California

California

Tracking California legal and regulatory developments.

20 entries in Tech Counsel Tracker

LawSnap Briefing Updated October 7, 2026

State of play.

AG Bonta has escalated California's PFAS litigation to target the full DuPont corporate family, filing a Second Amended Complaint invoking the Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act and Uniform Voidable Transactions Act to void restructuring transactions — including the Chemours spinoff and a subsequent MOU amendment — that allegedly shifted environmental liability onto a thinly capitalized entity while protecting New DuPont, Corteva, and newly created Qnity Electronics (→ California expands PFAS fraud case against DuPont spinoffs over asset transfers).
Apple's trade-secret case against OpenAI in the Northern District of California is in active motion practice, with OpenAI seeking dismissal on the ground that Apple failed to identify protectable secrets, while Apple simultaneously presses for a preliminary injunction that would constrain OpenAI's hardware development before the merits are reached (→ OpenAI seeks to dismiss Apple’s trade-secrets lawsuit over hardware hiring, OpenAI Rejects Apple’s Injunction Bid in Trade-Secret Fight, Apple sues OpenAI and two ex-employees for stealing trade secrets to build AI hardware, Apple sues OpenAI, alleging coordinated trade secret theft for AI hardware).
California joined the FTC and Utah in suing Hims & Hers, invoking its False Advertising and Unfair Competition Laws over health-data sharing with Meta and Snap and subscription dark patterns — the most concrete recent example of California deploying existing consumer-protection statutes against digital health business models (→ FTC, Utah, and California Sue Hims & Hers Over Health Data and Billing Practices, FTC, California, and Utah Sue Hims & Hers Over Health Data and Billing Practices, FTC, Utah, and California Sue Hims & Hers Over Health Data Sharing).
AG Bonta is leading a 12-state coalition challenging the DOJ-cleared Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery merger, directly testing whether state AGs can block a federally approved $110 billion transaction under the Clayton Act and establishing a potential template for state-led media consolidation challenges (→ 12 State AGs Sue to Block $110B Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Merger).
For counsel advising technology companies, digital health operators, entertainment clients, or companies with California environmental exposure, the practical baseline is a multi-front AG enforcement environment: fraudulent transfer theories in environmental restructuring, trade-secret litigation over AI hardware hiring, health-data privacy enforcement, and state antitrust challenges to federally cleared deals are all simultaneously active.

Where things stand.

AG Bonta is pursuing a fraudulent transfer theory to consolidate PFAS liability across the DuPont corporate family. The Second Amended Complaint targets five entities — including newly created Qnity Electronics — and seeks to void transactions that moved assets, including insurance coverage, away from Chemours; the South Carolina federal court's treatment will influence parallel PFAS litigation nationally (→ California expands PFAS fraud case against DuPont spinoffs over asset transfers).
The Apple v. OpenAI trade-secret case is the leading edge of AI hardware competitive-intelligence litigation. Apple alleges a coordinated scheme involving over 400 former employees, interview-room extraction of prototypes and specifications, and deception of Apple's manufacturing partners; OpenAI's dismissal motion and Apple's injunction bid are the immediate procedural battleground (→ Apple sues OpenAI and two ex-employees for stealing trade secrets to build AI hardware, Apple sues OpenAI, alleging coordinated trade secret theft for AI hardware, OpenAI Rejects Apple’s Injunction Bid in Trade-Secret Fight, OpenAI seeks to dismiss Apple’s trade-secrets lawsuit over hardware hiring).
California is an active co-plaintiff in FTC health-data enforcement. The Hims & Hers complaint — filed in the Northern District of California — invokes California's False Advertising and Unfair Competition Laws alongside the FTC Act and ROSCA, targeting pixel-based health-data transmission to ad platforms and pre-consultation prescription billing (→ FTC, Utah, and California Sue Hims & Hers Over Health Data and Billing Practices, FTC, California, and Utah Sue Hims & Hers Over Health Data and Billing Practices, FTC, Utah, and California Sue Hims & Hers Over Health Data Sharing).
California is leading a state-level challenge to a federally approved media merger. The 12-state coalition's Clayton Act suit against the Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery deal — filed after DOJ cleared the transaction — tests whether state AGs have independent authority to block deals federal regulators approved, with a $650 million quarterly ticking fee creating acute timing pressure (→ 12 State AGs Sue to Block $110B Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Merger).
CCPA risk-assessment obligations now reach call recording. The CPPA's phased regulations require documented risk assessments for processing posing "significant risk"; call recordings combined with analytics, AI, or profiling trigger the requirement, but no specific guidance has issued on which practices cross the threshold — leaving businesses to apply a balancing test without a clear safe harbor .
CIPA digital wiretapping litigation has reached a structural inflection point. More than 4,000 lawsuits and arbitrations target website tracking technologies; federal courts are split on whether CIPA's pen register framework applies; the California Court of Appeal's ruling in Variety Media will determine whether CIPA or the CCPA framework governs — a binary outcome with major exposure implications for any company running standard web analytics .
The AG's CPOM enforcement posture has hardened. AG Bonta's unsolicited amicus brief in Art Center Holdings argues that MSO succession agreements granting unilateral physician-replacement rights violate CPOM even when unexercised; expanded injunctive enforcement authority against PE-backed platforms remains active .
AI training data fair use doctrine is being shaped in California federal courts. Anthropic's transformative fair use argument for Claude training data is pending; the Bartz v. Anthropic settlement with over 100,000 authors and rights holders has a fairness hearing scheduled in San Francisco federal court .
AI hiring tool vendor liability is in active litigation. Mobley v. Workday has a certified ADEA class with viable disparate impact claims against the tool vendor; indemnification provisions in vendor contracts remain the unresolved allocation mechanism between platform developers and deploying employers .
California's absolute noncompete ban applies extraterritorially. Business and Professional Code § 16600.5 voids noncompetes regardless of where signed or which state's law the agreement selects; choice-of-law provisions have not reliably resolved the conflict in litigation .
AI-driven workforce analytics are now positioned as a standard preventive compliance tool for California employers. Ogletree Deakins has published a framework for converting timekeeping, payroll, and HRIS data into continuous monitoring for wage-and-hour exposure — misclassification, off-the-clock work, and break-period violations — before they accumulate into class-action or regulatory risk (→ Ogletree says AI workforce analytics can turn HR data into preventive compliance).

