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Good morning. FTX is suing Sam Bankman-Fried and other former executives to recoup more than $1 billion they allegedly misappropriated before the cryptocurrency exchange went bankrupt. Plus, a Stanford law dean is stepping down months after she became the subject of a viral video during a protest over a conservative judge’s speech; objections to a proposed $725 million Facebook privacy settlement are piling up; and the FTC just withdrew its Microsoft-Activision case. Welcome to Friday.
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FTX Trading sued founder Sam Bankman-Fried and other former executives of the cryptocurrency exchange, seeking to recoup more than $1 billion they allegedly misappropriated before FTX went bankrupt, Jon Stempel reports.
The complaint, filed by Sullivan & Cromwell in Delaware bankruptcy court, also names as defendants Caroline Ellison, who led Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research hedge fund; former FTX technology chief Zixiao “Gary” Wang; and former FTX engineering director Nishad Singh. FTX said the defendants continually misappropriated funds to finance luxury condominiums, political contributions, speculative investments and other “pet projects” while committing “one of the largest financial frauds in history.”
A spokesman for Bankman-Fried declined to comment. Lawyers for the other defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Federal prosecutors have said Bankman-Fried was the mastermind of a fraud that led to FTX’s collapse and included the misappropriation of billions of dollars of customer funds. He has pleaded not guilty.
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- A Stanford Law School administrator who was involved in the disruption of a speech at the school last spring by conservative 5th Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan is leaving. A widely circulated video of the incident showed assistant dean Tirien Steinbach seemingly intervening on behalf of the protestors, saying the judge’s presence was painful for some students. Critics said her comments and her failure to try to quell the protestors were a violation of Stanford’s free speech policies. (Reuters)
- Brownstein Hyatt said it earned $15.65 million from federal lobbying work in the second quarter of 2023, maintaining its revenue lead in D.C.’s influence industry. The firm said the amount marked its strongest-ever second quarter. It has reported earning $31.41 million from its lobbying work so far this year. Akin reported lobbying revenue of $13.38 million for the past quarter, adding up to $26.69 million so far this year for its lobbying group. (Reuters)
- Global law firm Eversheds and China’s King & Wood Mallesons have agreed to refer legal work to one another in key markets, increasing Eversheds’ access to China as KWM begins to abandon its formal presence outside East Asia and Australia. (Reuters)
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Lawyers for the luxury fashion house Christian Dior have a plan to tame surging litigation against companies accused of violating Illinois’ biometric privacy law: Make plaintiffs pay defense fees if their cases are dismissed. Alison Frankel has the story on Dior’s first-of-a-kind bid for fees after warding off a BIPA class action.
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“Will I be able to enforce it? No.“
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—Sarah Zearfoss, senior assistant dean at University of Michigan’s law school, remarking on the school’s ban on aspiring attorneys using the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT as part of the admission process. Applicants must certify that they haven’t used those tools in the drafting process, an apparent first among law schools. Zearfoss said she expects applicants to honor the ban even if there is no clear way to identify when the technology has been used to draft essays and personal statements. Other schools plan to follow Michigan’s policy.
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What to catch up on this weekend
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- U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in D.C. federal court is slated to sentence Oath Keeper associate Michael Greene after a jury convicted him on misdemeanor charges for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Prosecutors said Greene, who did not enter the Capitol, served as one of Oath Keepers’ founder Stewart Rhodes’ top deputies and agreed to lead his operation on Jan. 6. Greene was on trial with several other Oath Keepers, but was acquitted of more serious felony charges. Prosecutors are seeking a year in prison, while Greene is asking for probation.
- In Los Angeles federal court, U.S. District Judge Josephine Staton will weigh a request from prosecutors to block testimony from a lawyer as a defense witness for disbarred plaintiffs’ attorney Tom Girardi. Prosecutors charged Girardi in February with stealing client funds, and there is a dispute now over whether he is competent to stand trial. The witness is expected to assert that Girardi is unable to properly assist in his defense. Prosecutors oppose the testimony of the witness, a lawyer, as being “duplicative of observations and opinions cataloged at length by medical experts.” A competency hearing is scheduled in August.
- Attorneys for Qualcomm shareholders and lawyers for the company are due to respond to Apple’s effort to shield two executives — Jeffrey Williams, who has served as Apple’s chief operating office since 2015, and Bruce Watrous, the company’s chief corporate and commercial counsel — from being required to sit and answer questions in a securities lawsuit. Apple, Williams and Watrous are not parties to the 2017 lawsuit, which alleged Qualcomm made misrepresentations about certain business practices that artificially boosted shares between 2012 and 2017. Lawyers from Gibson Dunn represent Apple and the two executives.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- Papa John’s can’t force a Louisville, Kentucky, pizza delivery driver to arbitrate a claim that he was underpaid by invoking an arbitration agreement he said he never saw, a 6th Circuit panel said. The Cincinnati-based court said a trial judge was wrong to dismiss Andrew Bazemore’s claim that the pizza chain violated federal labor law by not reimbursing him enough for costs to operate his vehicle. (Reuters)
- Purdue University cannot question Gregg Lowe, chief executive of semiconductor maker Wolfspeed, over the school’s allegations that President Joe Biden intervened in the company’s challenge to a Purdue patent, U.S. Magistrate Judge Patrick Auld in North Carolina ruled. Auld said it was “implausible” that Biden played any role in the matter so swiftly after he toured the company’s headquarters in Durham. (Reuters)
- The full D.C. Circuit declined to reconsider lawsuits challenging the EPA’s finding that greenhouse gasses, including carbon dioxide, pose a danger to human health and welfare. The court denied a petition for rehearing en banc filed by the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council and the FAIR Energy Foundation, which advocate against regulations promoting clean energy. (Reuters)
- New York City has agreed to pay $13 million to hundreds of people arrested during the 2020 George Floyd demonstrations, according to attorneys for the plaintiffs, who said it was the largest class action settlement ever paid to protesters in the U.S. Under the settlement, which requires approval by U.S. District Court Judge Colleen McMahon, the city agreed to pay $9,950 to each of the more than 1,300 protesters arrested by New York police officers during various protests between May 28 and June 4, 2020, according to the attorneys. (Reuters)
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- K&L Gates added Rebecca Moll Freed as a government contracts and procurement policy partner in Newark, New Jersey. She joins the firm from Genova Burns. (K&L Gates)
- Greenspoon Marder hired partner Jon Purow for its cannabis law and intellectual property practices. Purow, who will be based out of Newark, New Jersey, and New York, was previously at Zuber Lawler. (Greenspoon Marder)
- Bert Stemmler joined Polsinelli as a shareholder in the firm’s investment funds, joint ventures and alternative strategies practice group, based out of Nashville. Stemmler was previously head of legal and compliance at Open Web Collective. (Polsinelli)
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