Know What's Happening in Legal
Know What's Happening in Legal
Delaware Supreme Court lets insurers pursue contract claims against Blackbaud over ransomware breach
The Delaware Supreme Court reversed lower‑court dismissals, permitting insurers to bring breach‑of‑contract actions against Blackbaud for its 2020 ransomware incident. Blackbaud had previously paid a $3 million SEC fine and $49 million to state attorneys general for misleading breach disclosures.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Oil majors acquire $164M of Alaska oil leases
The episode explores how companies are evaluating the integration of Non‑Human Identities (NHIs) into their compliance frameworks, highlighting the benefits of reduced risk, improved regulatory adherence, and operational efficiency. It outlines best‑practice steps such as discovery, automated secret rotation, behavioral analytics, and robust audit trails, while emphasizing the continued need for human oversight and cross‑department collaboration. Industry examples from finance, healthcare, and travel illustrate the strategic value of NHIs for meeting stringent compliance demands. Challenges like scalability, legacy system integration, and regulatory complexity are also discussed, with recommendations for executive sponsorship and continuous training.
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Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered state agencies and public universities to halt all new H‑1B visa petitions until May 31, 2027, pending written permission from the Texas Workforce Commission. The directive also requires these entities to submit detailed sponsorship data by March 27, 2026....
ZeroDrift emerged from stealth with a $2 million pre‑seed round led by a16z speedrun, aiming to automate compliance for financial‑services communications. The AI‑native platform acts as a real‑time firewall that encodes SEC, FINRA and firm‑specific policies into machine‑readable rulepacks. By integrating...
The European Commission has formally accused TikTok of designing its endless‑scroll feed to be addictive, especially for minors, and is treating this as a systemic risk under the Digital Services Act. The preliminary ruling targets infinite scroll, algorithmic recommendations and...
shout-out to @edleeprof for totally calling the class-action angle for AI lawsuits ahead of the curve in 2023! https://t.co/MwA9eSRAua
The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on media ownership in the digital age, zeroing in on the FCC’s 39% national TV ownership cap as the Nexstar‑TEGNA merger moves forward. FCC Commissioner Gomez publicly objected to an investigation of ABC’s...
The SEC announced an AI Task Force led by a newly appointed Chief AI Officer to centralize responsible AI integration across the agency, backed by a 2025 AI Compliance Plan aligned with OMB guidance. This internal effort signals a durable,...
Bytedance’s new AI video generator, Seedance 2.0, can recreate Disney, Marvel and Star Wars characters with photorealistic fidelity, prompting Disney to issue a cease‑and‑desist letter that calls the practice a “virtual smash‑and‑grab.” The tool is already flooding social media with short...
Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis and election official Peter Kosinski petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to stay a New York state court ruling that barred the 2026 congressional map for District 11. The state trial court found the current boundaries diluted...
Amnesty International has called on all UN member states to honor their climate‑change obligations under international law, following Vanuatu’s draft UNGA resolution. The resolution references the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 advisory opinion, urging adoption of enhanced nationally determined contributions,...
I can think of half a dozen reasons why it is NOT a mistake to gift a house to a child before passing. Why? Because these decisions are fact and portfolio dependent, and always/never advice is rarely reliable when it...
It was truly my pleasure to spend some time with my dear friends and colleagues, Judge Wade Padgett and Judge Tain Kell on their highly informative and entertaining “The Good Judge-ment” podcast. This is a link to the first part...
The European Data Protection Board and the European Data Protection Supervisor issued a joint opinion on the EU’s Digital Omnibus, endorsing its goal to ease administrative burdens while flagging key concerns. They warn that a narrower, controller‑specific definition of personal...
A German district court ruled that three logos generated by AI are not eligible for copyright protection, emphasizing that only works reflecting the prompter’s personality qualify. The judges clarified that extensive prompting, subscription fees, or iterative selection do not satisfy...
The English High Court continues hearing Parsons v Convatec, an employee claim for patent‑related compensation under section 40 of the Patents Act 1977. The claimant seeks roughly £366 million, equivalent to 10‑15% of the product’s estimated sales. A recent ruling set a...
