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Commercial Contracts

  • July 23, 2025

    Firm Can't Arbitrate After Filing Suit, 4th Circ. Says

    A Maryland law firm and a debt buyer cannot force a debt collection dispute into arbitration, the Fourth Circuit ruled Wednesday, finding they waived their right to arbitrate when they filed their own collective action.

  • July 23, 2025

    7th Circ. Revives Part Of Solar Firm's Panama Grid Suit

    The Seventh Circuit on Tuesday largely upheld an Illinois federal judge's ruling that Spanish energy company Avanzalia Solar could not pursue its claims that Goldwind Americas blocked and delayed access to the Panamanian power grid.

  • July 23, 2025

    Bird Marella And Bioscience Client Accused Of $87M Fraud

    An investment group that includes a "Toy Story" screenwriter is suing a Culver City, California-headquartered bioscience company and its Bird Marella attorneys in California state court, accusing them of manipulating the valuation of a company whose acquisition they funded, in order to defraud investors of $87 million.

  • July 22, 2025

    Investor Sanctioned For Ignoring Telecom Arbitration Award

    A New York federal judge has sanctioned an investor in telecommunications infrastructure firm Continental Towers LATAM Holdings Ltd. for ignoring an arbitral award issued in a bitter, yearslong dispute over control of the company, saying he hasn't done enough to vacate offending judgments in the British Virgin Islands.

  • July 22, 2025

    Wash. Appeals Court Affirms Biz Tax Rule For Drop Shippers

    The Washington Court of Appeals upheld the state's rule on Tuesday that out-of-state wholesalers in drop shipment transactions are subject to a business tax when the customer that ultimately receives the product is within the Evergreen State's borders, rejecting a challenge from California IT distributor Synnex.

  • July 22, 2025

    NY Judge Backs Calif. Bioscience Co. In $15M Arbitration Row

    A New York federal judge has ruled that a California-based bioscience company can enforce an arbitration award rejecting a more than $15 million claim asserted by a Hong Kong biopharmaceutical firm, saying there is no genuine dispute since the biopharmaceutical firm failed to respond.

  • July 22, 2025

    DOJ Backs Door Maker's Divestiture Order In 4th Circ. Appeal

    The U.S. Department of Justice cleared a door maker's merger twice by the time a rival challenged the tie-up in court and won a landmark divestment order, but now the government is standing behind the company that won the order and asking the Fourth Circuit to keep it in place.

  • July 22, 2025

    Sandals Owes Longtime Ad Partner $50K In Copyright Trial

    Resort giant Sandals owes nearly $50,000 to a former, longtime, advertising partner for copyright infringement regarding 33 photos and videos, a Florida federal judge ruled Monday following a bench trial, but found that over 600 other claimed works don't qualify for damages.

  • July 22, 2025

    Fubo Streamers Get Own Attys In Disney Suit

    DiCello Levitt and Lite DePalma have won out over Bathaee Dunne in a battle to represent FuboTV subscribers suing Disney over ESPN streaming rates, with a judge saying he had "grave doubts" that Yavar Bathaee could adequately represent the plaintiffs after Bathaee undercut their case in a status conference.

  • July 22, 2025

    Fair Use Carveout Applies To Med Device Repairs, Judge Says

    A D.C. federal judge has shot down two industry groups' challenge to a rule that placed medical device diagnostic procedures and repairs under fair use copyright exceptions, saying all of their challenges under the Administrative Procedure Act were unpersuasive.

  • July 22, 2025

    Jordan's Team Says NASCAR Is Trying To 'Rewrite History'

    Michael Jordan's NASCAR team 23XI Racing accused the private stock car racing organization of filing a bad faith countersuit in the parties' antitrust battle, using it to extract a valuable aspect of a joint charter agreement.

  • July 22, 2025

    Pot Co. Claims Landlord Stole Trade Secrets, Started Rival Co.

    A Los Angeles dispensary and cannabis grower has claimed that its landlord, the Art Rubinstein Family Trust, lured it into a business partnership so the landlord could steal trade secrets and later coerce the tenant into extending its lease, according to a lawsuit filed in California state court.

  • July 22, 2025

    Ex-Bank Worker's 401(k) Suit Must Be Arbitrated, 5th Circ. Told

    A Laredo, Texas-based bank told the Fifth Circuit Monday that a former worker should be forced to arbitrate a proposed class action claiming the company failed to prudently invest employee retirement funds, even though the provision was added after his employment ended.

