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League's Antitrust Case Against US Soccer, MLS Survives
by Gunnar Larson 13 Jun '24

13 Jun '24

League's Antitrust Case Against US Soccer, MLS Survives <https://www.law360.com/competition/articles/1847099?nl_pk=6416fd97-1dc4-4e0…> By Elaine Briseño Major League Soccer and the sport's U.S. governing body must face allegations that they colluded to impose standards in a lopsided manner in order to hamper the North American Soccer League, after a New York federal judge refused to toss the claim. Memorandum attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/competition/articles/1847099?nl_pk=6416fd97-1dc4-4e0…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/competition/articles/1847099?nl_pk=6416fd97-1dc4-4e0…>

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Crypto Just Got Exponentially More Dangerous: Meet Fairshake
by Gunnar Larson 13 Jun '24

13 Jun '24

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2024/06/crypto-just-got-exponentially-more-d… By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: June 11, 2024 ~ The first thing you need to know about crypto is that some of the smartest minds in investment and technology have studied crypto carefully and determined it’s a total sham. In July 2019, NYU Professor and economist Nouriel Roubini summed up his findings like this: “Crypto currencies are not even currencies. They’re a joke…The price of Bitcoin has fallen in a week by how much – 30 percent. It goes up 20 percent one day, collapses the next. It is not a means of payment, nobody, not even this blockchain conference, accepts Bitcoin for paying for conference fees cause you can do only five transactions per second with Bitcoin. With the Visa system you can do 25,000 transactions per second…Crypto’s nonsense. It’s a failure. Nobody’s using it for any transactions. It’s trading one sh*tcoin for another sh*tcoin. That’s the entire trading or currency in the space where’s there’s price manipulation, spoofing, wash trading, pump and dumping, frontrunning. It’s just a big criminal scam and nothing else.” On June 1, 2022, more than 1,600 computer scientists, software engineers and technologists from around the world sent a letter to key members of the U.S. Congress and to the Chairs of the Senate Banking and House Financial Services Committees, disputing that crypto was a worthwhile financial innovation. Among the signatories to the letter were 45 experts who worked at Google; 19 from Microsoft; 11 from Apple; and Ph.Ds from the most prestigious universities in the world, including Oxford and MIT. These experts told Congress the following: “We strongly disagree with the narrative — peddled by those with a financial stake in the crypto-asset industry— that these technologies represent a positive financial innovation and are in any way suited to solving the financial problems facing ordinary Americans… “As software engineers and technologists with deep expertise in our fields, we dispute the claims made in recent years about the novelty and potential of blockchain technology. Blockchain technology cannot, and will not, have transaction reversal or data privacy mechanisms because they are antithetical to its base design. Financial technologies that serve the public must always have mechanisms for fraud mitigation and allow a human-in-the-loop to reverse transactions; blockchain permits neither.” In February of last year, the Wall Street Journal gave the iconic investor, Charlie Munger, space for a 393-word OpEd on crypto. Munger, who died in November of last year at age 99, used the space to urge the U.S. to ban crypto, as China and numerous other countries have already done. Munger wrote this: “…A cryptocurrency is not a currency, not a commodity, and not a security. Instead, it’s a gambling contract with a nearly 100% edge for the house, entered into in a country where gambling contracts are traditionally regulated only by states that compete in laxity. Obviously, the U.S. should now enact a new federal law that prevents this from happening.” But even after the FTX crypto exchange and Sam Bankman-Fried and his colleagues perpetrated one of the largest financial frauds in U.S. history, billionaire investors in crypto companies are still getting their way with far too many members of the U.S. Congress in exchange for fat political contributions. In February and March, the crypto billionaires became exponentially more dangerous. They decided they were going to knock Congresswoman Katie Porter out of the running for a U.S. Senate seat. What was Porter’s transgression against crypto? In January 2022, Porter had joined with Senator Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats in Congress in investigating the inherent dangers between crypto, energy usage and dangerous heating of the planet. A press statement summarized their concerns as follows: “Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, and the United States’ share of Bitcoin mining increased from 4% in August 2019 to 35% in July 2021. This share of mining is growing even more rapidly after China’s crackdown on cryptomining, which left 500,000 mining operations looking for new locations. This could push North America to represent over 40% of the total global computing power dedicated to mining Bitcoin. As more cryptomining operations proliferate in the United States, the extraordinary energy use raises alarms about massive carbon emissions and the impacts of this energy consumption on consumer energy prices. A recent study estimated that cryptomining in upstate New York raised annual electric bills by about $165 million for small businesses and $79 million for consumers.” The famously outspoken Porter (armed with her whiteboard and Harvard Law degree) could have posed a bigger problem in the Senate than she already does for crypto in the House. So a small group of crypto billionaires decided to simply take Porter out of contention for a Senate seat by spending an acknowledged $10,041,118.54 on grossly misleading attack ads against Porter, falsely claiming she was taking money from Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Banks. Because Porter’s House term is up in January, she will no longer be a problem for crypto in either the Senate or House come next year. The funding for the attack ads came from a Super Pac with the Orwellian, reverse-speak name of “Fairshake” – exactly what it did not want to give to Porter. As of April 30, Fairshake has taken in $92.87 million in political contributions with the vast bulk of that coming from a handful of tightly-linked crypto interests related to the crypto exchange — Coinbase — according to records at the Federal Election Commission. Coinbase and its payments arm, Coinbase Commerce, contributed over $51.5 million — 55 percent of the total of all receipts at Fairshake thus far. A major investor in Coinbase, Marc Andreessen, of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a/k/a AH Capital Management), chipped in $9.5 million. His partner in AH Capital Management, Ben Horowitz, added another $9.5 million. Not wanting to look like pikers – given the huge sum contributed from publicly-traded Coinbase – AH Capital Management itself chipped in $19 million. The Chairman and CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, handed Fairshake a cool $1 million. The Lead Independent Director on the Board of Coinbase, Fred Wilson, gave Fairshake $1,047,540. Coinbase-related contributions to Fairshake represent 98.5 percent of its total receipts thus far. Unfortunately, knocking out Porter does not appear to be game-over for Fairshake. Two other Senators who are crypto skeptics are running for re-election: Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Chair of the powerful Senate Banking Committee, and Jon Tester (D-MT). Fairshake has thus far spent just $40.6 million of its $92.87 million haul.

