Litigation

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a Second Amended Complaint in the state's PFAS litigation, alleging that DuPont-related companies executed fraudulent asset transfers designed to shield themselves from environmental liability. The complaint targets E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, DuPont de Nemours, Inc., Corteva, Inc., The Chemours Company, and newly created Qnity Electronics. Bonta contends that corporate restructuring and amended agreements shifted the bulk of PFAS-related liabilities onto Chemours while reducing exposure for New DuPont, Corteva, and Qnity Electronics. The filing invokes the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act and the Uniform Voidable Transactions Act, and seeks relief in U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.

President Trump signed a memorandum dated October 7 creating a three-member "committee of inquiry" to examine mortgage-fraud allegations against Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. The panel includes White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Andrea Lucas, and acting Office of Government Ethics Director Keith Sonderling. It will determine whether Cook made false statements on two mortgage applications, then advise Trump on whether there is "cause" to remove her from the Fed Board under the Federal Reserve Act. A closed-door hearing is scheduled for November 5 at the White House. Cook may submit written material beforehand, and Justice Department lawyers will question her. The allegations center on a 2021 filing in which Trump says Cook listed a Georgia condo and a Michigan house as her primary residence. Cook has denied wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. Her lawyers say the entries were an inadvertent error.

OpenAI has moved to dismiss Apple's trade-secrets lawsuit, arguing in a federal filing that Apple failed to identify any protectable trade secrets or demonstrate plausible misappropriation. OpenAI contends it is developing "something entirely new" rather than leveraging Apple's confidential information. The motion represents the latest escalation in a dispute centered on whether OpenAI improperly accessed Apple's consumer-hardware plans through two former Apple employees now working at the company.

On July 13, 2026, a coalition of 12 state attorneys general filed a federal antitrust lawsuit challenging Paramount Skydance Corporation's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. Led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and joined by officials from Minnesota, Oregon, and nine other states, the plaintiffs argue the merger violates the Clayton Act by eliminating competition between two of Hollywood's five major film distributors and cable operators. The states contend the deal would raise movie ticket and cable prices, reduce employment in the entertainment sector, and diminish consumer choice in news and entertainment programming.

On July 10, 2026, Apple filed a federal lawsuit in the Northern District of California against OpenAI, former Apple executives Tang Tan and Chang Liu, and io Products, LLC, alleging a coordinated scheme to steal trade secrets and accelerate OpenAI's entry into consumer hardware. The complaint accuses OpenAI of systematically acquiring confidential Apple information—including product designs, manufacturing processes, and supply chain strategies for the iPhone, Apple Watch, and MacBook—to build competing AI devices.

Apple moved Monday to freeze OpenAI's access to alleged trade secrets while its misappropriation lawsuit proceeds. The company filed a motion for preliminary injunction in federal court in Northern California, seeking to bar OpenAI, its hardware division io Products, and two former Apple employees—Tang Yew Tan and Chang Liu—from accessing, using, or disclosing confidential Apple information during litigation.

Apple sued OpenAI and two former Apple employees on Friday, July 10, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging coordinated theft of trade secrets to accelerate OpenAI's consumer hardware development. The complaint names Chang Liu and Tang Tan as defendants and accuses OpenAI of orchestrating a campaign to recruit Apple staff and extract confidential project information, including technical drawings and component specifications. Apple alleges that Tan, while still employed there, used insider knowledge of confidential projects to extract proprietary information from job candidates during OpenAI interviews before his departure.

Blank Rome LLP, a Philadelphia-based law firm, faces two proposed class-action lawsuits over a data breach that exposed sensitive information on 57,554 current, former, and prospective clients. The breach occurred in May 2026 when a cybercriminal impersonated the firm's IT department and convinced an attorney to upload client files to an external Google Drive account. The exposed data includes names, Social Security numbers, addresses, dates of birth, driver's license numbers, passport numbers, medical records, and health insurance information. Blank Rome announced the breach to affected clients on June 26, 2026—nearly a month after the incident occurred. The firm stated it will "aggressively defend" against the suits and claims they lack merit.

Apple has escalated its trade-secret lawsuit against OpenAI by seeking a preliminary injunction in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, asking the court to block OpenAI and several former Apple employees from using or disclosing confidential Apple information. The lawsuit, filed in July 2026, alleges a coordinated pattern of employee poaching and misappropriation of trade secrets to support OpenAI's hardware development efforts. Named defendants include Tang Tan, OpenAI's hardware chief and former Apple design executive, and Chang Liu, a former Apple engineer. Apple also targets io Products, OpenAI's hardware-linked entity, and seeks depositions from additional OpenAI staff. OpenAI has publicly characterized Apple's case as "careless" and "oddly personal," denying it possesses or seeks Apple trade secrets.

American Healthcare Systems Corp. and its founder Mike Sarian filed an amended complaint in California state court on Tuesday, July 7, 2026, accusing their former in-house counsel Faisal Gill of orchestrating an extortion and takeover scheme. The complaint also names Dr. Aramais Paronyan, a minority shareholder and director, as a participant in efforts to remove Sarian from control and restrict his access to company finances. AHS operates five Florida hospitals, including Palmetto General and Coral Gables Hospital.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and 13 state attorneys general filed a motion in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California asking the judge to enforce and clarify a hold-separate order in the Nexstar Media Group–TEGNA Inc. merger case. The filing alleges that recent board changes at TEGNA may allow Nexstar to exercise improper control over the company despite the court's injunction requiring both broadcasters to operate independently during litigation. The states argue that current or former Nexstar personnel should be barred from TEGNA's board to prevent the companies from coordinating merger-related activities.

