Companies ask US judiciary group to force lawsuit funding disclosures, Trump moves to toss Jan. 6 obstruction charges, and the Legal Fee Tracker ?

?? Good morning from The Legal File! Here is the rundown of today's top legal news:

?? Companies ask US judiciary group to force lawsuit funding disclosures

More than 100 major companies from the technology, pharmaceutical, automotive and other sectors have urged the U.S. judiciary to adopt a nationwide rule requiring disclosure of third-party litigation funding in lawsuits.

Companies including Amazon.com, Google, Cisco, Meta, Comcast, Exxon, Zurich, Eli Lilly, Bayer, Ford, Pfizer and Novartis?submitted the letter?on Oct. 2 to the federal courts’ Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, in advance of a hearing by the committee next week.

Litigation funding, where a financier backs clients' cases in exchange for a cut of an eventual settlement or judgment, has become a multibillion-dollar industry in recent years.

Some U.S. courts require disclosure of outside funding, but there is no uniformity across the judiciary.

The companies either had no immediate comment or did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the letter, which was organized by defense-focused Lawyers for Civil Justice.

Some of the signatories have previously expressed concern about litigation funding and the need for greater oversight. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups have for years called on standardizing funding disclosure rules.

The Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform?submitted?a letter on Oct. 2 to the advisory committee urging greater oversight, and Republican U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis?expressed?a similar view.

Christopher Bogart, chief executive of litigation funder Burford Capital, in a statement on Thursday questioned the motives of the companies that signed onto the letter and rejected their call for mandatory disclosures.

"What they want is to keep their unfair advantage in the justice system and to drive up costs for anyone who sues them – which is exactly what they do whenever they find out about the identity of a litigation funder,” Bogart said.

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??? Trump moves to toss Jan. 6 obstruction charges, citing Supreme Court ruling

Donald Trump?on Oct. 3 urged a federal judge to toss out two obstruction charges central to the case that the former U.S. president illegally sought to overturn his 2020 election defeat, citing a recent?U.S. Supreme Court?ruling raising the legal bar for those offenses.

Lawyers for Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, argued in a court filing that the Supreme Court's ruling requires U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss charges accusing Trump of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding — the congressional certification of his loss to Democrat Joe Biden on Jan. 6, 2021 — and conspiring to do so.

Trump is also seeking the dismissal of the two other charges in the indictment on other grounds.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to a four-count indictment accusing him of a multi-part conspiracy to block the collection of votes and certification of his election defeat.

Trump's argument is based on?a 6-3 Supreme Court decision in June, in which the justices sided with a criminal defendant charged under the same obstruction law who was accused of taking part in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

The filing came a day after prosecutors?provided a detailed account of their case?against Trump as they argued it survives a separate U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

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?? Makeup artist's lawsuit accuses Garth Brooks of rape

Country music superstar Garth Brooks was accused of rape and sexual assault in a lawsuit filed by an unnamed hair and makeup artist on Oct. 3.

In a complaint submitted to Superior Court in Los Angeles, a woman identified as Jane Roe said she had provided hair and makeup services to Brooks from 2017 to 2020. The woman said Brooks raped her in a hotel room in Los Angeles in 2019 when she accompanied him on a trip to help him prepare for an event.

She also said Brooks repeatedly appeared naked in front of her, groped her breasts while she did his hair and makeup and sent sexually explicit text messages.

A spokesperson for the Grammy Award-winning "Friends in Low Places" singer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In the lawsuit, the woman claims Brooks tried to pre-empt her filing with his own legal action. She said Brooks filed a complaint in Mississippi in September, under the name "John Doe," claiming there was a woman who was "a lying extortionist who intended on destroying his professional reputation."

The plaintiff is seeking a jury trial and compensatory and punitive damages.

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?? Legal Fee Tracker: Whistleblower lawyers could lose big in False Claims Act fight

A ruling by a Florida federal judge this week threatened to wipe out part of the federal False Claims Act, the Civil War-era statute designed to combat fraud against the U.S. government and reward whistleblowers who help uncover it.

The law's whistleblower provisions, which Congress strengthened in 1986, have fueled a lucrative practice for a segment of the U.S. plaintiffs bar. Last year False Claims Act whistleblowers and their lawyers collected about $350 million in awards for bringing successful cases on the government's behalf, according to U.S. Justice Department records.

U.S. District Judge Kathryn Mizelle?ruled?that those whistleblower, or qui tam, provisions are unconstitutional because they allow whistleblowers to exercise federal executive power without accountability to the president.

The whistleblowers decide "whether to appeal and which arguments to preserve, thereby shaping the broader legal landscape for the federal government," Mizelle said, adding that they had more independence than a federal prosecutor.

Millions of dollars are at stake for whistleblower lawyers, who typically have a contingency stake in the qui tam award their client receives for a successful case.

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?? That's all for today, thank you for reading?The Legal File and have a great weekend!

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