In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Boeing gets a second chance to bring an end to a Southwest Airlines Pilots Association’s lawsuit, American Airlines is dealt a blow in a lawsuit over its 401(k) plan investing, and Attorney General Ken Paxton — in the wake of an appellate panel tossing his Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act suit against Google — has filed new lawsuits accusing TikTok of violating the same law and Allstate Insurance of using technology to unlawfully collect driving data to justify premium increases.
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Jury Hands Landry’s Loss in TM Spat with Whiskey Distiller
Opening statements were delivered to jurors Wednesday afternoon in the lawsuit Landry’s filed against Lowell Zachary Landry and his company, Landry Distilling, in March 2023. Landry was one of just four witnesses called to testify during the trial that ended with a verdict in his favor around 1 p.m. Monday.
Ex-Chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Joins V&E
Vinson & Elkins announced Monday that Jon Niermann, the former chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, has joined the firm as an Austin-based partner working within its environmental practice, the firm said in a news release.
From Energy to Technology: The Evolving Landscape of Texas-Related Billion-Dollar Deals
Last year, there were 135 Texas-related deals (one that involves a party headquartered in Texas or advised by Texas-based lawyers) submitted to The Texas Lawbook‘s exclusive Corporate Deal Tracker that reached or broke the $1 billion barrier — some of them by a lot. The deals had an aggregate value of $627.2 billion, slightly below 2023 but much higher than in 2021, the record year of rebounding from the pandemic, against which many firms have measured the market in recent years.
CDT Roundup: 21 Deals, 16 Firms, 187 Lawyers, $33.6 billion
There have been a number of utility/power deals in recent weeks, but none that seemed more significant than Constellation Energy’s $26.6 billion acquisition of Houston’s Calpine Energy. The deal is significant, not only for its size, but for what it says about our understanding of energy transition. Coupled, of course, with the usual CDT Roundup survey of last week’s Texas-related energy transactions.
Six Lawyers Jump from Bradley to Sheppard Mullin
Partners Gene Besen, Elisha Kobre and Scarlett Singleton Nokes, as well as special counsel Stephen Moulton and associates Rebecca James and Courtlyn Ward, have joined Sheppard Mullin’s governmental practice. The team’s practice grew exponentially at Bradley and a move to Sheppard Mullin was a strategic decision to grow their practice further in a larger firm, Besen said.
Top Deals of 2024: When AI Met M&A (and Everything Else)
This is our list, a roster of transactions that caught our attention this year among the more than 2,000 Texas-related transactions submitted to the Corporate Deal Tracker in 2024. These “Texas-related” deals are transactions that involve either Texas-headquartered parties, Texas-based lawyers or, better yet, both.
Social Media Influencer’s Texas Lawsuit Against Rival Could Pave the Way for Future Copyright Cases
A lawsuit filed by Sydney Nicole Gifford, a former Austin resident who promotes Amazon products, against fellow Austin-area influencer Alyssa Sheil survived a motion to dismiss last month. Lawyers who spoke with The Texas Lawbook said widespread attention on the case is likely to incite other influencers to contact lawyers and explore legal avenues, including litigation, to safeguard their brand aesthetics, even though those same legal observers expressed skepticism about the case’s viability moving forward.
Bloomberg Law: Kirkland ‘Absolutely Shocked’ at SDTX Judge’s Secret Romance with ex-Jackson Walker Partner
Lawyers at Jackson Walker never told lawyers at Kirkland & Ellis that one of its bankruptcy partners was having a secret romantic relationship with former Houston Bankruptcy Judge David Jones and that Kirkland would have taken action to make the couple’s cohabitation public if he had known about it, one of Kirkland’s top bankruptcy lawyers told the U.S. Trustee’s office in a recent deposition.
P.S. — SPCA and Jones Day: 2024 DFW Creative Partnership of the Year
Jones Day construction litigation partner Joseph Van Asten, the dad to two rescue dogs, was looking for a pro bono project earlier this year. Chris Luna, former T-Mobile chief counsel-turned-CEO of SPCA needed a large corporate law firm with experience in several different practice areas. The result: The Association of Corporate Counsel’s DFW Chapter and The Texas Lawbook are honoring SPCA’s Luna and Jones Day with the 2024 DFW Corporate Counsel Award for Creative Partnership. During the past year, Jones Day has had 10 different lawyers work more than 200 pro bono hours on seven different matters for the SPCA, including drafting and negotiating construction agreements for the SPCA expansion project, providing advice on SPCA’s corporate bylaws and corporate governance issues and advising the nonprofit on its trademark portfolio. This is how the partnership came together.