  • July 22, 2025

    Viks Demand End To Deutsche Bank's 'Egregious' Norway Suit

    Billionaire Alexander Vik and his daughter have opened a new front in a 12-year litigation war with Deutsche Bank AG over an outstanding $243 million judgment, arguing in a Connecticut federal court complaint that the financial giant must end its own "vexatious" lawsuit against them in Norway because the issues were already decided in the Viks' favor.

  • July 22, 2025

    Lathrop GPM Adds Partner To Chicago Office

    Lathrop GPM LLP has added a new Chicago-based partner to its tort, insurance and environmental practice group, the firm announced Monday, saying her practice primarily focuses on defending clients against product liability claims and claims involving exposure to toxic substances and transportation-related injuries.

  • July 22, 2025

    Amazon Pushes Back On FTC's Trial Time Extension Bid

    Amazon has urged a Washington federal court to reject the Federal Trade Commission's bid to extend the agency's trial time in a lawsuit over automatically recurring Prime subscriptions, calling the proposal both unfair and baseless.

  • July 22, 2025

    Whitman Breed Asked To Set Aside $3.8M Amid Lease Fears

    Connecticut law firm Whitman Breed Abbott & Morgan LLC should set aside $3.8 million to satisfy its landlord's fears that a wave of departures has rattled the firm's finances and may jeopardize its lease of a 16,000-square-foot Greenwich office, a property manager testified Tuesday.

  • July 22, 2025

    Transportation Cases To Watch: Midyear Report 2025

    Litigation concerning whether local delivery drivers qualify as transportation workers exempt from arbitration and clashes over the scope of federal preemption in personal injury cases involving freight brokers and motor carriers are among the court battles that transportation attorneys are watching in the latter half of 2025.

  • July 21, 2025

    Insurer Can't Get New Trial After $1.75M Loss, 11th Circ. Says

    The Eleventh Circuit on Monday upheld a $1.75 million verdict a Georgia church won against its insurance company in a storm damage coverage dispute, ruling that the insurer largely abandoned its defenses against the judgment before the case ever landed in front of the appellate panel.

  • July 21, 2025

    Intel, VLSI Clash Over Ownership Verdict Effect In Patent Fight

    VLSI Technology argued Monday that a federal jury's finding that Fortress Investment Group controls it and Finjan Holdings doesn't save Intel Corp. from a patent infringement case against the technology giant, while Intel asserted the exact opposite.

  • July 21, 2025

    Software Co.'s Ex-CEO Claims Fraud 'Infects' $9M Award

    The founder and former chairman of a software investment company has asked a New York federal judge to set aside an order enforcing a $9 million arbitral award against him, claiming a Pakistani court ruled the company engaged in a fraudulent scheme that infected the entire arbitration.

  • July 21, 2025

    Not Enough Similarities To Apply DOJ Ad Tech Win: Google

    Google urged a New York federal judge not to let website publishers, advertisers and others lock the company into the Justice Department's win in a separate Virginia federal court monopolization lawsuit over its advertising placement technology business, arguing the cases have key differences in facts and circuit standards.

  • July 21, 2025

    Guinea Tells DC Circ. $22M Award Can't Be Enforced

    The Republic of Guinea has urged the D.C. Circuit not to revive a consulting company's bid to enforce a $22 million arbitration award, saying a lower court correctly found that it was unclear whether the country agreed to arbitrate the dispute in the first place.

  • July 21, 2025

    Danish Furniture-Maker Looks To Arbitrate $25M Fraud Suit

    Luxury furniture-maker BoConcept has urged a federal court to order two businessmen who purchased franchise rights for three of its Southern California stores to arbitrate their $25 million fraud claim in Denmark.

  • July 21, 2025

    Calif. High Court Says Biotech Investor Suit Belongs In Del.

    The California Supreme Court on Monday ruled that a lawsuit pursued by a minority investor alleging San Diego-based EpicentRx and its officers bamboozled investors belongs in Delaware Chancery Court, rejecting arguments that enforcing the biopharmaceutical company's forum selection clause violated Golden State jury trial protections.

Expert Analysis

  • The 7th Circ.'s Top 10 Civil Opinions Of 2024

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    Attorneys at Jenner & Block examine the most significant decisions issued by the Seventh Circuit in 2024, and explain how they may affect issues related to mass arbitration, consumer fraud, class certification and more.