The episode examines President Trump’s EPA rule revoking the Obama-era "endangerment finding," which could dismantle federal climate regulation and spark years of litigation. It then shifts focus to California, where Governor Gavin Newsom is scrambling to mitigate the fallout from...
The October 2025 issue of the Journal of International Arbitration presents five scholarly contributions that examine pivotal developments in arbitration law. Darren Leow argues that state‑immunity questions arise only at the execution stage of ICSID awards, not during recognition. Kanishka...
The House has introduced the FREEDOM Act to tackle "permit certainty" by streamlining judicial review of unreasonable permitting delays or revocations and offering compensation to affected developers. The bill emerges amid Democratic resistance to any reform that doesn’t materially boost...
The FTC has intensified its antitrust investigation into Microsoft by issuing civil investigative demands to at least six competing firms in the business‑software and cloud markets. Regulators are probing Microsoft’s practice of bundling AI, security and identity tools with Windows,...
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act turned 30, marking three decades of legal immunity for online hosts. The provision let early legal message boards and listservs operate without fear of publisher liability, fostering user‑generated discourse. Over time, that shield...
The latest Friday Footnotes roundup highlights three intertwined trends reshaping accounting and finance. Big‑tech firms’ $3 trillion cap‑ex plans are prompting aggressive depreciation adjustments, as Meta’s $2.6 billion earnings boost shows the earnings‑management risk. Meanwhile, Italian tax authorities have raided Amazon managers’...
The Department of Justice announced an indictment of eleven individuals accused of operating a marriage‑fraud and bribery ring that targeted U.S. service members, primarily at Jacksonville Naval Air Station. The scheme paired Chinese nationals with servicemen to secure permanent residency,...
President Trump’s Treasury Department has launched an aggressive AML campaign targeting Minnesota and U.S.–Mexico border regions, using new Geographic Targeting Orders and high‑performance data analytics to flag cartel, fraud and immigration‑related transactions. FinCEN now requires banks and money‑service businesses to...
The FCC has issued pay‑or‑show‑cause orders to two broadcasters over unpaid regulatory fees. In Michigan, Sovereign Communications faces potential revocation of six stations for roughly $37,000 in delinquent fees, though it can apply a $9,200 overpayment credit. In Georgia, Core...
The Senate Commerce Committee voted to advance a revised Satellite and Telecommunications Streamlining Act, softening the original bill's automatic‑approval clause for satellite licenses. The amendment, crafted by Ranking Member Maria Cantwell and Chairman Ted Cruz, requires the FCC to develop...
The Interior Department’s August secretarial order introduced a “capacity density” test that compares the land footprint of energy projects to their output, effectively targeting renewable projects on federal lands. The order invokes the “unnecessary and undue degradation” (UUD) standard from...
A Colorado district court dismissed antitrust claims in Morgan v. Kroger, holding that the employers' informal coordination during parallel collective‑bargaining fell within the nonstatutory labor exemption. The ruling distinguished the case from the Ninth Circuit’s Safeway decision by noting simultaneous...
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy directed the FAA to issue an Operations Specification that bars U.S. airlines from using diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) criteria when hiring pilots. The order, framed as a merit‑based safety measure, applies to all Part 121...
On February 12, a U.S. District Court in Texas vacated the Federal Trade Commission’s final rule that altered pre‑merger notification requirements under the Hart‑Scott‑Rodino Act. The rule had expanded the HSR filing form and imposed additional reporting obligations on merging firms....
The article introduces metaprompting, a technique where lawyers use AI to help craft the very prompts they feed back into the model. It outlines a step‑by‑step process for building prompts from scratch, refining existing ones, and extracting a personal writing...
The Eighth Circuit ruled that merely mentioning a medical condition does not automatically trigger ADA protections. In the Stephens case, the court found his heart condition did not constitute a disability because it did not limit his work activities. The...
The Seventh Circuit upheld Indiana University’s termination of online instructional designer Jennifer Shirk, who was fired after sending critical emails to senior executives despite having approved FMLA leave and most requested accommodations. The court distinguished retaliation claims from discrimination claims,...
