March 2024 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Fla. City Atty Says Law Grants Immunity In Realty Fraud Suit
by Gunnar Larson 21 Mar '24

21 Mar '24

Fla. City Atty Says Law Grants Immunity In Realty Fraud Suit <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1812161?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…> By David Minsky An attorney for the city of Miami told a state appellate panel Tuesday that the law entitles her to sovereign immunity in a lawsuit in which she's accused of aiding her husband in a real estate fraud scheme, saying the allegations aren't specific enough to remove that protection from her. 2 documents attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1812161?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/legalethics/articles/1812161?nl_pk=153d4a8a-6fb9-4a5…>

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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: March Lessons
by Gunnar Larson 21 Mar '24

21 Mar '24

Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: March Lessons <https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1813509?nl_pk=6422bbc2-a823-4be5-9a9…> In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses four notable circuit court decisions on topics from consumer fraud to employment — and provides key takeaways for counsel on issues including coercive communications with putative class members and Article III standing at the class certification stage. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1813509?nl_pk=6422bbc2-a823-4be5-9a9…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/health/articles/1813509?nl_pk=6422bbc2-a823-4be5-9a9…>

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NY Times Says Microsoft's AI 'Free-Riding' Threatens Revenue
by Gunnar Larson 21 Mar '24

21 Mar '24

NY Times Says Microsoft's AI 'Free-Riding' Threatens Revenue <https://www.law360.com/newyork/articles/1815270?nl_pk=ac5a3855-e47c-4403-be…> By Gina Kim The New York Times blasted Microsoft's contention that the paper hasn't provided "real-world" examples of ChatGPT lifting its content, contending Monday its complaint references "widely-publicized" occurrences of infringement and that Microsoft and OpenAI's actions reduce the publication's revenue by keeping users within the tech companies' search ecosystem. Memorandum attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/newyork/articles/1815270?nl_pk=ac5a3855-e47c-4403-be…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/newyork/articles/1815270?nl_pk=ac5a3855-e47c-4403-be…>

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LA Councilman's Wife Tells RICO Jury Of Vegas Cash Wads
by Gunnar Larson 21 Mar '24

21 Mar '24

LA Councilman's Wife Tells RICO Jury Of Vegas Cash Wads <https://www.law360.com/governmentcontracts/articles/1815555?nl_pk=4126fe73-…> By Craig Clough Former Los Angeles City Councilman Jose Huizar's wife got into a disagreement with him once over a wad of cash he brought back from a trip to Las Vegas with a billionaire developer, she testified Tuesday to a federal jury considering racketeering charges against another former city official, Raymond Chan. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/governmentcontracts/articles/1815555?nl_pk=4126fe73-…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/governmentcontracts/articles/1815555?nl_pk=4126fe73-…>

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NYC must overhaul property-tax system after years of 'discriminatory' inequity: court
by Gunnar Larson 20 Mar '24

20 Mar '24

https://nypost.com/2024/03/19/us-news/nyc-must-overhaul-property-tax-system… New York City has been ordered to overhaul its tax system in a landmark ruling by the state’s highest court after black property owners claimed the process favors their counterparts in whiter affluent areas. “After decades of avoiding responsibility to fix a universally acknowledged problem and a seven-year legal battle, city and state leaders will be required to create a property tax system that is equitable and just for millions of renters and homeowners in lower-income and minority communities,” said Martha Stark, policy director for Tax Equity Now New York, TENNY, the group that filed the lawsuit, in a statement after Tuesday’s ruling.

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Frank Carone on Eric Adams’s Smash-and-Grab New York
by Gunnar Larson 20 Mar '24