Latest developments.

AG Bonta files Second Amended Complaint in PFAS litigation, invoking fraudulent transfer statutes to target the full DuPont corporate family — including newly created Qnity Electronics — over restructuring transactions alleged to have shifted environmental liability onto Chemours (→ California expands PFAS fraud case against DuPont spinoffs over asset transfers).
OpenAI moves to dismiss Apple's trade-secret lawsuit, arguing Apple failed to identify protectable secrets or plausible misappropriation, while Apple simultaneously presses a preliminary injunction in the Northern District of California (→ OpenAI seeks to dismiss Apple’s trade-secrets lawsuit over hardware hiring).
Apple escalates with preliminary injunction bid targeting OpenAI, Tang Tan, Chang Liu, and io Products; OpenAI characterizes the suit as "careless" and "oddly personal" and relies on sealed internal communications to rebut the allegations (→ OpenAI Rejects Apple’s Injunction Bid in Trade-Secret Fight).
FTC, California, and Utah sue Hims & Hers in the Northern District of California over pixel-based health-data sharing with Meta and Snap and pre-consultation prescription billing, following a nearly three-year FTC investigation (→ FTC, Utah, and California Sue Hims & Hers Over Health Data and Billing Practices, FTC, California, and Utah Sue Hims & Hers Over Health Data and Billing Practices, FTC, Utah, and California Sue Hims & Hers Over Health Data Sharing).
AG Bonta leads 12-state coalition suing to block the Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery merger, directly challenging a DOJ-cleared $110 billion transaction under the Clayton Act and seeking a temporary restraining order before the deal's scheduled close (→ 12 State AGs Sue to Block $110B Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Merger).
Ogletree Deakins publishes AI workforce analytics compliance framework, positioning continuous monitoring of timekeeping and payroll data as a standard preventive tool against California wage-and-hour class-action exposure (→ Ogletree says AI workforce analytics can turn HR data into preventive compliance).

Active questions and open splits.

