The New York Court of Appeals recently clarified and reinforced the attorney-client privilege, explaining that certain internal training materials reflecting legal analysis of statutory, regulatory, and decisional law constituted attorney-client communications “prepared for the purpose of facilitating the rendition of legal advice or services, in the course of a professional relationship,” and rejected numerous arguments to the contrary.

Earlier this month, President Biden announced the formation of a “Strike Force on Unfair and Illegal Pricing.” This strike force will be an interagency group co-chaired by the FTC and DOJ. President Biden stated the group will focus on industries including “prescription drugs, health care, food and grocery, housing, [and] financial services.” While the exact makeup of the strike force is not clear, it has been reported that FTC Chair Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General in the DOJ’s Antitrust Division, will co-chair it. 

Picture this: You’ve just been retained by a new client who has been named as a defendant in a complex commercial litigation. While the client has solid grounds to be dismissed from the case at an early stage via a dispositive motion, the client is also facing cost constraints. This forces you to get creative when crafting a budget for your client’s defense. You remember the shiny new toy that is generative Artificial Intelligence (“AI”). You plan to use AI to help save costs on the initial research, and even potentially assist with brief writing. It seems you’ve found a practical solution to resolve all your client’s problems. Not so fast.

An American Arbitration Association arbitrator recently awarded Black Knight, Inc. (BK) $155M stemming from Pennymac Loan Services, LLC’s (Pennymac) alleged use of its mortgage-loan servicing platform to develop its own competing product. Though the arbitrator did not find Pennymac liable for trade secret misappropriation, they found that the use of BK’s product accelerated the development of Pennymac’s product and caused BK to lose licensing profits.

The Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition and the Department of Justice Antitrust Division released a joint statement reiterating document preservation obligations for companies and individuals that are the subject of government investigations and litigations, emphasizing messaging platforms, such as Slack and Google Chats, that automatically delete communications. Both agencies announced updated language in their standard preservation letters, specifications for “second requests” used in pre-merger review under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, voluntary access letters, and grand jury subpoenas, to address these instant messaging platforms. The agencies emphasized that companies’ obligation to preserve information on such platforms is nothing new, explaining their clarification is to prevent companies from feigning ignorance if communications are not preserved after preservation obligations are triggered.

On March 4, 2024, the California Supreme Court ruled in Niedermeier v. FCA that consumers forced to trade in or sell their defective vehicles due to a manufacturer’s failure to comply with the Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act, California Civil Code section 1793 et seq., (the “Act”) should not have their restitution reduced by the money they received from the trade-in or sale.