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Crypto industry convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried appears headed to prison. The open question is for just how long. Bankman-Fried and his defense lawyers this morning in Manhattan federal court will ask U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to reject prosecutors’ call for a prison term of 40 to 50 years.
Bankman-Fried, 32, faces the prospect of decades behind bars after a jury found him guilty on seven fraud and conspiracy counts. His sentencing will mark the culmination of Bankman-Fried’s downfall from an avatar of responsibility in the cryptocurrency sector to the biggest trophy to date in the U.S. crackdown on malfeasance in digital asset markets, our colleague Luc Cohen writes.
“His life in recent years has been one of unmatched greed and hubris; of ambition and rationalization; and courting risk and gambling repeatedly with other people’s money,” prosecutors told Kaplan in a recent filing. Bankman-Fried’s defense lawyer Marc Mukasey urged Kaplan to sentence him to significantly less than the minimum 5-1/4 years they say is called for under federal guidelines. Bankman-Fried, who pleaded not guilty, has vowed to appeal his conviction and sentence.
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- A California state judge said attorney John Eastman should be stripped of his law license for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump. Eastman, a former personal lawyer to Trump, was accused of violating attorney ethics rules and making false public statements. He has denied any wrongdoing. Eastman and Trump have been charged in Georgia for their alleged efforts to sway the 2020 election. They have pleaded not guilty.
- A federal judge agreed to receive counseling and training about workplace conduct after acknowledging “significant problems” raised by a law clerk who accused the judge of abusing and harassing staff. The judge’s name was not revealed in an order made public by Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Debra Ann Livingston of the New York-based 2nd Circuit. The misconduct complaint against the judge prompted an inquiry that revealed other clerks shared similar concerns.
- Weil closed its Beijing office late last year and is “engaged in discussions” over whether to close its Shanghai and consolidate its Asia operations through its Hong Kong office. The firm’s moves make it the latest to retreat from the Chinese market.
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That’s how much lateral hiring by law firms fell in 2023, marking the second straight year that firms brought on fewer associates and partners from competitors, according to a new report from the National Association for Law Placement. Law firms hired a median of four lateral attorneys per office in 2023, down from six in both 2022 and 2021, NALP found. The average number of lawyer laterals was 9.3 — a 42% decline from 15.9 in 2022. Both the median and average number of laterals for 2023 were the lowest since 2010.
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In a ruling on Tuesday that allows the SEC to proceed with its case against crypto exchange Coinbase, a Manhattan federal judge threw a bucket of ice-cold water on the crypto industry’s criticism of the SEC’s strategy of setting policy through enforcement actions. Alison Frankel has the details on Judge Katherine Polk Failla’s wholesale rejection of crypto arguments that SEC enforcement actions violate the Supreme Court’s major questions doctrine and defendants’ due process rights.
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“We’ll likely never know how Texas’s state courts and its state law enforcement officers would have implemented S.B. 4.“
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- The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation will meet in Charleston, North Carolina, and consider a host of venue disputes in cases involving claims of inflated residential real estate commissions; allegations of price-fixing in the concrete-additives market; lawsuits over baby food allegedly tainted with heavy metals; and cases accusing hotel chains of profiting off of human trafficking. The panel also will take up a venue dispute over NCAA student athlete compensation.
- U.S. prosecutors who charged British billionaire Joe Lewis with insider trading are scheduled to file court papers recommending a sentence for Lewis, who pleaded guilty in January to insider trading charges in Manhattan federal court. Lewis, represented by Skadden, is due to be sentenced on April 4. His lawyers have asked the court for probation. “Through his own fault and because of his notoriety, he has been humiliated in the worldwide media,” they said in a filing.
- The 7th Circuit will hear a Republican-backed lawsuit that contends an Illinois law that allows ballots to be received and counted for up to 14 days after Election Day conflicts with federal laws setting a uniform date for federal elections. U.S. District Judge John Kness last year dismissed the lawsuit. The Biden DOJ, which was granted some argument time, will ask the appeals court to uphold the ruling.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- A 9th Circuit panel appeared unlikely to overturn an injunction blocking Idaho’s Republican attorney general from prosecuting doctors who refer patients out of state to get an abortion. A lawyer in Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s office struggled to convince the appeals court that his boss would never enforce Idaho’s criminal abortion statute in such a way against medical providers.
- T-Mobile won its request to appeal a judge’s ruling that allowed a potential class of millions of Verizon and AT&T subscribers to move ahead with a lawsuit over the company’s $26 billion purchase of rival Sprint in 2020. Illinois U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin ruled that T-Mobile can appeal his order to the 7th Circuit now, rather than at a later stage in the case.
- Venezuela-owned oil refiner Citgo Petroleum is set to open a data room to provide operational and financial information to bidders under a court-ordered auction that could lead to new ownership. A Delaware federal judge last year launched an auction of shares in a parent of the Houston-based refiner to satisfy $21.3 billion in judgments for Venezuela’s past expropriations and debt defaults. The auction is due to wrap up this year.
- Reality-television star and entrepreneur Kim Kardashian was sued in California federal court for allegedly featuring fake versions of artist Donald Judd’s furniture in a YouTube video. The lawsuit said Kardashian unlawfully described “knockoff” Judd tables and chairs as genuine Judd furniture.
- The nonprofit Alley Cat Allies sued the U.S. National Park Service in D.C. federal court seeking to stop a plan that would remove, and in some cases kill, famed felines from a national historic site in Puerto Rico. The lawsuit said the agency violated federal environmental law last year when it approved the plan to remove hundreds of stray cats currently living in and around Old San Juan’s Paseo Del Morro National Recreation Trail.
- The 10th Circuit revived part of a cameraman’s copyright lawsuit against Netflix over the use of clips from his videos in its hit documentary series “Tiger King.” The court rejected an Oklahoma federal court’s determination that Netflix made fair use of one of Timothy Sepi’s videos in the show, though it affirmed that the streaming service had the right to use seven others.
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- Steptoe brought on New York-based partner Alexandra Scheibe, who was the head of McDermott’s financial technology and blockchain practice. (Reuters)
- Morrison Foerster added privacy and data security partners Kaylee Cox Bankston in D.C. and Boris Segalis in New York. (Reuters)
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