Legal Practice Pulse

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas has ruled that American Airlines encouraged environmentally and socially responsible investing in its 401(k) plan, thereby violating its legal responsibilities. O’Connor said that the airline’s “incestuous relationship with BlackRock and its own corporate goals disloyally influenced administration of the Plan,” and observed that BlackRock had a…

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer to lead the Labor Department could signal a break from the Republican party’s traditionally adversarial stance toward unions, the Wall Street Journal reports. Chavez-DeRemer is one of just three Republican co-sponsors of the 2023 Protecting the Right to Organize Act, a bill backed by 215 congressional Democrats…

Disney has agreed to pay $43.3m to settle claims that it systematically paid female middle managers less than men in similar roles over an eight-year period. Lawyers for the nine female plaintiffs had argued that Disney paid women at least $151m less than men in comparable roles across various divisions of the company, in violation…

A U.S. judge has permitted a consumer lawsuit against Tesla to advance, alleging the company concealed a “phantom braking” defect in its vehicles. The lawsuit claims that Tesla’s forward collision warning system generates false alerts, leading to sudden braking and increased insurance costs. U.S. District Judge Georgia Alexakis noted that the lawsuit “successfully connects the…

T-Mobile has reported a breach linked to the Chinese state-sponsored hacking group known as Salt Typhoon. While the company asserts that customer data and critical systems remain largely unaffected, the hackers accessed sensitive information, including the call records and private communications of high-ranking U.S. officials, indicating a targeted effort to gather intelligence. T-Mobile is actively…

Attorneys for SpaceX and Amazon have sought to convince a panel of judges at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), created by Congress in 1935, is unconstitutional. The lawsuits are among more than two dozen challenges brought by companies who say the NLRB’s structure gives it unchecked power…