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Analysis

Trump's 'Abnormal' Use Of FCA Could Get Tricky In Court

By Phillip Bantz

The Trump administration is wielding the False Claims Act in unusually narrow ways to drive policies on social and cultural issues — including gender-affirming care and diversity, equity and inclusion programs — but the government's potential theories of liability under the federal law remain largely untested and might not hold up in court, experts say.

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Ex-Girardi Keese Atty Pleads Not Guilty To Chicago Charges

By Lauraann Wood

Former Girardi Keese attorney Keith Griffin pled not guilty Tuesday to a Chicago indictment accusing him of helping Tom Girardi violate court orders to disburse settlement funds to certain plane crash clients and concealing the theft of those funds.

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Bribery Case Against Rep. Cuellar And His Wife Trimmed

By Catherine Marfin

A federal judge agreed Tuesday to drop two counts from a bribery indictment against U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and his wife, but said dropping the counts did not warrant dismissal of the entire indictment.

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Former Husch Blackwell Chair Named Missouri AG

By Matt Perez

Former Husch Blackwell LLP chair Catherine L. Hanaway has been appointed Missouri's next attorney general by Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe, according to the firm on Tuesday.

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CFTC Wins $228M Restitution Order Against Ponzi Schemer

By Jessica Corso

A New York federal judge on Tuesday ruled that it was "ludicrous" for a man who pled guilty to running a Ponzi scheme to try to escape punishment in a related suit brought by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, ordering him to repay his victims over $228 million.

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Texas Co., Exec To Pay $12.4M In Customs Evasion FCA Suit

By Sarah Jarvis

A Dallas-based countertop and cabinetry product supplier and its president agreed on Tuesday to pay more than $12.4 million to settle a False Claims Act suit alleging they conspired to evade import duties on quartz products from China, with more than $2.1 million designated for a whistleblower.

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SEC Alleges Fla. Woman Ran $5.7M Trading Fraud Scheme

By Emilie Ruscoe

A New York woman and her dissolved Florida companies face U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission allegations they raised $5.7 million from over 200 investors, promising extraordinary returns from sophisticated trading techniques before misappropriating funds, losing money on risky trades and keeping investors in the dark with a Ponzi-like payment scheme.

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Ex-CBD Water Co. CEO Cops To Wire Fraud In Stock Scheme

By Emilie Ruscoe

A former CEO of a microcap issuer purportedly in the cannabis beverage business has copped to wire fraud in connection with kickbacks and related transactions involving undercover law enforcement that he initiated as part of an alleged long-running scheme to manipulate prices for the company's shares.

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Detroit Fund Owner Gets 100 Months For $39M Investor Fraud

By Danielle Ferguson

The former CEO and majority owner of a Detroit-based hedge fund firm was sentenced Monday to 100 months in federal prison for his role in a scheme to obtain more than $39 million from investors by lying about the fund's and investors' individual financial performance.

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Insurers Avoid Coverage For Alleged $8.5M Judgment Scheme

By Abraham Gross

Two insurers owed no coverage to companies facing abuse of process claims, a Minnesota federal court ruled in two separate cases decided on the same issues, finding that commercial general liability policies' coverage for malicious prosecution did not apply.

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Family Alleging Firm's Girardi Conflict Denied Partial Win

By Craig Clough

A Los Angeles judge Tuesday denied a family's motion seeking judgment on declaratory relief claims in a $1.8 million malpractice lawsuit against a firm that represented it in recovering millions lost in Girardi Keese's embezzlement scandal, saying disputed facts remain in the "unusual" case.

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Judge Bans Texas Atty He Says Is 'Incapable Of Honesty'

By Spencer Brewer

A federal judge has indefinitely suspended attorney J. Shelby Sharpe from practicing law in the Northern District of Texas after he helped supposedly erstwhile clients dodge judgments, saying the attorney is seemingly "incapable of honesty."

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Lab Owner Gets 3 Years For $40M COVID-19 Test Fraud

By Carolina Bolado

A co-founder of a laboratory accused of submitting $40 million in unnecessary COVID-19 and genetic testing claims to healthcare benefit programs was sentenced to three years in prison Tuesday, after a Florida federal judge credited him for the extensive cooperation he provided the government before and during a trial against his co-defendants.

