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Good morning. The Biden DOJ will argue today in the 5th Circuit against a Louisiana judge’s curbs on the administration’s contacts with social media firms. The SEC, meanwhile, says it will challenge a ruling in the Ripple digital tokens case; another big law firm will require its lawyers to work four days in the office; and a federal appeals court just struck down a decades-old firearms ownership regulation. Let’s dive in.
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REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration
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A 5th Circuit panel will consider at a hearing today lifting a Louisiana federal judge’s order that limited the Biden administration’s ability to communicate with social media companies to urge them to moderate information it deems harmful or misleading, Brendan Pierson reports. Circuit Judges Edith Brown Clement, Jennifer Walker Elrod and Don Willett, all appointed by Republican presidents, will hear arguments.
U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s July 4 ruling came at the request of Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri who claimed that conservative speech had been censored on social media platforms, particularly about COVID-19 policies. The 5th Circuit has paused Doughty’s order pending the outcome of the Biden administration’s appeal.
The administration denies forcing social media companies to take down any posts. It said Doughty’s order hampers its ability to deal with misinformation in emergencies and violates the government’s own right to speak freely. D. John Sauer will argue for Louisiana, and Joshua Divine, the Missouri solicitor general, will represent his state. They’ll face DOJ appellate veteran Daniel Tenny. The case has drawn numerous friend-of-the-court briefs, which have broken down largely along partisan lines.
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- Vinson & Elkins joined a growing number of law firms pushing to bring back their lawyers to the office at least four days a week. Vinson’s lawyers and staffers will have to work in the office every weekday except either Monday or Friday starting on Sept. 11. Other firms including Davis Polk, Skadden and Weil each said earlier this summer that their lawyers would be expected in the office Monday through Thursday starting after Labor Day. (Reuters)
- Harvard University lost a bid for an insurer to cover up to $15 million of the costs of defending itself in a lawsuit that led to the U.S. Supreme Court barring it and other colleges from considering race as an admissions factor. The 1st Circuit upheld a lower-court judge’s ruling that said that the Ivy League school waited too long to ask a unit of Zurich Insurance Group to cover expenses arising from the lawsuit. (Reuters)
- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended a lead county prosecutor after accusing her of being soft on crime, making her the second Democrat elected as a state’s attorney to be removed by the Republican presidential hopeful. DeSantis issued an executive order suspending 9th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Monique Worrell and replacing her with Orange County Judge Andrew Bain, who the governor appointed to the bench in 2020. In the other suspension, the 11th Circuit is weighing Tampa prosecutor Andrew Warren’s bid for reinstatement. (Reuters)
- The ABA has launched a task force aimed at bolstering public trust in elections, headed by former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and former federal appellate judge J. Michael Luttig. (Reuters)
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That’s the hourly rate a U.S. judge in Florida set as reasonable for a pair of veteran partners at Gibson Dunn who each usually bill at more than $1,800 an hour. U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles in Miami, approving a magistrate’s recommendation, awarded Gibson Dunn more than $150,000 in fees and costs, a big reduction in what the firm sought in a petition. Gibson Dunn’s investment fund client Peak One prevailed in the case, defeating securities-related claims from plaintiff Social Life Network. Gayles and Chief U.S. Magistrate Edwin Torres found Gibson Dunn’s claimed rates in the securities case too high for the Miami market.
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For those of us who did not win Tuesday’s $1.58 billion Mega Millions lottery jackpot, here’s some consolation: Dealing with sudden, massive wealth is not easy. In her latest column, Jenna Greene looks at the case of “Lottery Lawyer” Jason Kurland, who this summer was sentenced to 13 years in prison for defrauding three lottery-winning clients. Kurland has appealed his conviction to the Second Circuit, arguing evidence was wrongly seized and that he acted in good faith. But prosecutors say the victims “thought they had hired an attorney that they could trust, and what they got was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
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“When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.“
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- The DOJ is due in D.C. federal court to propose a trial date for Donald Trump on charges that he conspired to defraud the U.S. by preventing Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory and to deprive voters of their right to a fair election. The charges stem from a sprawling investigation into allegations that Trump sought to reverse his loss to Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty. In Florida federal court today, two aides to Trump are set to enter pleas in a case accusing the former U.S. president of unlawfully taking classified documents with him after leaving office. Trump pleaded not guilty last week.
