Sullivan & Cromwell represented FTX on transactions and regulatory matters before its collapse last year but secured court approval to advise FTX in its bankruptcy. FTX and its Sullivan & Cromwell team have accused Bankman-Fried of presiding over a shocking lack of internal corporate controls and said their cooperation with the government was crucial to securing a quick indictment against Bankman-Fried.
FTX and Sullivan & Cromwell provided such extensive cooperation to the government that prosecutors had “effectively deputized the company to aid the prosecution,” Bankman-Fried argued, in a move that could require the firm to turn over evidence in the criminal case. Spokespeople for Sullivan & Cromwell and FTX did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Read more:
Indicted FTX founder Bankman-Fried urges court to toss charges
Column: Bankman-Fried goes after FTX lawyers at Sullivan & Cromwell for helping prosecutors
|
|
|
|
- The deans at more than half of the country’s law schools are pushing the American Bar Association’s Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar to modify a planned change that would allow law schools to go fully test-optional, arguing instead that schools should be permitted to admit up to 25% of students without a standardized test score. (Reuters)
- Proskauer Rose expanded its trade secrets lawsuit against its former chief operating officer, Jonathan O’Brien, accusing him of scheming to recruit other firm employees to a competitor and violating a court order requiring him to turn over all of its proprietary data. The firm filed an amended complaint in Manhattan federal court. O’Brien has disputed the allegations. (Reuters)
- The Senate Judiciary Committee asked Texas billionaire Harlan Crow to provide details about gifts he or his companies have made to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The panel last week explored the possibility of pursuing legislation to impose ethics standards on the Supreme Court amid revelations about luxury trips and real estate transactions by conservative justices. (Reuters)
- A U.S. magistrate judge in Manhattan said Keurig’s lawyers at Cleary Gottlieb were entitled to legal fees for plaintiff Winn-Dixie’s violations of pre-trial orders in its antitrust case accusing the coffee maker of abusing its market power. Lawyers for the food retailer had fought any sanctions. (Reuters)
|
That’s how many U.S. companies have gone bankrupt this year so far, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. It’s more than double the year-to-date count at this time last year. The tally of U.S. companies that have declared bankruptcy so far in 2023 is higher than the first four months of any year since 2010.
|
“How would one sift through the legitimate versus nonlegitimate claims [so] we wouldn’t be inviting an avalanche of litigation that would clog the courts?“
|
—California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu, who questioned the long-term effects of allowing employers to be sued after their employees contract COVID on the job and spread it to their households. The seven-member court heard oral arguments in San Francisco over whether Victory Woodworks could be held liable for negligence by an employee’s wife, who says she became seriously ill when her husband contracted COVID at work in the early days of the pandemic in 2020 and passed it to her. The court’s ruling in the case could have major implications for California businesses.
|
|
|
|
- The SEC heads to D.C. federal court in a lawsuit demanding that Covington disclose details about nearly 300 of the firm’s clients whose information was accessed or stolen by hackers in a previously undisclosed cyberattack. Covington, represented by lawyers from Gibson Dunn, has called the subpoena “an assault on the sanctity and confidentiality of the attorney-client relationship” that could open up the firm’s clients to SEC scrutiny without initial evidence of misconduct. A group of 83 large U.S. law firms has thrown its weight behind Covington’s effort to resist the SEC’s demand. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta will hear the case.
- The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability will hold a hearing entitled “ESG Part I: An Examination of Environmental, Social, and Governance Practices with Attorneys General.” The hearing, which follows a letter sent to asset managers by 21 state attorneys general warning them that ESG investing could run afoul of their fiduciary duties to their clients, will feature testimony from Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall. Watch the hearing here.
- Wilmer partner Matthew Kulkin, who leads the firm’s futures and derivatives practice, will be among the panelists testifying before the House Financial Services Committee at a hearing billed as exploring “regulatory gaps in digital asset markets.” Other panelists include Marco Santori, chief legal officer of Kraken Digital Asset Exchange, and Daniel Schoenberger, chief legal officer at Web3 Foundation.
|
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
|
- The EPA must develop drinking water regulations for the toxic chemical perchlorate, a three-judge D.C. Circuit panel said, siding with environmentalists who sued the government in 2020. The court said the EPA can’t back away from an Obama-era determination that the Safe Drinking Water Act requires regulations for perchlorate. (Reuters)
- Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick in Delaware Chancery Court dismissed a shareholder class action seeking to hold Jack Dorsey and other board members at Block Inc liable for approving the payments company’s purchase of Jay-Z’s streaming service Tidal. McCormick said the Florida pension fund leading the case did not show that Block’s directors acted in bad faith, though the purchase “seemed, by all accounts, a terrible business decision.” (Reuters)
- Donald Trump’s onetime lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen asked a court to throw out the former U.S. president’s $500 million lawsuit against him, calling it an “abusive act of pure retaliation and witness intimidation.” Cohen’s lawyers in a filing in Miami federal court said the lawsuit combined the “worst of Mr. Trump’s vindictive impulses,” and that its timing – immediately after Trump was indicted in a case where Cohen is expected to be a key witness – was no coincidence. (Reuters)
- Ishan Wahi, a former Coinbase Global product manager, was sentenced to two years in prison in what prosecutors have called the first insider trading case involving cryptocurrency. U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska sentenced Wahi, 32, in Manhattan federal court after he pleaded guilty as part of a scheme to share nonpublic information about digital assets that would be listed on Coinbase. (Reuters)
|
|
|
- Kirkland added capital markets partner Shagufa Hossain in the firm’s D.C. office. Hossain was previously at Latham. (Kirkland)
- Lowenstein Sandler added Beth Shapiro Kaufman and Megan Wernke as D.C. partners in the firm’s private client services group, which Kaufman will lead. They were previously at Caplin & Drysdale. (Lowenstein Sandler)
- K&L Gates added Naoki Kawada and Ryan Keech as LA-based partners. in the firm’s corporate and intellectual property practices. Kawada joins the corporate practice from Perkins Coie, and Keech joins the IP practice from Ellis George Cipollone O’Brien Annaguey. (K&L Gates)
- Jeremy Elman left Allen & Overy for Duane Morris, where he’ll be a partner in the firm’s IP practice, based in Silicon Valley. (Duane Morris)
- Haynes and Boone brought on Justin Bonanno as a New York-based commercial litigation partner. He was previously at Meister Seelig & Fein. (Haynes and Boone)
- Greenspoon Marder added Miami-based corporate partner Jon Lyman from Pillsbury Winthrop. (Greenspoon Marder)
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
