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Good morning. Former President Donald Trump is expected to appear in Miami federal court today, and here’s what to expect. Plus, the judge overseeing Trump’s New York criminal case likely won’t have to recuse himself as the former president has requested, and a jury found a Berkshire Hathaway unit liable in a $1.6 billion class action over four Oregon wildfires. Let’s get to it.
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Former President Donald Trump is slated to make his first appearance in federal court in Miami since being charged with mishandling documents containing national secrets and lying to officials trying to recover them, report Jack Queen and Jacqueline Thomsen.
It will be the second courtroom visit for Trump since April, when he pleaded not guilty to charges in New York stemming from a hush-money payment to a porn star. The New York arraignment drew protesters and Trump supporters, and today’s is expected to as well. Officials in Miami were bracing for crowds of up to 50,000 people.
Trump has said he is innocent and portrayed the case as an effort to undermine his re-election effort.
After his court appearance at 3 p.m. EDT, Trump is due to fly back to his New Jersey golf course, where he is scheduled to speak in the evening.
The case may not go to trial until after the November 2024 election. Trump is free to campaign for the presidency in the meantime and could take office even if he were to be found guilty.
Here’s why the “speedy trial” promised by Special Counsel Jack Smith may not go so fast.
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- In an opinion that does not identify anyone by name, a New York judicial ethics committee signaled that Justice Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the criminal case against former President Donald Trump over hush money payments to a porn star, will not need to recuse himself as Trump has requested. (Reuters)
- Atlanta-founded midsize law firm Smith, Currie & Hancock plans to merge with Seattle-based Oles Morrison Rinker & Baker to form a new 76-attorney law firm known as Smith Currie Oles. (Reuters)
- John Wood, a top investigator in the U.S. House Jan. 6 Capitol riot probe and a former U.S. Senate candidate, has joined law firm Holland & Knight in its public policy practice in Washington, D.C. (Reuters)
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REUTERS/Eva Marie Uzcategui
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That’s how much a banana duct-taped to a wall, an artwork entitled “Comedian,” sold for at the 2019 Art Basel Miami art fair. The Italian artist behind the work, Maurizio Cattelan, defeated a copyright infringement lawsuit by a fellow conceptual artist who claimed Cattelan stole his idea. Joe Morford failed to show that Cattelan copied significant elements of his own art piece, a Miami federal judge determined, tossing the case before trial.
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“Any association with [Epstein] was a mistake and we regret it.“
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—JPMorgan Chase, after the bank agreed to pay about $290 million to resolve a class action by Jeffrey Epstein’s victims over the bank’s relationship with the disgraced financier. More than 100 women and girls who say they were abused by Epstein sued the bank over its ties to the late sex offender, who was a client of the bank for more than 10 years.
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- The SEC and lawyers for Binance will face off in D.C. federal court over the agency’s bid to freeze assets at the cryptocurrency exchange. The request came a day after U.S. regulators sued Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao for allegedly operating a “web of deception,” piling further pressure on the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange. The SEC accused Binance of years of violative conduct, including “disregard” for U.S. laws and “evasion of regulatory oversight.” Binance is represented by Gibson Dunn, and a team from Latham is representing Zhao. Binance said it would “defend our platform vigorously” in response to the SEC’s case, which is pending before U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson.
- Timothy Shea, who was charged alongside Donald Trump’s former adviser Steve Bannon in a scheme to defraud donors to a campaign to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border, is set to be sentenced in New York federal court. Shea, of Castle Rock, Colorado, was convicted at a trial in October on two conspiracy counts and one count of obstruction of justice. Two other defendants, the campaign’s leader Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, pleaded guilty.
- U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston will consider whether to enter a preliminary injunction against a Massachusetts middle school’s policy barring one of its students from wearing shirts that read “There are only two genders” and “There are censored genders.” Student Liam Morrison, who is represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, argues that the policy violates his right to free speech. Talwani rejected Morrison’s request for an emergency injunction against the policy, saying he waited too long to file it and his speech outside of school has not been curtailed.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- A jury in Oregon found PacifiCorp, a unit under Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, liable in a $1.6 billion class action over four wildfires in the state in 2020. Jurors in Portland, where the utility is based, awarded more than $73 million in compensatory damages to 17 plaintiffs, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said. (Reuters)
- The U.S. Supreme Court declined to decide whether requiring criminal defendants to pay a fixed amount of cash bail to secure their release from jail before trial violates the U.S. Constitution. The appeal, brought by a man who was required to remain in jail following a misdemeanor arrest because he could not afford to make a $1,000 bail payment, argued that jailing defendants due to their inability to pay bail violated the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. (Reuters)
- Instant Brands, the maker of Pyrex kitchenware, filed for bankruptcy, saying it had too much debt to withstand rising interest rates and tighter credit conditions. The company, controlled by private equity firm Cornell Capital, and 14 affiliates filed for Chapter 11 protection from creditors with the federal bankruptcy court in southern Texas, with as much as $1 billion of assets and liabilities. (Reuters)
- The Center for Autism and Related Disorders, which operates 130 treatment centers in the U.S., filed for bankruptcy in Texas with a plan to sell itself back to its founder. The company, which is majority-owned by the private equity firm Blackstone, said it suffered an $82 million net loss due to the pandemic. (Reuters)
- The City of New York will delay enforcing a new municipal law that Airbnb called a “de facto ban” against short-term rentals. The delay comes after a suit challenged the law, which requires hosts to be permanent occupants of the rented units and to register with the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement before posting rentals. (Reuters)
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- Clifford Chance hired transactional lawyers Alexandra Wilde from Jones Day and Enoch Varner from Kirkland & Ellis. The two partners will be part of the 10-partner group spearheading the launch of the London-founded firm’s new office in Houston. (Reuters)
- A group of four partners who advise on crisis and regulatory risk management and cybersecurity is moving from Wilson Sonsini to Freshfields. Beth George, a former U.S. Department of Defense official, will lead a newly formalized strategic risk and crisis management practice at Freshfields. (Reuters)
- Eisner hired entertainment litigator Jeffery McFarland as a partner in Los Angeles. He joins from McKool Smith. (Reuters)
- Allissa Pollard joined Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer’s complex litigation practice as a partner in Houston after 12 years at DLA Piper. (Reuters)
- Jennifer Saulino left Covington to join Sidley as a partner. Saulino will be part of the firm’s product liability and commercial litigation group in Washington, D.C. (Sidley)
- Dykema picked up appellate attorney Chantel Febus as a partner to lead the firm’s East Coast appeals practice from Washington, D.C. Previously, Febus was a partner at Proskauer Rose. (Dykema)
- Squire Patton Boggs added partner Andrea Dinamarco to its financial services practice group in Atlanta. Dinamarco joins from Reed Smith and has previously served as corporate counsel at Tesla and GM Financial. (Squire Patton Boggs)
- K&L Gates added Dominic Gregory as a partner in the firm’s Tokyo-based finance practice. Gregory was previously a partner in Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner’s London office. (K&L Gates)
- Justin Rosenberg has joined Simpson Thacher’s M&A practice in New York. Rosenberg was previously with Paul Weiss. (Simpson Thacher)
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Beyond the fences of your favorite course, golf carts are infiltrating all corners of the country. With roughly 15,000 golf cart related injuries every year, Erin Mindoro Ezra, David Ezra and James Harvey of Berger Kahn look at insurance coverage issues for accidents involving golf carts and low-speed vehicles. Depending on the type of golf cart, the kind of activity you plan to engage in, and the state you’re located in, you may not need to separately insure your golf cart, but the authors warn you could face serious personal liability exposure.
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