  • Private-Bidding Compliance Lessons From Siemens Plea Deal

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    Siemens Energy’s recent wire fraud conspiracy guilty plea shows that U.S. prosecutors are willing and able to police the private, domestic bidding market to protect the integrity of the competitive marketplace, and companies will need a robust compliance program to mitigate these risks, say attorneys at Foley Hoag.

  • FTC Report On AI Sector Illuminates Future Enforcement

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    The Federal Trade Commission's report on cloud service providers and their partnerships with developers of artificial intelligence's large language models suggests that the agency will move to rein in Big Tech with antitrust enforcement to protect startups, say attorneys at Squire Patton.

  • Mentorship Resolutions For The New Year

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    Attorneys tend to focus on personal achievements or career milestones when they set yearly goals, but one important area often gets overlooked in this process — mentoring relationships, which are some of the most effective tools for professional growth, say Kelly Galligan at Rutan & Tucker and Andra Greene at Phillips ADR.

  • Series

    Coaching Little League Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    While coaching poorly played Little League Baseball early in the morning doesn't sound like a good time, I love it — and the experience has taught me valuable lessons about imperfection, compassion and acceptance that have helped me grow as a person and as a lawyer, says Alex Barnett at DiCello Levitt.

  • 5 Litigation Funding Trends To Note In 2025

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    Lawyers and their clients must be prepared to navigate an evolving litigation funding market in 2025, made more complicated by a new administration and the increasing overall cost of litigation, says Jeffery Lula at GLS Capital.

  • The Fed. Circ. In 2024: 5 Major Rulings To Know

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    In 2024, the Federal Circuit provided a number of important clarifications to distinct areas of patent law – including design patent obviousness, expert testimony admissions and patent term adjustments – all of which are poised to have an influence going forward, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.

  • Rethinking Litigation Risk And What It Really Means To Win

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    Attorneys have a tendency to overestimate litigation risk before summary judgment and underestimate risk after it, but an eight-stage litigation framework can clarify risk at different points and help litigators reassess what true success looks like in any particular case, says Joshua Libling at Arcadia Finance.

  • Mass Arbitration Procedures After Faulty Live Nation Ruling

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    Despite the Ninth Circuit's flawed reasoning in Heckman v. Live Nation, the exceptional allegations of collusive conduct shouldn't be read to restrict arbitration providers that have adopted good faith procedures to ensure that consumer mass arbitrations can be efficiently resolved on the merits, says Collin Vierra at Eimer Stahl.

  • Proactively Managing Tariff Impacts On Megaprojects

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    President-elect Donald Trump's proposed tariffs may compound the complexity, duration and risks associated with financing and building large-scale infrastructure projects — so owners and contractors should plan to take possible tariff-related cost and schedule overruns into account when drafting contracts, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • US-China Deal Considerations Amid Cross-Border Uncertainty

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    With China seemingly set to respond to the incoming U.S. administration's call for strategic decoupling and tariffs, companies on both sides of the Pacific should explore deals and internal changes to mitigate risks and overcome hurdles to their strategic plans, say attorneys at Covington.

  • Considering The Status Of The US Doctrine Of Patent Misuse

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    A recent Ninth Circuit decision and a U.K. Court of Appeal decision demonstrate the impact that the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment has had on the principle that post-patent-expiration royalty payments amount to patent misuse, not only in the U.S. but in English courts as well, say attorneys at Covington.

  • Series

    Playing Rugby Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    My experience playing rugby, including a near-fatal accident, has influenced my legal practice on a professional, organizational and personal level by showing me the importance of maintaining empathy, fostering team empowerment and embracing the art of preparation, says James Gillenwater at Greenberg Traurig.

  • Reviewing 2024's Evolving EdTech Privacy Regulations

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    Lawmakers are trying to keep up with the privacy and security risks of the increasingly prevalent education technology, with last year's developments including the Federal Trade Commission's proposed amendments to the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and the U.S. Senate passing two new children's privacy acts, say attorneys at McDermott.

  • Opinion

    No, Litigation Funders Are Not 'Fleeing' The District Of Del.

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    A recent study claimed that litigation funders have “fled” Delaware federal court due to a standing order requiring disclosure of third-party financing, but responsible funders have no problem litigating in this jurisdiction, and many other factors could explain the decline in filings, say Will Freeman and Sarah Tsou at Omni Bridgeway.

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