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Good morning. The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments today in a case that could further restrict abortion by limiting access to a key drug. Plus, the SEC is seeking $2 billion from Ripple Labs over its sales of cryptocurrency XRP, and Trump-era senior DOJ official Jeffrey Clark is scheduled to face an attorney ethics trial. It’s a big news day, so let’s get to it.
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The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments this morning over limiting access to the abortion pill in a major case that thrusts abortion rights back on to the court’s agenda in a presidential election year, reports Andrew Chung.
The court is hearing arguments in the Biden administration’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that would limit how the medication, called mifepristone, is prescribed and distributed. Since the court’s 2022 ruling overturning the constitutional right to abortion, medication abortion has become the most common method of ending pregnancies in the U.S., now accounting for more than 60% of abortions.
The plaintiffs — a group of medical associations and four doctors who oppose abortion — contend that the FDA acted contrary to its mandate to ensure medications are safe when it eased restrictions on mifepristone. They point to studies by a New York-based women’s health research group, but the group says the plaintiffs are distorting their findings.
U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar will argue for the government, and Jessica Ellsworth of Hogan Lovells will represent pill maker Danco Laboratories. Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Erin Hawley will argue for the challengers to mifepristone.
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- Consumers suing the maker of the ultra popular Stanley Quencher cups over claims it failed to disclose the cups are made with lead are seeking to consolidate the proposed class actions in Washington state federal court.
- A Colorado judge set an Aug. 12 hearing for the state’s case challenging Kroger’s $25 billion acquisition of rival Albertsons. The hearing will begin earlier than the FTC’s case against the deal that is set for later that month in Oregon federal court. Kroger and Albertsons have denied claims that the deal violates antitrust law.
- A New York judge’s decision to set an April 15 trial date for Donald Trump’s criminal hush-money case ups the odds that the former president will face at least one verdict that could complicate his bid to retake the White House on Nov. 5.
- Terraform Labs and its founder Do Kwon built a “house of cards” and lied to investors about the stability of a cryptocurrency whose collapse rippled through markets in 2022, a lawyer for the SEC told a Manhattan jury as its civil fraud trial began. Louis Pellegrino, an attorney for Terraform, said the regulator’s case relies on cherry-picked evidence and the testimony of witnesses hoping for whistleblower payouts if the SEC wins. Kwon’s attorney David Patton said the crypto entrepreneur never represented Terra’s cryptocurrency as risk-free.
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That’s the number of Apple consumer antitrust lawsuits filed so far in the wake of the blockbuster lawsuit that the DOJ and a group of states filed last week accusing the iPhone maker of monopolizing the smartphone market. Firms including Hagens Berman, Hausfeld and Israel David filed the new cases, and they are seeking to represent millions of iPhone consumers. Apple has denied the claims in the government’s case. Private civil cases can follow government actions, and even broaden the litigation.
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A new U.S. Supreme Court brief by the Georgia-Pacific spin-off Bestwall is a case study, writes Alison Frankel, in why appellate lawyers, with apologies to F. Scott Fitzgerald, are different from you and me. Bestwall, which was created as a vehicle for Georgia-Pacific’s liability from tens of thousands of asbestos claims, does not want the Supreme Court to entertain plaintiffs’ arguments about the validity of the so-called Texas two-step in bankruptcy. But what’s notable about Bestwall’s brief, Frankel says, is how thoroughly Bestwall’s lawyers at Jones Day have managed to suck all of the heat out of the debate.
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“It’s like the Wild West.“
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- Former Trump-era senior DOJ official Jeffrey Clark is scheduled to face an attorney ethics trial over charges that he attempted to use the DOJ to aid Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The D.C. Bar’s disciplinary arm is bringing the case, which could cause Clark to be stripped of his law license. Clark has denied any wrongdoing. He is separately facing criminal charges in Georgia, and has pleaded not guilty.
- The Ohio Supreme Court will consider whether CVS, Walmart and Walgreens can be held liable under state law for creating a public nuisance that fueled an opioid epidemic in two local counties that won a $650 million judgment against them. A federal appeals court last year asked the high court to consider the issue, saying the judgment raised “novel and unresolved questions” of whether state law permits the public-nuisance claim the case was centered on.
- London’s High Court will hand down its ruling on whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be able to appeal extradition from Britain to the United States, in what could be his final legal challenge in British courts. U.S. prosecutors want to put Assange on trial on criminal charges relating to WikiLeaks’ high-profile release of vast troves of confidential U.S. military records and diplomatic cables.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- The 2nd Circuit upheld a jury verdict that Constellation Brands’ Corona and Modelo hard seltzers do not violate the trademark rights of Anheuser Busch InBev’s Grupo Modelo, the maker of Corona and Modelo beers. The court said the jury properly determined that Constellation’s contract to distribute Modelo beers in the U.S. also allowed it to sell hard seltzers using Modelo brand names, in a case that revolved around the companies’ definition of “beer.”
- A federal judge said ConAgra Brands must face a lawsuit claiming it misled U.S. consumers into believing that nine Mrs. Paul’s and Van de Kamp’s fish products were sustainably sourced. U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall in Chicago rejected ConAgra’s argument that the phrase “Good for the Environment” on packaging was “puffery,” meaning an overstatement or exaggeration that could not support the proposed class action.
- Consumer finance company Curo Group filed for bankruptcy protection in Texas, aiming to complete a restructuring that would eliminate $1 billion in debt and hand control of the company to its lenders. The Chicago-based company owes $2.1 billion to a group of investment funds that include Oaktree Capital Management, Caspian Capital and Empyrean Capital Partners.
- The U.S. Bureau of Land Management did not adequately analyze the potential climate change and wildlife impacts of a major oil and gas lease sale covering roughly 120,000 acres of federal land in Wyoming, a federal judge has said. U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper in D.C. ruled that conservation groups had shown BLM violated the National Environmental Policy Act and other laws during its analysis of a 2022 sale of drilling rights, but he said he would decide the fate of the leases later.
- Bloomberg LP has asked a New York federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit from Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and other authors who claimed the company misused their books to train its large language model BloombergGPT. “Bloomberg’s alleged ‘use’ of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted works as part of a research project into the capabilities of generative AI falls squarely within the ambit of the fair use doctrine,” the company said.
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- Blank Rome added Chicago-based corporate group litigation partners Daniel Saeedi and Rachel Schaller. Saeedi will serve as the firm’s co-leader on biometric privacy. They were previously at Taft Stettinius & Hollister. (Blank Rome)
- Venable hired commercial litigator Caitlin Blanche as an LA-based partner. Blanche was previously at K&L Gates. (Venable)
- K&L Gates added Seattle-based partner Christine Jochim in the firm’s environment, land and natural resources practice. She was previously senior legal counsel at Suncor Energy. (K&L Gates)
- Cole Schotz added litigation partner Gregory Arbogast to the firm’s Baltimore office. Arbogast was previously at Gebhardt & Smith. (Cole Schotz)
- Sean Wagner joined Much Shelist as a partner in the construction practice. Wagner, who is based in Chicago, was previously at Wilson Elser. (Much Shelist)
- Armstrong Teasdale picked up securities partner Donald McBride in St. Louis. McBride was previously at Greensfelder Hemker & Gale. (Armstrong Teasdale)
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