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Good morning. An unusual twist in the DOJ’s blockbuster antitrust lawsuit against Google over digital advertising: Google says it preemptively paid the DOJ the damages it owes, a move the company says should eliminate the need for a jury trial. Plus, Ed Blum takes on Southwest’s program offering free tickets to Hispanic students, and a judge says Ultragenyx can’t dodge a lawsuit filed by the estate of Henrietta Lacks over the use of cells taken from Lacks’ body in the 1950s. All that and “endless shrimp” – scroll on!
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Alphabet’s Google has preemptively paid damages to the U.S. government, an unusual move aimed at avoiding a jury trial in the DOJ’s blockbuster antitrust lawsuit over its digital advertising business, Mike Scarcella reports.
Google disclosed the payment, but not the amount, in a court filing last week that said the case should be heard and decided by a judge directly. Without a monetary damages claim, Google argued, the government has no right to a jury trial.
The DOJ, which has not said if it will accept the payment, declined to comment on the filing. Google asserted that its check, which it said covered its alleged overcharges for online ads, allows it to sidestep a jury trial whether or not the government takes it.
“Antitrust cases regularly go to juries,” Stanford Law School’s Mark Lemley told Reuters. “I think it is a sign that Google is worried about what a jury will do.”
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The DOJ will have a chance to respond to Google’s arguments before a judge considers the question at a hearing scheduled for June 21. The trial is set for September, currently before a jury.
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- Law schools may soon have more information about the educational and economic challenges applicants have faced on their path to a law degree. The Law School Admission Council is developing a new “environmental context” metric pertaining to colleges and universities based on factors such as institutional student spending, graduation rates, and the percentage of undergraduates who received federal need-based Pell Grants.
- The U.S. Senate confirmed President Joe Biden’s nominee Seth Aframe to a seat on the 1st Circuit, making the Boston-based federal appeals court the only one where all active judges are Democratic appointees.
- International law firm Baker McKenzie has dropped its lawsuit that sought to force the IRS to publicly disclose more information about an expanded IRS tax compliance crackdown on large partnerships. The firm said in a filing in D.C. federal court that it was voluntarily dismissing the March lawsuit, which sought records under the federal Freedom of Information Act.
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That’s how much Red Lobster lost in the past year after its former CEO Paul Kenny decided to make a $20 endless shrimp dish a permanent, year-round option, according to court documents it filed as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing. Around the same time that the chain made “endless shrimp” a permanent menu option, the company undertook a “quality review” that eliminated two of Red Lobster’s breaded shrimp suppliers, leaving its parent company Thai Union with an exclusive deal that led to higher costs for Red Lobster, the company’s current CEO Jonathan Tibus wrote in a court filing. Red Lobster said that its business has suffered from poor management decisions, high inflation, unsustainable rent costs and increased competition in the restaurant industry.
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“All his lies and forged documents were in support of his biggest lie: his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto.“
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—Judge James Mellor of London’s High Court in a written ruling that gave reasons for his prior conclusion that an Australian computer scientist who claimed he invented bitcoin is not “Satoshi Nakamoto,” the pseudonymous inventor of the cryptocurrency. The judge said Craig Wright, who had long claimed to have been the author of a 2008 white paper that was the foundational text of bitcoin, lied “extensively and repeatedly” and forged documents “on a grand scale” to support his false claim. Wright said in a post on X that he plans to appeal the decision.
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- Former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial continues today as his defense attorneys present their side of the case to the Manhattan jury. Robert Costello, a one time attorney for Trump, was on the stand as the day ended on Monday. Costello’s behavior drew a reprimand from the judge, who briefly cleared the courtroom to address him.
- California’s top state court will consider a labor union’s challenge to a ballot measure allowing app-based services such as Uber and Lyft to treat drivers as independent contractors rather than more costly employees. The Service Employees International Union and several gig drivers appealed a lower court decision to the California Supreme Court.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- The estate of Henrietta Lacks can move forward with a lawsuit against biopharmaceutical company Ultragenyx over the use of cells taken from Lacks’ body in the 1950s, a Maryland federal court said. U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman rejected Ultragenyx’s motion to dismiss the case, ruling that the estate had plausibly claimed that Ultragenyx wrongly profited from its research using the “immortal” HeLa cell line.
- Shopify convinced a Delaware federal court to overturn a jury’s decision that the company owes $40 million in damages for infringing patents related to website-building technology. U.S. District Judge Richard Andrews said in an opinion that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury’s findings that Shopify infringed the patents, which belong to patent-holding company Express Mobile.
- GSK has been sued by an independent Connecticut laboratory that accused the drugmaker of defrauding the U.S. government and taxpayers by concealing cancer risks in Zantac, once a blockbuster heartburn drug. In a whistleblower complaint, Valisure said GSK violated the federal False Claims Act by hiding the risks for nearly four decades while Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs covered billions of dollars of prescriptions.
- The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a Democratic-backed ban in Maryland on assault-style rifles such as AR-15s, steering clear of the dispute while the litigation continues in a lower court. The justices turned away an appeal by commercial firearms dealers, gun rights groups and several Maryland residents who had asked the Supreme Court to decide the legality of the ban before the 4th Circuit issues a ruling in the case.
- CoStar and a group of high-end hotels including Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott have asked a U.S. judge to dismiss claims that they improperly shared data to keep room prices artificially high, calling the case “fanciful.” CoStar and the six hotel operators said in their Seattle federal court filing that there was no evidence that the companies conspired to fix prices.
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- Latham hired D.C.-based healthcare and life sciences partners Jennifer Bragg and Bill McConagha from Skadden. Latham also brought on real estate partner Douglas Heitner in New York from real estate investment trust Safehold, where he was chief legal officer.
- Goodwin added Silicon Valley-based partner Andrew Harper to its technology and climate technology practices. He arrives from Sidley. (Goodwin)
- Cleary Gottlieb hired Matthew Mao as a debt finance partner in New York. He rejoins the firm from Fanatics where he was senior vice president of legal. (Cleary)
- Akin brought on Kevin Brady, a former U.S. House Ways and Means Committee chairman, as a senior policy consultant in D.C. (Akin)
- BakerHostetler added Greg Dillard in Houston as a litigation and energy partner, and leader of a new catastrophic accident response team. Dillard was previously at Baker Botts. (BakerHostetler)
- Squire Patton Boggs hired Miami-based financial services partner Emil Infante. He arrives from ERI Global Solutions. (Squire Patton Boggs)
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- Littler picked up partner Gregory Tumolo in Providence from Lewis Brisbois, where he was co-chair of the employment advice and counseling practice. (Littler)
- Locke Lord added partner Isreal Miller in Dallas. Miller, who is joining the firm’s private wealth practice group, was previously at Atwood & McCall. (Locke Lord)
- Cleary Gottlieb hired Matthew Mao as a debt finance partner in New York. He rejoins the firm from Fanatics where he was senior vice president of legal. (Cleary)
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