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REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
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The battle between Apple and “Fortnite” maker Epic Games rages on – and it’s drawing in some new names, reports our colleague Jon Stempel.
In a court filing, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Elon Musk’s X and Match Group joined Epic’s’ protest that Apple has failed to honor a court-ordered injunction governing payments in its lucrative App Store. The technology companies, which developed some of the most popular apps in the App Store, said Apple was in “clear violation” of the September 2021 injunction by making it difficult to steer consumers to cheaper means to pay for digital content.
Epic sued Apple in 2020, saying it violated antitrust law by requiring consumers to obtain apps through the App Store and charging developers up to 30% commissions on purchases.The injunction required Apple to let developers provide links and buttons to direct consumers to alternative payment options, but last week Epic told the court that new rules and a new 27% fee on developers made the links effectively useless.
Apple declined to comment specifically on the accusation but pointed to a January statement that said it had fully complied with the injunction, which it said would protect consumers and “the integrity of Apple’s ecosystem” while ensuring that developers do not get a free ride.
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- U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan declined to sanction Michael Cohen, the former lawyer and fixer for Donald Trump, for mistakenly giving his lawyer fake case citations generated by AI, while calling the episode “embarrassing” for the lawyer and Cohen himself.
- An ex-partner at Lewis Brisbois has sued the law firm for alleged racial discrimination, citing offensive emails between former practice leaders at the firm that were made public last year. A firm spokesperson said it was evaluating the lawsuit, and that the firm had implemented policy changes since learning of its former partners’ conduct.
- U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman in Washington, D.C., approved a $125 million settlement resolving claims that the federal judiciary overcharged users of its PACER electronic court records system for downloading documents and awarded the plaintiffs’ lawyers nearly $25 million in fees and expenses. The judge granted final approval to a class action settlement that its backers say will reimburse the “vast majority” of PACER users in full for excessive fees charged over eight years.
- Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada became the first Democrat to publicly announce she will not support President Joe Biden’s nomination of Adeel Mangi to become the nation’s first Muslim federal appeals court judge, endangering his ability to win Senate confirmation. Mangi, a New Jersey resident and partner at the law firm Patterson Belknap, has faced stiff Republican opposition that has jeopardized his nomination to the 3rd Circuit.
- The North Carolina Justice for All Project shifted its sights in a lawsuit challenging legal practice rules in the state, naming five state district attorneys and North Carolina State Bar president Todd Brown as defendants after North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said he was the wrong target. The nonprofit and two paralegals filed an amended complaint in the case, which seeks to clear a path for non-lawyers to give limited legal advice..
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That’s how many attorneys – including partners at Cooley and Shook Hardy & Bacon and attorneys at Lambda Legal and the ACLU – are facing potential sanctions after a panel of Alabama federal judges concluded they engaged in impermissible judge shopping for a lawsuit challenging Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. Nate Raymond reports on what the judges found.
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A dog named Carter and a cat named Sassie are at the heart of a civil procedure puzzle now under consideration at the U.S. Supreme Court. Alison Frankel has the story of a new opposition brief urging the justices to skip a case posing the question of whether federal courts should base jurisdictional analysis on the complaint as it appears at the time defendants removed the case or on a complaint amended to strip away references to federal law. Carter and Sassie, Frankel writes, are a good reminder that real creatures underlie even the wonkiest civ pro issues.
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“Only those consumers who are deemed worthy of purchasing a Birkin handbag will be shown a Birkin handbag (in a private room).“
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—Two California consumers, who filed a new lawsuit claiming French luxury house Hermès unlawfully allows only customers with “sufficient purchase history” with the company to buy its famed Birkin handbags. The lawsuit, a proposed class action, claims that consumers cannot purchase a Birkin online from Hermès, and that the leather bags, which are handcrafted and can cost thousands of dollars each, are not displayed for sale in the company’s retail stores.
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- The 6th Circuit will hear a challenge to the Biden administration’s cancellation of $39 billion of student loan debt, which it aimed to wipe out after the U.S. Supreme Court last year blocked the president’s even bigger $430 billion student loan debt cancellation plan. The justices sided with six conservative-leaning states that objected to Biden’s student loan forgiveness.
- Nadine Menendez, who was indicted on bribery charges alongside her husband, New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, is expected to appear in Manhattan federal court for a hearing on a possible conflict of interest involving her lawyers that arose after she was hit with additional charges of obstruction of justice. Prosecutors say her attorneys, David Schertler, Danny Onorato and Paola Pinto of Schertler Onorato Mead & Sears could be called as witnesses in the case.
- Attorneys for British billionaire Joe Lewis face a deadline to file their arguments ahead of his April sentencing on insider trading charges. Lewis pleaded guilty in January to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and two counts of securities fraud under an agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan. As part of the plea deal, Lewis can appeal if the judge in the case sentences him to prison time, his lawyer David Zornow said.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- U.S. District Judge Nancy Maldonado, Biden’s newest nominee to the 7th Circuit, defended her record as Senate Republicans grilled her on how she had amassed one of the largest case backlogs of any federal trial court judge nationally. Republicans during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing cited data showing that she ranked seventh highest nationally among district court judges with civil motions pending without a ruling for over six months.
- H&R Block sued the FTC, seeking an order that could upend the agency’s case accusing the tax giant of misleading consumers about the scope of its free tax-filing services. The lawsuit claims the FTC’s use of internal administrative law judges to hear cases violates the U.S. Constitution.
- UFC said it has agreed to pay $335 million to settle class actions claiming it artificially suppressed wages of martial arts fighters and owed them potentially more than $1 billion. UFC parent TKO disclosed the settlement in a filing to the SEC. UFC has denied suppressing wages.
- The DOJ sued Campbell Soup, alleging the company’s plant in northwestern Ohio has for years illegally released too much bacteria, phosphorus and other contaminants into a river that feeds into Lake Erie. The lawsuit, brought on behalf of the EPA, was filed hours after two environmental groups filed their own lawsuit in the same court making similar claims.
- The 4th Circuit appeared likely to reject arguments that Maryland’s ban on assault weapons is unconstitutional in light of a 2022 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that broadly expanded gun rights. Several judges on the en banc panel expressed skepticism that the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms bars states from banning dangerous weapons like the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.
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Privacy litigation remains one of the fastest growing practice areas in the U.S. The latest boomlet in the field seems to be in New Jersey, where over 140 lawsuits have been filed in February alone against data brokers, alleging violations of New Jersey’s “Daniel’s Law,” write Philip Yannella and Tim Dickens of Blank Rome.
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