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Calif. Man Gets 8 Years For Shipping Firearms To North Korea

By Madeline Lyskawa

A Chinese national has been sentenced in Los Angeles federal court to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to illegally exporting firearms, ammunition and other military items to North Korea in exchange for $2 million, prosecutors said Monday.

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Fleeing Or Just Leaving Quickly? 2nd Circ. Says It Depends

The Second Circuit’s recent U.S. v. Bardakova decision adopted a new approach for determining whether a defendant who commits a crime in the U.S., and then leaves and remains abroad, intends to avoid prosecution — making it more difficult to argue against the fugitive disentitlement doctrine in most cases, say attorneys at MoloLamken.

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How AI Is Easing Digital Asset Recovery In Fraud Cases

In combination with recent legislation and a maturing digital asset infrastructure, artificial intelligence tools are making it easier to recover stolen assets, giving litigants a more specific understanding of financial fraud earlier in the process and making it economically feasible to pursue smaller fraud claims, says Solomon Shinerock at Lewis Baach.

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Despite SEC Reset, Private Crypto Securities Cases Continue

While the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission under the Trump administration has charted a new approach to crypto regulation, the industry still lacks comprehensive rules of the road, meaning private plaintiffs continue to pursue litigation, and application of securities laws to crypto-assets will be determined by the courts, say attorneys at Skadden.

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What 2 Profs Noticed As Transactional Law Students Used AI

After a semester using generative artificial intelligence tools with students in an entrepreneurship law clinic, we came away with numerous observations about the opportunities and challenges such tools present to new transactional lawyers, say professors at Cornell Law School.

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NY US Atty Hit With Complaint For Alleged Media Retaliation

By Madison Arnold

A collection of nonprofit organizations that support press freedoms has called for an ethics investigation of acting U.S. Attorney John A. Sarcone III of the Northern District of New York, saying he may have "unconstitutionally retaliated" against a newspaper that reported on him.

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5th Circ. Says NLRB Structure Likely Unconstitutional

By Tim Ryan

The Fifth Circuit on Tuesday upheld injunctions barring the National Labor Relations Board from prosecuting unfair labor practice cases against SpaceX and two other companies, saying the removal protections that federal labor law gives board members and agency judges likely violate the U.S. Constitution.

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Bad Citations Aren't Always Sanctionable, Wash. Atty Argues

By Emily Sawicki

An attorney in Washington state vowed on Tuesday to appeal harsh sanctions an Arizona federal judge meted out Thursday over fake and misleading citations she included in an opening brief, releasing a statement arguing that the court's order "treats the mere existence of AI-hallucinated citations as an automatic violation" but "that is not what Rule 11 requires."

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Ex-Copyright Chief Says Trump Overstepped Role In Firing Her

By Ivan Moreno

The fired leader of the U.S. Copyright Office urged the D.C. Circuit to reject the Trump administration's arguments that her dismissal was lawful, asking the appeals court on Tuesday to return her to her job before Congress returns from recess Sept. 2.

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Ex-Judge Gets Law License Back After Bribery Suspension

By James Boyle

A former Philadelphia Municipal Court judge can practice law in Pennsylvania again following a split state Supreme Court decision to reinstate his license that had been suspended after he admitted to accepting $90,000 to drop out of a congressional election.

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Ex-Holland & Knight Atty Wants Another Depo From Ex-Wife

By Hailey Konnath

A former Holland & Knight LLP partner battling Pennsylvania personal injury firm Fritz & Bianculli LLC in litigation stemming from an affair and his messy divorce has pushed for his ex-wife to sit for another deposition, arguing that she wrongly refused to answer relevant questions when she was first deposed.

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DOJ Asks Full 4th Circ. To Rehear Judges' Speech Dispute

By Britain Eakin

The U.S. Department of Justice petitioned the full Fourth Circuit to rehear a June panel decision reviving a free speech suit from an immigration judges union, saying it flouts U.S. Supreme Court precedent and implements a novel legal requirement.

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FCC Democrat Poised To Sue If Trump Seeks Her Removal

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission's lone Democratic member said this week it would be unlawful for President Donald Trump to attempt to remove her from office and that she's willing to go to court if he tries.

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