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Google's GPay TM Gets Declined In Europe
by Gunnar Larson 13 Jun '24

13 Jun '24

Google's GPay TM Gets Declined In Europe <https://www.law360.co.uk/financial-services-uk/articles/1846949?nl_pk=a94fc…> By Hanna Vioque Google lost its appeal on Wednesday after seeking to revive its "GPay" trademark for electronic payment services as a European court ruled that a Bulgarian rival had already cornered the digital market with "ePay." Read full article » <https://www.law360.co.uk/financial-services-uk/articles/1846949?nl_pk=a94fc…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.co.uk/financial-services-uk/articles/1846949?nl_pk=a94fc…>

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Elon Musk Sued Anew In Del. Over $16B Tesla Stock Sale
by Gunnar Larson 12 Jun '24

12 Jun '24

Elon Musk Sued Anew In Del. Over $16B Tesla Stock Sale <https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/1846325?nl_pk=2bd720dd-746c-4744…> By Elliot Weld A Tesla shareholder has hit Elon Musk with a lawsuit over his 2021 sale of $16 billion worth of stock just before his purchase of Twitter, claiming the billionaire profited by concealing his intent to buy the social media platform and made the purchase in part to reinstate former President Donald Trump's account. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/1846325?nl_pk=2bd720dd-746c-4744…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/1846325?nl_pk=2bd720dd-746c-4744…>

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Texas AG Urges DC Circ. To Revive Media Matters Probe
by Gunnar Larson 12 Jun '24

