Interstate oil, liquid and refined products pipelines regulated by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will soon be able to raise their transportation rates (provided they were set using FERC’s popular Index rate...more
Now that the dust has settled following the Supreme Court’s overhaul of administrative law through three late-term decisions, Akin litigators and policy advisors offer the most significant takeaways for businesses and...more
7/31/2024
/ CFTC ,
Chevron Deference ,
Chevron v NRDC ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Department of Transportation (DOT) ,
Enforcement ,
FERC ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo ,
OSHA ,
Regulatory Agencies ,
SCOTUS ,
SEC v Jarkesy ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Settlement ,
Statutory Interpretation
On June 26, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court held 6-3 in Snyder v. United States that a federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B), does not criminalize “gratuities” to state and local officials—i.e., payments made to those...more
On June 28, in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court overturned the longstanding Chevron doctrine, under which courts generally granted deference to a federal agency’s reasonable interpretation of ambiguous...more
7/9/2024
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Chevron Deference ,
Chevron v NRDC ,
Corner Post Inc v Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System ,
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ,
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ,
Government Agencies ,
Healthcare ,
Judicial Authority ,
Life Sciences ,
Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo ,
Regulatory Authority ,
SCOTUS ,
Statutory Interpretation
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) gives employees the right to unionize and imposes obligations on employers to collectively bargain with unions representing their employees. Failing to recognize those rights and...more
3/14/2024
/ Chamber of Commerce ,
Contract Terms ,
Employee Definition ,
Joint Employers ,
Jurisdiction ,
New Rules ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
SCOTUS ,
Third-Party ,
Vacated
A U.S. District Court judge in Alabama recently ruled that the Corporate Transparency Act (“CTA”) is unconstitutional. The CTA, which was enacted on January 1, 2021, directs the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial...more
Key Points -
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court held in Axon v. FTC that the FTC Act (and the SEC Act) do not prohibit a federal court from hearing challenges to the constitutionality of either Commission’s...more
Key Points-
For the first time, the Supreme Court has invoked explicitly the “major questions doctrine”—which requires Congress to speak clearly when authorizing agency action in certain extraordinary cases—to strike...more
Key Points -
401(k) plan fiduciaries have the duty to monitor reasonableness of fees for all investment options available to participants under a 401(k) plan.
Offering low-fee investment options does not alleviate the...more
Yesterday, in the unprecedented “In re Section 301 Cases” litigation, the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) entered a preliminary injunction that suspends the liquidation of plaintiffs’ unliquidated entries from China...more
- In Romag Fasteners Inc. v. Fossil Inc. et al., the Supreme Court held that a showing of a defendant’s willfulness is not a prerequisite for recovering an infringer’s profits for trademark infringement under the Lanham...more
4/28/2020
/ § 1125(a) ,
§ 1125(c) ,
Appeals ,
Burden of Proof ,
Charge-Filing Preconditions ,
Compensatory Awards ,
Dilution ,
Lanham Act ,
Lost Profits ,
Remand ,
Remedies ,
Romag Fasteners v Fossil ,
SCOTUS ,
Trademark Infringement ,
Trademark Litigation ,
Trademarks ,
Vacated ,
Willful Infringement
- In a departure from the majority view, the 2nd Circuit has held that a texting platform need not have the capacity for random or sequential number generation in order to constitute an an automatic telephone dialing system...more
- Our country is in a national state of emergency over COVID-19. Almost every state has declared its own state of emergency, and many states have started invoking their emergency powers.
- An emergency does not allow...more
Key Points
- On January 27, 2020, the 11th Circuit held that telephone equipment must randomly or sequentially generate numbers in order to constitute an “automatic telephone dialing system” (ATDS) under the Telephone...more
• Companies across industries continue to face TCPA litigation and address compliance challenges.
• The FCC will soon be addressing key TCPA issues in the wake of the D.C. Circuit’s ruling in ACA International.
• One...more
• The Supreme Court in Murphy v. NCAA ruled 7-2 that a federal law prohibiting states from authorizing sports betting violated the constitutional rule that the federal government may not “commandeer” the states.
• The...more
5/18/2018
/ Anti-Commandeering ,
Appeals ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Indian Gaming ,
Indian Gaming Regulation Act ,
Murphy v National Collegiate Athletic Association ,
NCAA ,
PASPA ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Sports Gambling ,
State Sovereignty ,
States Rights ,
Tenth Amendment
• The Supreme Court in Oil States v. Greene’s Energy ruled 7-2 that cancellation of patent claims in an inter partes review does not violate either Article III or the Seventh Amendment of the Constitution.
• In SAS...more
5/1/2018
/ America Invents Act ,
Article III ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Inter Partes Review (IPR) Proceeding ,
Oil States Energy Services v Greene's Energy Group ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Patents ,
Public Rights Doctrine ,
SAS Institute Inc. v Iancu ,
SCOTUS ,
Seventh Amendment ,
USPTO
• The Supreme Court in Jesner v. Arab Bank ruled 5-4 that suits against foreign corporations under the ATS are barred, answering a question left unresolved in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.
• Although the decision...more
• The Federal Circuit held that the “immoral or scandalous” clause of Lanham Act § 2(a), which prohibits registration of a trademark that “consists of or comprises immoral or scandalous matter,” is unconstitutional under the...more
12/20/2017
/ Appeals ,
Commercial Speech ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Disparagement ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Intent-to-Use ,
Lanham Act ,
Matal v Tam ,
Patent Trial and Appeal Board ,
Reversal ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
USPTO
• The U.S. Supreme Court granted a certiorari petition filed by China Agritech from the 9th Circuit’s decision in Resh v. China Agritech, Inc., 857 F.3d 994 (9th Cir. 2017). The Court will clarify whether its landmark ruling...more
12/14/2017
/ American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah ,
Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Class Members ,
Equitable Tolling ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Securities Fraud ,
Statute of Limitations
On June 19, 2017, in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, the Supreme Court held, by a vote of 8 to 1, that California courts lack specific jurisdiction to entertain a nonresident’s claims that are...more
On June 19, 2017, the Supreme Court in Matal v. Tam unanimously held that a portion of 15 U.S.C. § 1052(a), the Lanham Act provision that prohibits the registration of trademarks that may “disparage . . . persons, living or...more
6/21/2017
/ Disparagement ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Government Speech Doctrine ,
Lanham Act ,
Matal v Tam ,
Paid Time Off (PTO) ,
SCOTUS ,
The Slants ,
Trademark Registration ,
Trademarks ,
USPTO ,
Viewpoint Discrimination
This week, the Supreme Court in Kokesh v. SEC unanimously held that the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) equitable disgorgement remedy is subject to a five-year statute of limitations because it is a “penalty”...more
In a highly anticipated opinion significantly narrowing the first prong of the patent venue statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1400(b), the Supreme Court in TC Heartland LLC v. Kraft Foods Group Brands LLC unanimously held that a domestic...more
5/25/2017
/ Forum Selection ,
Patent Infringement ,
Patent Litigation ,
Patents ,
Personal Jurisdiction ,
Primary Residence ,
Principal Place of Business ,
SCOTUS ,
State of Incorporation ,
TC Heartland LLC v Kraft Foods ,
Venue
If you read one thing ...
- The Supreme Court discarded the Federal Circuit’s heightened Seagate standard for awarding enhanced damages under the Patent Act.
- The new standard increases the chance of an...more