A federal court has allowed privacy class actions against Shopify and the NBA to proceed, signaling stricter judicial scrutiny of how embedded website technologies collect user data before obtaining clear consent.

Meta faces a sprawling litigation campaign alleging that Facebook and Instagram were engineered to addict minors and that the company concealed safety and privacy risks from users. State attorneys general from New Mexico, Vermont, Massachusetts, and a coalition led by California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey have filed suit alongside individual plaintiffs and school districts in federal and state courts. Related defendants including Google/YouTube, Snap, and TikTok face similar claims in some actions.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has issued an investigative subpoena to Dr. Anthony Fauci as part of a coordinated multi-state probe into whether Fauci personally profited from his COVID-19 guidance through awards, grants, book deals, board positions, and other financial arrangements. West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey and Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill are conducting parallel investigations. The Florida subpoena demands documents spanning January 3, 2020 to present, including records of grants, awards, professorships, book deals, communications with Florida businesses, and materials concerning vaccine efficacy, booster recommendations, natural immunity, myocarditis risks, messaging strategies, and manufacturer communications. Florida is framing the inquiry as an investigation into potential "self-dealing" and whether Fauci's public health recommendations generated personal financial benefit in violation of state law.

WilmerHale faced a proposed class action lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia over a May 8, 2026 data incident in which a firm employee disclosed sensitive client information to an unauthorized third party who had misrepresented their identity. The breach exposed names and Social Security numbers of thousands of clients. Nevada resident Jason Perry filed the suit, styled Perry v. Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr LLP, No. 1:26-cv-02470, seeking negligence and contract damages on behalf of affected clients.

Traci Tamiko Eto, former research director at Mayo Clinic, filed a federal lawsuit on July 6, 2026, alleging retaliation and wrongful termination after she raised concerns about AI safety failures and patient privacy violations. According to the complaint, Eto was demoted in July 2025, placed on involuntary medical leave, and fired in December 2025 when her position was eliminated in a reduction in force that reportedly affected only her role. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota under the False Claims Act's retaliation provision, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act.

CS Disco announced a new unified litigation platform that integrates case facts, controlling U.S. law, and AI-native workflows into a single interface. The product is currently in pilot with five law firms on live matters, with general availability targeted for early 2025. Quarles & Brady is among the firms testing the platform.

CoStar is urging a California federal court to reject CREXi's request to pause their copyright dispute while CREXi appeals the disqualification of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. Judge Consuelo B. Marshall of the Central District of California ruled on July 14, 2026, that Quinn Emanuel violated its duty of loyalty to CoStar by simultaneously representing CREXi in the same matter without CoStar's consent. CoStar argues the stay request lacks legal merit and should be denied outright.

Fastcase Inc., the legal research platform owned by Clio, sued Canadian AI company Alexi Technologies Inc. in federal court in Washington, D.C. on November 26, 2025, alleging breach of a 2021 data license agreement. Fastcase claims Alexi used licensed case law to train commercial generative AI models and display full-text decisions to users—uses explicitly prohibited under the original contract's "internal research purposes" restriction. The agreement permitted Alexi's staff attorneys to prepare client memoranda using the data, not to build a public, competing legal research platform. Fastcase seeks an injunction requiring Alexi to destroy both the datasets and the AI models trained on them, treating the model weights as infringing derivative works.

Apple filed a federal lawsuit on July 10, 2026, alleging that OpenAI and its chief hardware officer Tang Tan orchestrated a systematic campaign to steal confidential trade secrets related to unreleased Apple products. According to the complaint, OpenAI encouraged former Apple employees and job candidates to share components, drawings, and internal product information to accelerate OpenAI's own hardware development efforts.

CREXi has petitioned the Ninth Circuit to reverse a federal judge's disqualification of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and to stay district court proceedings while the appeal proceeds. U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall ruled that Quinn Emanuel could not represent CREXi because the firm simultaneously represented CoStar in a separate federal matter, creating an impermissible concurrent conflict of interest.

OpenAI has retained Brad Bondi, a Paul Hastings partner and co-chair of the firm's investigations and white-collar defense practice, to bolster its legal team in Florida's lawsuit. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed the case on June 1, 2026, in state court, accusing OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman of misleading the public about ChatGPT's safety and contributing to harms including violence and self-harm. The complaint alleges gross negligence, public nuisance, strict liability, and violations of Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, claiming OpenAI knowingly released the product while concealing safety risks and suppressing internal warnings.

Paramount Skydance, controlled by David Ellison, is bypassing a preliminary-injunction hearing and moving directly to trial on the merits in its bid to preserve the $81 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. The strategy represents a calculated gamble: avoiding an early legal loss but accepting significant delay and mounting costs to keep the deal alive through a full antitrust trial.

Twelve states led by California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed an antitrust lawsuit Monday to block Paramount Skydance Corp.'s acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, challenging an $81–$111 billion transaction. The states argue the merger would eliminate competition, raise prices for TV bundles, reduce content output and quality, and harm movie theaters and basic cable distributors. The defendants are Paramount Skydance, backed by David Ellison and sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi, and Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns HBO, CNN, and other major media properties. Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington joined California in the suit.

Aavalynx, a Jersey-based legaltech startup, has raised £1.5 million in pre-seed funding to expand its AI platform for dispute resolution. The round was led by European Omega Ventures, with participation from Two Ravens and angel investors including senior law firm partners and a former Amazon Europe executive. Founders Hanna Roos and Lauri Hyry launched Sisu, an analytics platform that processes litigation and dispute data to help enterprises forecast legal exposure, accelerate strategic decisions, and manage legal spend at scale.