Abigail Slater resigned as Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ Antitrust Division on February 12, 2026—an exit widely reported as a forced ouster after the White House requested her resignation. Her departure is significant because it comes at a moment when antitrust enforcement is both high-stakes and politically salient. The Division is weeks away from trial in Live Nation/Ticketmaster, where reported settlement discussions in the days before her resignation highlighted divisions between the Antitrust Division and senior DOJ officials. Simultaneously, the division continues to manage conduct litigation against major technology companies and scrutiny of major transactions.  From the defining moves of her tenure to the forces behind her departure, this change in leadership marks a pivotal moment in U.S. competition enforcement at a time when “private bar attorneys are on high alert, questioning how federal competition laws will be enforced and which merger deals will be challenged.” To be sure, Slater’s resignation sets the stage for what (and who) comes next.

A recent decision in United States v. Heppner appears to be the first federal ruling to directly address attorney‑client privilege and work‑product issues arising from a non‑lawyer’s use of a consumer-grade insecure AI tool for legal research. The court held that materials generated through Anthropic’s consumer version of Claude were…

In Various Claimants v Standard Chartered plc [2025] EWCA Civ 1581, the English Court of Appeal considered when a party is entitled to withhold disclosure on the basis that documents are subject to foreign regulatory confidentiality or may expose a party to foreign criminal or regulatory sanction (on the facts, in the US). This case is of significance to all international businesses subject to regulation in more than one country.

Aerospace startups often begin with a dream to provide cheaper, better, or faster solutions for aviation and space flight, and the ambition to make that dream a reality.  Although optimism fuels innovation, as aerospace startups transition from venture funding into public markets, shareholders may misconstrue their forward-looking optimism as actionable promises. Diamond v. Firefly Aerospace Inc., et al. is a putative class action that highlights this tension.

The United Kingdom Public Documents Pilot Scheme (the “Pilot”) will come into force on January 1, 2026 and will be introduced under the new Practice Direction 51ZH “Access to Public Domain Documents” (“PD 51ZH”). The Pilot will significantly expand and facilitate public access to court documents and follows the U.K. Supreme Court judgment of Cape v Dring [2019] UKSC 38 (see also our earlier blog post on this: Can Open Justice Be Too Open? A Review of Proposals to Provide Non-Parties Greater Access to Court Documents in England & Wales | Minding Your Business). A Guidance Note on PD 51ZH has also been published by the Judiciary.

On September 25, in a landmark resolution that underscores the FTC’s renewed focus on digital consumer protection, Amazon agreed to pay $2.5 billion—including a $1 billion civil penalty and $1.5 billion in consumer refunds—under the Settlement Order in FTC v. Amazon.  The case, brought before Judge John H. Chun in the Western District of Washington, targeted Amazon’s Prime subscription program, alleging that the company enrolled consumers without proper consent and made cancellation unnecessarily difficult, in violation of the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA).

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) released a shutdown plan dated September 29, 2025, outlining how it will operate during this lapse in appropriations.

FTC Commissioners are presidential appointees and are excepted from furlough during the shutdown. According to the shutdown plan, furloughs will be issued on a rolling basis for…