12 Jun '24

Texas AG Urges DC Circ. To Revive Media Matters Probe <https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/1846501?nl_pk=2bd720dd-746c-4744…> By Ali Sullivan Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton wants the D.C. Circuit to revive his investigation into progressive media watchdog Media Matters' reporting on the social media platform X, saying the D.C. federal court had no authority to interfere with the probe. Brief attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/1846501?nl_pk=2bd720dd-746c-4744…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/technology/articles/1846501?nl_pk=2bd720dd-746c-4744…>

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Pa. County Can't Give Voting Machine Data To Mich. Atty
by Gunnar Larson 12 Jun '24

12 Jun '24

Pa. County Can't Give Voting Machine Data To Mich. Atty <https://www.law360.com/governmentcontracts/articles/1846736?nl_pk=4126fe73-…> By Matthew Santoni A Pennsylvania judge on Tuesday blocked Fulton County commissioners from giving data copied from the county's Dominion Voting Systems equipment to an attorney and Donald Trump ally facing criminal charges for illegally accessing voter information in Michigan. Opinion attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/governmentcontracts/articles/1846736?nl_pk=4126fe73-…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/governmentcontracts/articles/1846736?nl_pk=4126fe73-…>

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Raytheon Openly Prefers Younger Job Applicants, Suit Says
by Gunnar Larson 12 Jun '24

12 Jun '24

Raytheon Openly Prefers Younger Job Applicants, Suit Says <https://www.law360.com/governmentcontracts/articles/1846767?nl_pk=4126fe73-…> By Patrick Hoff Raytheon for years has violated age bias law by advertising positions explicitly meant for recent college graduates despite public statements acknowledging that the aerospace company needs thousands of additional workers, a 67-year-old job applicant alleged Tuesday in Massachusetts federal court. Complaint attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/governmentcontracts/articles/1846767?nl_pk=4126fe73-…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/governmentcontracts/articles/1846767?nl_pk=4126fe73-…>

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SEC Probing Autodesk After Accounting Practices Report
by Gunnar Larson 12 Jun '24

12 Jun '24

SEC Probing Autodesk After Accounting Practices Report <https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1846607?nl_pk=ab5ce197-c1fb-4d8e…> By Elliot Weld Autodesk Inc. said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the software corporation after it voluntarily contacted the regulatory body to inform it of the company's own internal investigation into its free cash flow and non-generally accepted accounting principles operating margin practices. Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1846607?nl_pk=ab5ce197-c1fb-4d8e…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1846607?nl_pk=ab5ce197-c1fb-4d8e…>

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AI Hiring Platform's Ex-CEO Charged With $27M Fraud
by Gunnar Larson 12 Jun '24

12 Jun '24

AI Hiring Platform's Ex-CEO Charged With $27M Fraud <https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1846620?nl_pk=ab5ce197-c1fb-4d8e…> By Jessica Corso The founder of hiring startup Joonko Diversity Inc. has been charged with fraud, with prosecutors saying Tuesday that she deceived investors into dumping $27 million into a platform that supposedly used artificial intelligence to help companies recruit diverse job candidates. 2 documents attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1846620?nl_pk=ab5ce197-c1fb-4d8e…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/compliance/articles/1846620?nl_pk=ab5ce197-c1fb-4d8e…>

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Wells Fargo Seeks Exit From 'Free Trial' Marketing Scam Suit
by Gunnar Larson 12 Jun '24

12 Jun '24

Wells Fargo Seeks Exit From 'Free Trial' Marketing Scam Suit <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1846731?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> By Katryna Perera Wells Fargo on Tuesday asked a California federal judge to let it escape a lawsuit alleging that the bank's problematic sales practices led it to play a supporting role in two "free trial" marketing scams that pulled in $200 million from consumers, arguing there is no admissible evidence to support the plaintiff's "story." Motion attached | Read full article » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1846731?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…> | Save to favorites » <https://www.law360.com/banking/articles/1846731?nl_pk=feb6bbba-7878-4d39-be…>

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