Fraudulent transfer theory as an environmental liability tool: how far does it reach? California's PFAS complaint seeks to void a series of corporate restructuring transactions — including spinoffs and MOU amendments — as fraudulent transfers; if the South Carolina federal court accepts the theory, it could consolidate liability across the entire DuPont family and signal a replicable enforcement model for other states facing thinly capitalized environmental defendants (→ California expands PFAS fraud case against DuPont spinoffs over asset transfers).
Trade-secret misappropriation standard for AI hardware hiring. The Apple v. OpenAI case tests whether institutional encouragement of employee poaching and interview-room extraction of proprietary information constitutes actionable misappropriation — a high bar that turns on internal OpenAI communications and hiring directives still under seal; the preliminary injunction ruling will be the first signal of how courts will police AI hardware development races (→ Apple sues OpenAI and two ex-employees for stealing trade secrets to build AI hardware, Apple sues OpenAI, alleging coordinated trade secret theft for AI hardware, OpenAI seeks to dismiss Apple’s trade-secrets lawsuit over hardware hiring).
State AG authority to block federally cleared mergers. The Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery challenge directly tests whether state AGs can obtain injunctive relief under the Clayton Act against a transaction DOJ approved — a precedent question with implications for every major deal that clears federal review but faces state-level political opposition (→ 12 State AGs Sue to Block $110B Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Merger).
Health-data sharing with ad platforms: where does the FTC Act/state UCL line fall? The Hims & Hers complaint targets pixel-based transmission of health information to Meta and Snap as a deceptive practice; the case will define what disclosures and consent mechanisms are sufficient for digital health companies operating subscription models with ad-tech integrations (→ FTC, Utah, and California Sue Hims & Hers Over Health Data and Billing Practices, FTC, Utah, and California Sue Hims & Hers Over Health Data Sharing).
CIPA scope: pen register statute or CCPA compliance pathway? The California Court of Appeal's ruling in Variety Media will resolve whether cookies and tracking pixels trigger CIPA's warrant requirement or fall under the CCPA's clearer compliance framework — a binary outcome affecting every company with a California-facing website and the 4,000+ pending suits .
CPOM enforcement: categorical ban on succession rights vs. fact-specific control analysis. AG Bonta's position in Art Center Holdings — that any unexercised MSO replacement right violates CPOM — conflicts with calls for an actual-control analysis; the Court of Appeal's resolution will determine whether existing MSO agreements across California require immediate restructuring .
AI training data fair use doctrine. Anthropic's transformative fair use argument in California federal court, alongside the Bartz settlement fairness hearing, will shape whether large-scale ingestion of copyrighted works for model training is defensible without licensing — a question with industry-wide implications regardless of which company prevails .

What to watch.

Ruling on Apple's preliminary injunction motion against OpenAI in the Northern District of California — if granted, it will materially constrain OpenAI's hardware timeline and signal courts' willingness to intervene early in AI competitive-intelligence disputes (→ OpenAI seeks to dismiss Apple’s trade-secrets lawsuit over hardware hiring, OpenAI Rejects Apple’s Injunction Bid in Trade-Secret Fight).
South Carolina federal court's treatment of California's fraudulent transfer theory in the PFAS Second Amended Complaint — acceptance or rejection will determine whether the DuPont corporate family faces consolidated liability and whether other states adopt the same enforcement model (→ California expands PFAS fraud case against DuPont spinoffs over asset transfers).
Whether the 12-state coalition obtains a temporary restraining order in the Paramount/Warner Bros. Discovery case before the deal's scheduled close — the $650 million quarterly ticking fee makes timing dispositive and will test the outer boundary of state AG merger-challenge authority (→ 12 State AGs Sue to Block $110B Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery Merger).
California Court of Appeal ruling in Variety Media CIPA case — outcome determines whether businesses face CIPA's warrant-requirement exposure or the CCPA compliance pathway for standard web analytics, with immediate implications for the 4,000+ pending suits .
Bartz v. Anthropic fairness hearing outcome in San Francisco federal court — approval or rejection sets the damages benchmark for AI copyright disputes and signals how courts will treat training data acquisition going forward .
California Court of Appeal decision in Art Center Holdings — the ruling on MSO succession agreements will either validate or require restructuring of PE-backed physician practice platforms statewide .

20 Contributing Entries

Employment Law California Contract Negotiation AI Workforce Displacement AI Worker Rights

Score

California Uber and Lyft drivers' union certified by state labor board on Sept. 9, 2026

California's Public Employment Relations Board certified the California Gig Workers Union on Sept. 9, 2026, making it the statewide bargaining representative for Uber and Lyft drivers. The board had confirmed on Aug. 7 that the union held at least 30% support among active drivers, and no rival group challenged the result during the 30-day window that followed. The union is backed by the Service Employees International Union, with locals 521, 721 and 1021 supporting the drive. Drivers remain classified as independent contractors. The certification follows AB 1340, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in October 2025, and SB 371, which reduced required insurance coverage. Uber and Lyft dropped their opposition to the bills after a deal with lawmakers and have said they will bargain in good faith. Estimates put the active driver pool at about 350,000, out of more than 800,000 registered drivers.

October 10, 2026

20 Contributing Entries

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