In the days leading up to President Trump’s inauguration, the Biden FTC rushed to initiate major lawsuits and to tie a bow on various antitrust policy efforts. In a series of dissenting statements, the minority Republican...more
ExxonMobil sued by California AG and environmental nonprofits over plastic waste - California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a coalition of environmental nonprofit entities sued ExxonMobil on Monday, accusing the company...more
The United States, Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (“AGFC”), and Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment – Division of Environmental Quality (“DEQ”) entered into a Consent Decree with ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, LLC...more
The latest legal buzzword, ESG, represents the environmental, social and governance factors that many corporations are now required to consider and disclose alongside traditional financial information such as operating...more
Massachusetts highest court upheld a state trial court’s decision which allowed a closely watched climate-disclosure related challenge filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey against ExxonMobil (Exxon) to proceed...more
On April 28, 2022, the California Attorney General launched an investigation into the “fossil fuel and petrochemical industries for their role in causing and exacerbating the global plastics pollution crisis.” As a first...more
In what appears to be a serious black eye for the organization, the World Bank has canceled its prominent “Doing Business” report (which rates the “business environment of the world’s countries”) after an “investigation...more
This briefing is intended to provide an update on two recent developments under the US sanctions regime. ..The first one is the introduction of US sanctions related to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project, which threaten to...more
In an interesting end of year decision, issued on December 31, 2019, a District Court in Dallas issued a rejected OFAC’s enforcement action against Exxon Corporation imposing a $2 million penalty for violation of the Russia...more
Editors’ Note: This is the fifth in our start-of-year series examining important trends in white collar law and investigations in the coming year. Our previous entry discussed False Claims Act trends in 2020. Up next: a look...more
FOURTH QUARTER 2019 - - Congress closes the year by passing new sanctions against China over human rights concerns, while OFAC clarifies the scope of recent actions against Chinese shipping companies. - In the wake of...more
The U.S. and China have tentatively [maybe?] agreed that a first phase of a trade agreement “would roll back a portion of the tariffs placed on each other’s products, a significant step toward defusing tensions between the...more
As universally expected, the Fed’s Open Market Committee delivered its third interest rate cut of 2019 yesterday, though it did so while signaling that it’s likely to pause before taking action again and “is now shifting into...more
A last-minute deal between defendants McKesson, Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen, and Teva and plaintiffs’ attorneys means that multidistrict opioid epidemic litigation set to kick off in Ohio federal court today will not...more
New York has sued Exxon Mobile over its alleged failure to disclose to its shareholder the “expected risk of climate change to its business”—behavior that the state asserts amounts to a “’longstanding fraudulent scheme’ to...more
The Department of Justice (DOJ) ended its probe of Net1 UEPS Technologies, according to SEC filings from the South African-based payment processing company. The company received a declination from the Securities and Exchange...more
In a bizarre enforcement action, The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) assessed a $2 million civil monetary penalty against ExxonMobil (“Exxon”) for violations of the Ukraine sanctions....more
The first six months of the Trump Administration saw several notable developments for US sanctions, with particular implications for Russia and Iran. The Administration also declared a shift in US policy toward Cuba. ...more
In recent years, state Attorneys General (“state AGs”) have significantly increased their investigative and enforcement efforts across a wide range of industries and matters, and these new efforts present a growing challenge...more
Regulatory agencies are focusing on required climate change-related disclosures in securities filings and other public disclosures, seeking to ensure not only that such disclosures are made, but also that they are supported...more