Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
Men who were federally indicted for an alleged healthcare fraud scheme involving urine drug tests won't have to face those charges after prosecutors asked a judge to toss the case. The dismissal is the first criminal defense win for Dykema’s new Texas white collar team, which launched in August.
Texas lawyers from Jones Day and Gibson Dunn advised the parties in CenterPoint's sale of a local distribution network that consumes 60 billion cf of natural gas each year.
Justice James P. Sullivan has interviewed to become a U.S. District Court Judge in Austin. It would be a fast track for Sullivan, who joined the Texas Supreme Court in January. Federal Magistrate Judge Dustin Howell also is said to be under consideration for the bench once held by Lee Yeakel.
In a $40 billion deal a Blackrock-led consortium of major AI players acquired Plano-based Aligned Data Centers in one of the largest data infrastructure to date. It was one of 14 deals valued at $46.6 billion dollars reported to the Roundup last week. Even so, it was only the seventh-largest Texas-related deal of 2025. That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup.
Lawmakers this session did something that hadn’t been done in more than 40 years: approved the creation of new civil district courts in Harris County. The five new courts will come online next year and in 2027, and officials have said the additions will improve docket efficiency, enhance access to justice and strengthen the court system’s ability to serve Harris County.
Despite the federal government shutdown, which took effect Oct. 1 due to congress’ failure to pass a spending bill, federal courts are still in operation. But after three weeks, and with no funding agreement in sight, the judiciary is beginning to feel the pressure as staff members are furloughed and funding dries up.
In June, before officially taking over as president and dean of South Texas College of Law, Reynaldo “Rey” Anaya Valencia joined seven other Texas law school leaders in urging the Texas Supreme Court to continue the American Bar Association’s role as the accrediting body. The son of former migrant farm workers, Valencia, a Harvard Law graduate, is the school’s first Hispanic and person of color president and dean.
Commercial Metals Co. said Thursday that it agreed to acquire Foley Products Co. for $1.84 billion in cash. Based outside Atlanta, Foley provides precast concrete and pipe products primarily in the Southeast, operating 18 facilities in nine states. The company’s products are used in drainage, water management, dry utility, and road construction across residential, non-residential and infrastructure sectors.
The Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure Partnership — the consortium founded about a year ago by BlackRock, Abu Dhabi-based MGX, Microsoft and NVIDIA to expand capacity of AI infrastructure — announced on Oct. 15 the acquisition of Aligned Data Centers from funds managed by Australia’s Macquarie Asset Management.
The companies said the deal, which values Plano-based Aligned Data Centers at $40 billion, will fuel the expansion of next-generation cloud and AI infrastructure.
Sterlington, Latham & Watkins and Kirkland & Ellis advised on the deal.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered to pay $1.4 billion for defamation to the Sandy Hook shooting victims’ family members a decade after the shooting. His second attempt to avoid paying has been denied by the U.S. Supreme Court.
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