Emerson Collective, the Laurene Powell Jobs‑founded organization, is being sued by former editor Andrew Giambrone for alleged retaliation after he raised a discrimination complaint over the removal of LGBTQ+ Pride Month content. Giambrone claims the Office of the President deemed...
A senior Walmart manager, Scott Carrasquillo, filed a federal lawsuit alleging retaliation after requesting disability accommodations following a workplace injury. He claims his supervisor dismissed his injury, issued inaccurate performance reviews, and placed him on a Performance Improvement Plan despite...
The FDA issued a warning letter to MKS Enterprise, LLC after laboratory analysis revealed that its product Vital Honey contained the prescription drug tadalafil, an undeclared active pharmaceutical ingredient. The agency determined the honey is both a prohibited food adulterated...
In this episode of Legal Speak, antitrust and class‑action lawyer Alex Barnett explains how his experience performing stand‑up comedy and writing screenplays sharpened his courtroom advocacy. He discusses the parallels between comedy timing, audience reading, and crafting persuasive arguments, noting...
Austin’s $1.6 billion convention‑center replacement, financed mainly through revenue bonds, has entered a legal showdown at the Texas Supreme Court. Petitioners seeking to halt demolition argue the city clerk’s signature count fell short, while the city maintains the count was accurate....
The episode examines a bipartisan bill to raise the Durbin amendment’s $10 billion asset threshold for debit interchange fee caps, indexing it to inflation and potentially expanding the exemption to banks with assets over $15 billion. Senators Ted Cruz and Katie Britt...
I don't know any details or who, but just reading the article, it's self contradicting 👇. One could also make a narrative "maybe they were fired because they didn't prevent it?" IF it were even true. It would also mean...
Eli Lilly has filed a notice of appeal challenging the FDA’s classification of its experimental obesity injection, retatrutide. The agency labeled the product as a new molecular entity, granting it a 12‑year data exclusivity period. Lilly argues the classification is incorrect...
At scale, tax mistakes stop being mistakes. They become red flags. Here's what most brands don't realize: States aren't looking for perfection. They're looking for inconsistency. 🚩 When your collected tax doesn't match your filings 🚩 When registrations lag behind where you're actually...
Here's EPA's undoing of its 2009 Endangerment Finding wrt to vehicles. EPA's finding is based on a new reading of the Clean Air Act. EPA also finds that its vehicle emission standards do not and could not mitigate the climate risks...
South Korean court ruled that HYBE must pay former Ador CEO Min Hee‑jin $17.7 million, confirming the validity of the shareholder agreement that obligates HYBE to purchase her Ador shares at a pre‑agreed earnings multiple. HYBE had terminated the agreement in...
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box TODAY, advocating for swift passage of the bipartisan Clarity Act to establish federal rules for digital assets amid ongoing market volatility. https://t.co/j3xdyXSv1Z
The UK government will raise the English language benchmark for Skilled Worker, Scale‑up Worker and High‑Potential Individual visas from CEFR level B1 to B2, effective 8 January 2026. The change applies to new applications, including those switching from other routes, and aims...
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro enlisted a dance‑photographer‑lawyer, Steven Vandervelden, to pursue criminal charges against six Democratic lawmakers who produced a public service announcement urging military and intelligence personnel to refuse illegal orders from the Trump administration. The indictment effort collapsed,...
A new 36% unrealized gains tax passed in the Netherlands. This means assets that have increased in value are now taxed, even if not sold. See the devastating impact on wealth growth over 10 years. #CryptoTax #Netherlands #IvanClips https://t.co/OMzGMofQhw
The FCC approved a pro forma reassignment of the UEN‑TV (KUEN) license from the Utah Board of Higher Education to the University of Utah on Dec. 4, placing the station under PBS Utah’s oversight. No money changed hands in the transaction....
Iterative regulation reframes compliance as a living, cyclical process rather than a static checklist. It introduces phased maturity levels, pilot programs, and outcome‑based standards that evolve with technology and risk. Robust metrics and continuous reporting feed data‑driven adjustments, while transparent...
