A&O Shearman merger not seen as a harbinger, TikTok sues Montana, SCOTUS Warhol decision leaves 'fair use' questions alive, and more ??
Reuters Legal
From the courts to law firms, we bring you the latest legal news. Subscribe to our newsletters: https://bit.ly/3nhgllA
?? Good morning from The Legal File! Here are today's top legal stories:
A planned merger between London-founded Allen & Overy and New York-founded Shearman & Sterling would be one of the biggest law firm tie-ups in decades, creating a 3,900-lawyer firm with a combined $3.4 billion in revenue.
The proposed new firm A&O Shearman, which the firms announced?on Sunday, immediately got the law firm world buzzing.
"Already I’ve heard from chairs of firms and influential partners saying, 'Where are we in our efforts and can we speed them up?'" said Kent Zimmermann, a California consultant who advises on law firm mergers.
But eagerness or anxiety inspired by the news won't be enough to spark a major wave of supersized law firm combinations, industry experts said, even as merger activity seems to have?accelerated?with the passing of the pandemic.
Large transatlantic mergers have been rare partly due to client conflicts and lack of partner buy-in. Allen & Overy itself weighed a merger with U.S. firm O'Melveny & Myers before talks fell through in 2019. Shearman and international firm Hogan Lovells abandoned merger talks in March.
TikTok on Monday filed a lawsuit challenging Montana's first-in-the-nation ban on the use of the Chinese-owned app, forecasting the future of litigation surrounding the app.
TikTok argues the ban, which would take effect on Jan. 1, violates the First Amendment rights of the company and users. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Montana, also argues the ban is pre-empted by federal law because it intrudes upon matters of exclusive federal concern and violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which limits the authority of States to enact legislation that unduly burdens interstate and foreign commerce.
Montana could impose fines of $10,000 for each violation by TikTok and additional fines of $10,000 per day if it violates the ban. The law does not impose penalties on individual TikTok users. It is not clear how Montana would enforce a TikTok ban.
Last week, five TikTok users in Montana filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to block the state's ban. Learn more.
领英推荐
U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Andy Warhol's Prince art case raised as many questions as it answered about the controversial copyright doctrine of fair use, legal experts said.
The top court said Warhol's "Orange Prince" series did not make fair use of celebrity photographer Lynn Goldsmith's photo of Prince and allowed her copyright lawsuit against Warhol's estate to continue.
The result "is extremely unfortunate for creators because it doesn't provide guidance for future cases," said Harvard Law School professor Rebecca Tushnet.
In deciding when fair use applies, courts have largely focused on whether a work is "transformative": if it adds new artistic expression like parody, education, or criticism.
Some legal observers were concerned that the justices had not provided more detail about what lower courts considering appropriative art should do. More on this.
A judge threw out a proposed class-action lawsuit against Elon Musk that claimed he cheated Twitter shareholders several times last year during his $44-billion takeover of the social media company.
The plaintiff William Heresniak lacked standing to sue because he challenged "wrongs associated with" Musk's buyout, not the fairness of the buyout itself, said U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco.
Judge Breyer said Heresniak did not show harm from Musk's belated disclosure of a 9.2% Twitter stake, which the suit said let him buy more shares at lower prices before the buyout was announced, or from the closing's taking place 1 1/2 months later than planned.
Heresniak sued on May 25, 2022, one month after Twitter accepted Musk's $54.20 per share buyout offer.
The judge also found no proof that Musk helped two friends then on Twitter's board, co-founder Jack Dorsey and Silver Lake private equity firm managing partner Egon Durban, breach their fiduciary duties by favoring their own and Musk's interests. Learn more.
?? That's all for today! Thank you for reading?The Legal File.
For more legal industry news, read and?subscribe?to?The Daily Docket.