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Good morning. The Federal Reserve accepted some of the responsibility for the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, but legal experts say the blame it put on the bank’s executives could be a help to suing shareholders. Plus, Cornell fills the big law firm pipeline, and the DOJ suffers a fourth trial loss in a year in an antitrust labor and employment case. Yep, it’s May already.
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REUTERS/Brittany Hosea-Small
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A scathing Federal Reserve report on the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank could be a boon to shareholders suing the defunct lender’s executives for allegedly hiding risks that led to its stunning downfall, legal experts told Jack Queen.
In the report released on Friday, the Fed took its own share of the blame for SVB’s sudden collapse – but it also concluded that “foundational and widespread managerial weaknesses” at the bank left it “acutely exposed.”
“I see this (Fed) report as being extraordinarily useful evidence to dangle in front of a judge or jury on class action lawsuits against accounting firms,” said Duke University School of Law professor James Cox.
And lawyers representing shareholders are paying attention.
“What we’ve seen is consistent with what we alleged, which is that this is a failure of risk management at the bank,” said attorney Adam Polk, whose law firm has brought a case against SVB entities in California state court.
The report also has something for the defense, experts said.
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Cornell sent a higher percentage of its 2022 graduates into jobs at large law firms than any other U.S. law school, new data from the ABA shows. The Ivy League school took the top spot in 2021 as well. (Reuters)
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Global law firm Squire Patton Boggs became the latest law firm to set up an office in Dublin, with the Irish capital continuing to attract international law firms. (Reuters)
- The federal charges against two people for allegedly running a Chinese “secret police station” in New York marked the latest case in prosecutors’ use of a century-old law meant to curb the activity of foreign agents. The DOJ last year charged at least 25 people with violating or conspiring to violate the law, the highest number since at least 2003, according to a Reuters analysis. Prosecutors have charged at least nine since the start of this year. (Reuters)
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REUTERS/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades
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That’s how many more seats Republicans could gain in the U.S. House of Representatives after the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed itself and held that state law does not ban gerrymandering. The court originally threw out a Republican-drawn congressional map that likely would have secured the party 11 of the state’s 14 seats, forcing Republicans and Democrats to split the seats evenly in November under a court-approved map. But in the same election, the court’s majority shifted from liberals to conservatives, and the new court found that North Carolina’s constitution does not address partisan gerrymandering. The ruling could help Republicans maintain their narrow majority in the House.
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The Justice Department issued revised guidance to judges, prosecutors and police around the country last week on unfair fines and fees associated with the justice system, warning that officials “should be driven by justice – not revenue.” The letter reinstates legal positions first taken under the Obama administration in 2016, including that officials violate the law when they punish people for failure-to-pay without assessing the individual’s ability to pay. Columnist Hassan Kanu writes that the DOJ’s new guidance goes further in some places, but also backpedals on the key issue of bail reform.
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“This is a tale of two women, two teenage dreams and one name.“
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—Judge Brigitte Markovic of Australian federal court, ruling that pop superstar Katy Perry’s company Kitty Purry partially infringed the trademark of a Sydney-based fashion designer who has sold her products locally under a label with her birth name “Katie Perry.” Katie Taylor alleged in her lawsuit that the singer ignored the trademark and sold Katy Perry clothing to Australian customers during her concert tours, through retailers and on websites. The judge dismissed a bid by the popstar seeking to cancel the Katie Perry trademark. Damages will be decided at a later date.
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In the D.C. Circuit, Judges Sri Srinivasan, Patricia Millett and J. Michelle Childs will take up the FTC’s bid to revive its antitrust case against Endo International. Represented by Dechert’s George Gordon, Endo has disputed the FTC’s claims of an unlawful agreement to reduce competition for a pain drug. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in March 2022 ruled for Endo, saying it had a “lawful patent monopoly” that was protected under intellectual property law. Endo’s lawyers told the D.C. Circuit that the company “has publicly announced that it has ceased research and development of new opioid medications and has not launched a single opioid medication.” The FTC’s Mark Hegedus will argue for the agency.
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Ticketmaster and its parent Live Nation will defend themselves at a week-long jury trial in the Western District of Texas over claims that their e-ticketing system infringes two patents owned by patent licensor Global eTicket Exchange. U.S. District Judge Alan Albright in Waco is presiding over the trial. Lawyers from Fish & Richardson represent Ticketmaster and Live Nation, and Global eTicket is represented by the firms Leichtman Law and Mort Law Firm.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold an ethics hearing at which Chief Justice John Roberts was called on to testify but declined. The committee’s Democratic chairman, Senator Dick Durbin, had asked the chief justice to appear before the panel to address potential reforms to ethics rules governing the justices. Durbin cited “a steady stream of revelations regarding justices falling short of the ethical standards.” After Roberts said he would not appear, the committee called on him to provide details about the top court’s ethics practices. Durbin asked Roberts to respond by May 1.
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Also on Tuesday, an 11th Circuit panel will take up ousted Florida elected state prosecutor Andrew Warren’s First Amendment retaliation claim against Republican Governor Ron DeSantis. Warren was the top prosecutor for Tampa when DeSantis removed him over his stance, articulated in a letter with other state prosecutors across the country, against prosecuting abortion rights cases. The appeals court agreed to fast-track its review of Tallahassee U.S. District Judge Mark Walker’s order against Warren. Walker said he found DeSantis had run afoul of U.S. and state constitutional speech protections, but the judge said his hands were tied. Walker last week was assigned to hear Disney’s lawsuit against DeSantis.
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On Wednesday, Massachusetts’ highest court will consider whether to revive a state fiduciary duty rule that was central to an enforcement action that securities regulators filed against the online brokerage Robinhood. Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Michael Ricciuti last year sided with Robinhood in a lawsuit it filed after Massachusetts Secretary of State Bill Galvin in December 2020 accused it of encouraging inexperienced investors to place risky trades. The judge’s decision to invalidate the fiduciary rule knocked out a key part of the case against Robinhood, which is on hold pending the outcome of Galvin’s appeal.
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On Friday, the DOJ will urge U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta to sentence welder Peter Schwartz to more than 24 years in prison for assaulting police officers during the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Prosecutors say Schwartz, a convicted felon, came to Washington, D.C., that day “intent on violence,” and credit him with throwing a chair that created a break in a line of officers that enabled hundreds of rioters to break through to the Capitol. Schwartz, whose attorneys have said he was the victim of misinformation, was convicted at a jury trial in December. If imposed, the sentence would be the longest for anyone convicted following the riots.
Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Virginia denied Google’s motion to dismiss a DOJ antitrust case seeking to force the search giant to sell its ad manager suite, saying the government’s case was strong enough to go forward. Arguing for Google, Eric Mahr of Freshfields said the DOJ failed to allege a high enough market share to be able to say that Google had market power, but Brinkema said that factors beyond market share should be considered. (Reuters)
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The Biden administration asked the 5th Circuit to put on hold a judge’s ruling striking down the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that requires insurers to cover preventive care, including screenings for certain cancers and pre-exposure prophylaxis against HIV, at no extra cost to patients. The DOJ said the order, from U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, “has no legal justification and threatens the public health.” (Reuters)
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The DOJ suffered its fourth trial loss in a year amid its new push to extend criminal antitrust laws to cover labor and employment practices. U.S. District Judge Victor Bolden in Connecticut federal court acquitted six aerospace engineering managers at the end of a weeks-long trial and before any jury verdict. The defendants’ companies face a related private civil action. (Reuters)
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- Winston & Strawn rehired Rachel Ingwer, a New York-based tax partner who left for Lowenstein Sandler two years ago. (Reuters)
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