20 Mar '24

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/frank-carone-eric-adams-mayor-new-y… The Eric Adams Smash-and-Grab It’s a brazenly transactional era of government here in New York City. Frank Carone is its master practitioner. By David Freedlander, a writer covering New York and national politics for New York Magazine At Casa Cipriani. Photo: Dolly Faibyshev for New York Magazine This article was featured in One Great Story, New York’s reading recommendation newsletter. Sign up here to get it nightly. One afternoon last spring at Casa Cipriani, a members-only club at the foot of Manhattan, Frank Carone was sitting in a plush upholstered chair, barking into his phone. “You don’t have Waze?!” he said. He looked at me and rolled his eyes. “Apparently his app is broken.” Carone, a lawyer whose connections to Mayor Eric Adams allow him to charge clients with business before the city $20,000 a month, was on the line with a driver who was attempting to deliver several palm trees to his waterfront mansion in Mill Basin. The trees have to be planted anew every year after northeastern weather takes its toll. Carone’s neighborhood, in the furthest reaches of Brooklyn, can feel more like Miami Beach than New York. His extravagantly decorated property — “Baroque is the word I would use,” says a visitor — is where he began hosting fundraisers in the early aughts for a rising generation of then-obscure Brooklyn Democrats, including Bill de Blasio and Hakeem Jeffries. One of the regulars at his soirées was Adams, who was just getting into politics after a career as a police officer. Years before the 2021 mayoral race began in earnest, Carone went all in on Adams, soliciting donations and acting as one of his most trusted advisers. When Adams won, in part by following Carone’s advice to position himself as a centrist and ignore the party’s left wing, he rewarded Carone by naming him chief of staff. Like Adams, Carone took an unusual delight in his new job. While the role is usually about managing downward, keeping the bureaucratic trains running, Carone’s Instagram feed showed a man living his best life: speaking at a conference in Istanbul, touring the Holy City with the mayor of Jerusalem, talking whiskey with Liev Schreiber, hanging out on the sidelines of New York Giants games. At the same time, powerful developers and businessmen say Carone was remarkably responsive to their needs, with an ability to get any government official on the phone and smooth things that needed smoothing. “Things he got involved in got done,” said one lobbyist. “Things he didn’t, didn’t.” Carone’s priorities reflected that Adams, for all his talk of being the new face of the national Democratic Party, was at heart an old-school Brooklyn clubhouse pol. Before 2022, Carone had never spent a day working in an elected official’s office, and in his career he had represented any number of outer-borough scoundrels, including slumlords, insurance fraudsters, and disreputable operators of homeless shelters. People in the city’s permanent government wondered if Carone was treating his time in power as a chance to level up, prospecting for richer clients — suspicions that hardened when after just nine months he announced he was quitting to run both a consultancy, Oaktree Solutions, and Adams’s reelection campaign. One labor leader told me, “It’s the worst smash-and-grab operation in the history of city government.”

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Casino Game Co. Escapes Investor Suit Over System Changes
by Gunnar Larson 20 Mar '24

20 Mar '24

Casino Game Co. Escapes Investor Suit Over System Changes <https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/1815428?nl_pk=2bd720dd-746c-4744…> By Sydney Price A New York federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit from investors of mobile gaming company Playtika accusing it of announcing an overhaul that was already underway for two of its most successful games, saying the company was not obligated to make specific disclosures regarding the changes. Order attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/1815428?nl_pk=2bd720dd-746c-4744…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/1815428?nl_pk=2bd720dd-746c-4744…>

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5th Circ. Ducks 'Pandora's Box' In Tossing SEC Gag Rule Row
by Gunnar Larson 20 Mar '24

20 Mar '24

5th Circ. Ducks 'Pandora's Box' In Tossing SEC Gag Rule Row <https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1815379?nl_pk=ab5ce197-c1fb-4d8e…> By Catherine Marfin The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday defeated a challenge to its so-called gag rule against settling defendants, with the Fifth Circuit writing that it didn't want to open a "Pandora's box" by ruling that it had jurisdiction to review a financial radio show host's appeal of a decision that wasn't a final judgment. Opinion attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1815379?nl_pk=ab5ce197-c1fb-4d8e…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1815379?nl_pk=ab5ce197-c1fb-4d8e…>

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Google Fights Wiretapping Suit Over 'Fancy Tape Recorder'
by Gunnar Larson 20 Mar '24

20 Mar '24

Google Fights Wiretapping Suit Over 'Fancy Tape Recorder' <https://www.law360.com/cybersecurity-privacy/articles/1815273?nl_pk=3dfd2fd…> By Dorothy Atkins Google LLC urged a California federal judge Tuesday to throw out a proposed class action alleging the tech giant's "human-like" customer-service product using generative text illegally eavesdrops on conversations without users' consent, arguing that the product is merely a "fancy tape recorder" that doesn't involve humans eavesdropping. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/cybersecurity-privacy/articles/1815273?nl_pk=3dfd2fd…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/cybersecurity-privacy/articles/1815273?nl_pk=3dfd2fd…>

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Spartan Arbitration Tactics Against Well-Funded Opponents
by Gunnar Larson 20 Mar '24

20 Mar '24

Spartan Arbitration Tactics Against Well-Funded Opponents <https://www.law360.com/mergersacquisitions/articles/1813515?nl_pk=a34c25b5-…> Like the ancient Spartans who held off a numerically superior Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae, trial attorneys and clients faced with arbitration against an opponent with a bigger war chest can take a strategic approach to create a pass to victory, say Kostas Katsiris and Benjamin Argyle at Venable. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/mergersacquisitions/articles/1813515?nl_pk=a34c25b5-…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/mergersacquisitions/articles/1813515?nl_pk=a34c25b5-…>

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