WLF Legal Pulse

Demystifying Section 337 Investigations before the U.S. International Trade Commission WLF Web Seminar program, Wednesday, May 2, 10-11 a.m. EST Participants: The Hon. Deanna Tanner Okun, Chairman, US International Trade Commission Jim Adduci, Adduci, Mastriani & Schaumberg, LLP Free registration at www.wlf.org. Viewers can ask questions during the program by emailing interactive@wlf.org.  For those who cannot [...]

Some suggestions for DOJ’s impending Foreign Corrupt Practices Act guidelines (Corruption, Crime & Compliance) Genetically-enhanced foods: to label or not label? (Consumer Advertising Law) Activists ponder suing SEC to force release of disclosure rules on oil companies’ payments overseas (The Hill E2 Wire) Will FDA ever offer guidance on how regulated entities can safely use [...]

Do we want food labeling rules to be set by class action lawyers on a lawsuit-by-lawsuit basis? Millions of potato chips are eaten every day. People enjoy them alone or as a compliment to a sandwich. Ben & Jerry’s even incorporated them (covered with fudge) into one of their ice creams. It’s no revelation to [...]

Cross-posted by Forbes.com at WLF’s contributor page Pharmaceutical companies’ promotions of their products continues to be an area of intense activity for several federal government agencies.  Such focused federal attention makes it easy for all interested parties, perhaps including drug makers themselves, to overlook the states’ involvement in the area of pharmaceutical promotion.  A settlement [...]

A February 27 Guest Commentary Legal Pulse post, Healthy Judicial Skepticism in Class Action over “Anti-Poaching” Agreement Among Tech Titans, examined a private antitrust claim which arose from the settlement of a federal Justice Department investigation.  DOJ had alleged that Google, Apple, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar had conspired to avoid “poaching” each other’s engineering employees. The agency and [...]

Donations to foreign charities can lead to anti-bribery law violations (Corruption, Crime & Compliance) Senators seek legislative reversal of generic drug preemption SCOTUS ruling, PLIVA v. Mensing (FDA Law Blog) Add Georgia to the list of states with their own version of the Federal False Claims Act (Original Source) In a reversal of its recent [...]

Guest Commentary Frank Cruz-Alvarez & Talia Zucker, Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P.* A federal court in Kentucky recently entertained the issue of a state’s ability to contract with private attorneys on a contingency-fee basis.  See Memorandum Opinion and Order, Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. v. Conway, No. 3:11-51-DCR, dated Mar. 21, 2012 and Mar. 23, [...]

Commentator: Sheila Millar, Keller and Heckman LLP Filed under: Civil Justice & Litigation

Cross-posted by Forbes.com at WLF contributor site A February 2012 Washington Legal Foundation Legal Opinion Letter urged a Wisconsin federal judge to reconsider his December 2011 decision to allow Superfund liability for two businesses. That outcome was a 180 degree reversal of the same judge’s July 2011 ruling rejecting Superfund liability. The paper, Judge’s Double-Take For Double Liability Spells Trouble For U.S. [...]

Last July in a Legal Pulse post, Food Advertising Class Action Feeding Frenzy?, WLF Summer Fellow John Kendrick mentioned a California-based class action suit filed against Dryer’s Grand Ice Cream (a Nestle brand). The suit alleged that the use of the terms “0 grams trans fat,” “Original Vanilla,” and “Classic” were false or misleading in violation [...]

A long anticipated story in this morning’s Wall Street Journal regarding the federal government’s use of a “false statements” criminal statute noted the plight of a Washington Legal Foundation client, Cory King (story here, subscription required). A petition is currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court asking the Justices to review a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit [...]

A federal court in Massachusetts recently invalidated the City of Worcester’s total ban on outdoor advertising for tobacco products within the city limits.  Unsurprisingly, the court relied on the Supreme Court’s precedent in Lorillard Tobacco Co. v. Reilly, 533 U.S. 525 (2001), which had essentially settled the same question over a decade earlier by overturning [...]

Guest Commentary Hon. James H. Burnley IV, Venable LLP* On March 26, the U.S. Supreme Court invited the Solicitor General of the United States to weigh in on whether the Court should review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s decision in American Trucking Associations, Inc. v. City of Los Angeles, California, et [...]

Millions of parties enter into arbitration agreements each year, and those parties expect courts to honor those agreements.  Congress enacted the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) to protect this very freedom of contract.  And the Supreme Court has consistently reaffirmed that arbitration is a matter of consent, and that private agreements to arbitrate should be enforced according to their [...]

Spoonful of Government Won’t Make Obesity Go Down “Preschooler’s Homemade Lunch Replaced with Cafeteria Nuggets” “Is Drinking Soda Worse than Smoking?” “Fatty Foods as Addictive as Cocaine?” Are these newspaper headlines from The Onion? Sadly, these are actual story  titles from respected media outlets. The headlines reflect the near-hysteria  that currently pervades discussion of America’s [...]

Cross-posted by Forbes.com in WLF contributor site In a March 26 opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Walton Pratt (S.D. Indiana) made plaintiffs’ lawyers pay for bringing a frivolous whistleblower suit under the federal False Claims Act (FCA). U.S. ex rel. Leveski v. ITT Educational Services.  Judge Pratt held three law firms and one lawyer jointly and [...]

High-tech industry behind the curve on foreign corruption enforcement compliance (Corruption, Crime & Compliance) Trial judge considers Rule 11 sanctions in medical device preemption case, but backs off while dismissing with prejudice (Drug & Device Law) Former Deputy Attorney General of U.S. calls for reform of FCPA (FCPA Professor) High Court ruling against EPA will [...]

As noted in this Wall Street Journal Law Blog post, a New York state trial judge dismissed a class action yesterday which had been filed against New York Law School for allegedly inflating its post-graduation employment numbers.  A Legal Pulse post, Are Law Schools the “Next Tobacco” for Class Action Lawyers?, from last week called [...]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit voted 2-1 this week in Discount Tobacco City v. U.S. to reject a First Amendment challenge to the federal law that requires cigarette labels to include graphic warnings that cover up to 50% of the packaging.  The decision stands in sharp contrast to a decision last [...]

Should medical device companies have to anticipate doctor misuse when fashioning warnings? One court says yes (Drug & Device Law) Puzzling mixed bag in federal court ruling involving FDA regulation of green tea health claim (FDA Law Blog) Health care fraud enforcement rakes in the bucks for the federal government (Original Source) Proxy season update: [...]