- In San Francisco federal court, U.S. District Judge William Alsup will hear arguments on motions raised by Google and Sonos in the wake of a May patent trial where Sonos won more than $32 million from Google for infringing a smart-speaker patent. Google has asked Alsup to throw out the verdict or hold a new trial, while Sonos has asked for additional damages and a permanent ban on sales of infringing smart speakers like Google Home. The case is part of a sprawling intellectual property dispute between the former collaborators.
- E-commerce platform eBay and former CEO Devin Winig will urge a Boston federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit by a Massachusetts couple who said they were stalked and harassed by the e-commerce company’s employees after their online newsletter drew ire from top executives. David and Ina Steiner accused eBay of conspiring through its employees and contractors to “intimidate, threaten to kill, torture, terrorize, stalk and silence them” for their reporting. Federal prosecutors have said the Steiners were subjected in the summer of 2019 to anonymous email and Twitter threats and other forms of harassment. Wenig’s lawyers, including Abbe Lowell of Winston & Strawn, contend the Steiners’ complaint is devoid of any “well-pleaded facts plausibly suggesting that Wenig” committed any wrongdoing.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- Mixed martial arts promoter UFC must face an antitrust class of more than 1,200 current and former fighters who alleged their bout wages have been unlawfully suppressed. They are seeking upwards of $1.6 billion in damages in Nevada federal court. Lawyers for UFC at Paul Weiss said they will appeal U.S. District Judge Richard Boulware’s class certification order. (Reuters)
- Nio investors can proceed as a class in a lawsuit claiming the Chinese electric vehicle maker lied about building its own factory in Shanghai during its 2018 IPO, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis ruled. The lawsuit, filed by The Rosen Law Firm in federal court in New York, seeks damages for a decline in share price after the carmaker said in March 2019 that it had scrapped plans to build the new factory it had said was “under construction” during the IPO. (Reuters)
- Bankrupt trucking company Yellow will not seek court approval to borrow $142.5 million from private equity firm Apollo Global Management as planned, instead seeking time to explore alternate loan offers. Yellow has received similar-sized loan offers from MFN Partners, an investment firm that owns 41% of Yellow’s stock, and Estes Express Lines, a rival in freight trucking, Yellow’s attorney Pat Nash of Kirkland & Ellis told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Craig Goldblatt at a court hearing in Wilmington, Delaware. (Reuters)
- Now-defunct Ohio drug distributor Masters Pharmaceutical agreed to pay no more than about $4 million to settle lawsuits by cities and counties that it contributed to the U.S. opioid epidemic, after the state’s top court ruled that one of its insurers did not have to cover costs stemming from the cases. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled last year that mutual insurance company Acuity did not have to cover Masters’ legal costs in 22 lawsuits by cities and counties, so the settlement is limited by the funds from Masters’ only available insurance policy through Chubb, according to an order by U.S. District Judge Dan Polster. (Reuters)
- The U.S. special counsel investigating Donald Trump obtained a search warrant for the former president’s Twitter account in January and the company delayed complying, according to a newly unsealed D.C. Circuit opinion. The appeals court affirmed a federal trial judge’s decision to hold Twitter, now known as X, in contempt and fine it $350,000. (Reuters)
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- King & Spalding added Sean Royall as head of antitrust and consumer protection. Royall, based in the firm’s D.C. and Houston offices, formerly co-led a similar practice at Sidley. (Reuters)
- Alston & Bird hired partners Michael Hefter, Seth Cohen and Ryan Philp for the firm’s litigation and trial practice group. The trio join from Hogan Lovells, and will be based in the New York office. (Alston & Bird)
- Polsinelli added Chicago-based private equity partner Raymond Jacobi from HMB Legal Counsel. (Polsinelli)
- Brian Schall joined Barnes & Thornburg as a partner in the entertainment, media and sports practice group. Schall was previously with Wolf, Rifkin, Shapiro, Schulman & Rabkin. (Barnes & Thornburg)
- Womble Bond Dickinson hired partners Robert Broadbent and Cherylyn Harley LeBon for its government contracts and cross border trade practice. Broadbent was previously acting associate general counsel for the Department of Defense’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and LeBon joins from Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig.
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