On April 19, 2022, Judge James R. Knepp II of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio approved consent judgments against biotechnology firm Rising Biosciences, Inc. and its CEO Arthur Hall for violations of...more
On September 14, 2021, District Court Judge David N. Hurd of the Northern District of New York granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) barring the New York State Department of Health (DOH) from enforcing the vaccine...more
On August 31, 2021, Judge John Maloney of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan issued two separate opinions on motions for temporary restraining orders requesting prohibitions against university...more
On August 11, 2021, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins signed an emergency executive order, taking effect at 11:59 p.m. that same day, requiring “all child care centers and Pre-K through 12 Public Schools operating in Dallas...more
On June 4, 2021, a federal judge denied a request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked Houston Methodist Hospital (the “Hospital”) from requiring its employees to receive one of the currently-available...more
A case from the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit highlights that, even in times of crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic, prioritizing federal grant money based on race and gender will likely violate the equal...more
In January 2020, the Appellate Division considered an important question: how should a judge assess a party’s request to appear at a trial and present testimony by way of video transmission? The timing of this consideration...more
The number of lawsuits in the New York Supreme Court, New York County, concerning leases between commercial landlords and tenants continues to rise in the wake of the COVID-19-related shutdowns, indelibly impacting the legal...more
In the best of economic times, some courts can be reluctant to grant immediate injunctive relief and enjoin an employee from working in order to enforce employee post-employment restrictive covenants. Now that we are in the...more
Fossil Fuels Still Supply 84 Percent of World Energy — and Other Eye Openers from BP’s Annual Review - "China was responsible for three quarters of the world’s energy consumption growth, followed by India and Indonesia....more
In This Issue. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking seeking comments on several issues related to digital technology and innovation, as well as proposed...more
DOJ Obtains Restraining Order to Stop Oklahoma Company From Selling Purported COVID-19 Treatment - An Oklahoma federal court issued a temporary restraining order against Xephyr LLC d/b/a N-Ergetics and its owners ordering...more
As we have highlighted in recent alerts, M&A litigation is moving quickly to react and adapt to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In a new case filed this week, it appears that lawyers for a spurned acquisition target have taken...more
Attorney General Maura Healey from enforcing emergency regulation 940 CMR 35.00, which prohibits certain debt collection activities, including debt collection calls, for a period of 90 days beginning on March 26, 2020 (until...more
On April 17, 2020, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey promulgated emergency regulation 940 CMR 35.00 to address “unfair and deceptive debt collection practices during the state of emergency caused by COVID-19.” The...more
U.S. District Court Judge Richard Stearns issued an order on May 6, 2020, finding that the two primary features of the Massachusetts Attorney General's COVID-19 debt collection regulation — a ban on debt collector initiated...more
ACA International (ACA), the Association of Credit and Collection Professionals, filed a complaint on April 20, 2020, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts challenging the validity of the recently...more
On April 13, 2020, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland denied an emergency motion filed by a group of four small business owners in Profiles Inc. v. Bank of America Corporation et al., No....more
COVID-19 and the accompanying shelter-in-place restrictions may spur the onset of a serious economic recession. The conventional wisdom is that litigation is counter-cyclical, and tends to increase during economic downturns....more