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REUTERS/Thomas White/IllustrationMay 8 (Reuters) - The California woman suing Subway for claiming its tuna products contain ingredients other than tuna wants to end her lawsuit because she is pregnant, prompting Subway to demand her lawyers be sanctioned for bringing a frivolous case. Amin's lawyers did not immediately respond on Monday to requests for comment. The plaintiff claimed to have ordered Subway tuna products more than 100 times before suing in January 2021. She accused Subway of using other fish species, chicken, pork and cattle in its tuna products, or no tuna at all. The case is Amin v Subway Restaurants Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No.

☆ Byron Allen sues McDonald's for allegedly lying about commitment to Black media
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Jonathan Stempel | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/2] Byron Allen, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Entertainment Studios and Allen Media Group, speaks at the 2021 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., October 19, 2021. REUTERS/David SwansonMay 8 (Reuters) - The media entrepreneur Byron Allen has filed a second lawsuit against McDonald's Corp (MCD.N) over the fast-food chain's alleged refusal to advertise with Black-owned media. Allen said he would know if McDonald's were honoring that pledge because his Allen Media Group represents more than 90% of Black-owned media. The case are: Weather Group LLC et al v. McDonald's USA LLC, California Superior Court, Los Angeles County, No. 23STCV10045; and Entertainment Studios Networks Inc et al v McDonald's Corp, U.S. District Court, Central District of California, No.

[1/4] A view of the Goldman Sachs stall on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange July 16, 2013. REUTERS/Brendan McDermidMay 4 (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) said in a filing on Thursday it is cooperating with government probes into collapsed Silicon Valley Bank. The Wall Street bank is "cooperating with and providing information to various governmental bodies in connection with their investigations and inquiries" into SVB, including the two companies' dealings in March. The Wall Street bank acquired a bond portfolio on which SVB booked a $1.8 billion loss, a transaction that preceded a failed SVB share sale where Goldman was an underwriter. Goldman was also among the underwriters named as defendants in a securities class action lawsuit related to several SVB share offerings in 2021 and 2022, it said in a regulatory filing.

The NCAA also argued the plaintiffs' division of damages unlawfully favored male athletes over female ones. In a statement, the NCAA said the plaintiffs' claims for "billions of dollars in damages" do not have "legal or factual support." Plaintiffs' lawyers for years have challenged rules that prohibited college athletes from receiving compensation. Class actions provide plaintiffs an avenue in court to pursue claims collectively rather than as individuals, imposing greater pressures on defendants. The plaintiffs' lawyers have asked the court to approve three classes seeking monetary damages: football and men's basketball; women's basketball; and an additional sports class.

☆ Walmart dictates battery prices at competing retailers by pressuring Energizer, a trio of new lawsuits allege
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Ben Tobin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Energizer was "under pressure from Walmart" to ensure that nobody sold batteries for a lower price, three lawsuits say. The lawsuits allege that Energizer inflated wholesale battery prices for Walmart competitors. The lawsuits allege that in exchange for Walmart giving Energizer "preferential treatment" at its stores, Energizer agreed to a scheme to "artificially inflate the wholesale prices it charged to Walmart's competitors for Energizer Battery Products to prevent them from undercutting Walmart's retail prices." They further allege that, as a result, prices for batteries from Energizer's chief rival, Duracell, also were artificially inflated. The group "policed Energizer's customers' retail prices and raised wholesale prices as necessary to force Energizer's customers to maintain retail prices that did not undercut Walmart's," per the lawsuits.

According to complaints filed on Friday, Energizer agreed "under pressure from Walmart" to inflate wholesale battery prices for other retailers starting around January 2018, and require those retailers not to undercut Walmart on price. Walmart rivals allegedly risked higher wholesale prices or being cut off by Energizer, the largest U.S. disposable battery maker, if they charged less at checkout than Walmart, the world's largest retailer. According to the plaintiffs, Energizer's share of the U.S. disposable battery market has risen to more than 50% from 40% in 2018. The cases in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, are: Copeland et al v Energizer Holdings Inc et al, No. 23-02091, and Schuman et al v Energizer Holdings Inc et al, No.

☆ Bored Ape NFT creators win case against copycat artist
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Elle Reeve | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Crypto company Yuga Labs has won its claims of trademark infringement against artist Ryder Ripps who copied their NFTs in what he called a protest of their racially offensive imagery. Ripps told CNN he would appeal. But critics commented on social media that some of the Bored Apes contained what looked like references to posts on the website 4chan, which has become a hub of extremism, and pointed out that apes are an old trope in racist imagery. “Once the court adopted the plaintiff’s framing of the case, it was clear what was going to happen: the plaintiff wins everything basically,” he said. “There was an underlying really important point that the defendants are trying to make about the possibility that there was some kind of Nazi glorification in the overall collection NFT collection for the Bored Ape Yacht Club,” Goldman said.

☆ Supreme Court takes up legal spat over public officials blocking people on social media
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( Lawrence Hurley | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 19: The Supreme Court of the United States, on Wednesday, April 19, 2023 in Washington, DC. But the legal dispute is the same: Can blocking someone on social media give rise to a free speech violation under the Constitution's First Amendment? It's a recurring question that has arisen at all levels of government as elected officials increasingly use social media to interact with voters. The appeals court concluded that the elected officials were acting in their official capacities and that social media accounts are akin to a public forum. The court also rejected the officials' argument that their social media pages were not official channels for members of the public to communicate with the government.

SummarySummary Companies Artists' accused companies of misusing works to train AI systemsCompanies said artists failed to identify infringement(Reuters) - Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt fired back Tuesday at a group of artists who accused them of committing mass copyright infringement by using the artists' work in generative AI systems. The companies asked a San Francisco federal court to dismiss the artists' proposed class action lawsuit, arguing that the AI-created images are not similar to the artists' work and that the lawsuit did not note specific images that were allegedly misused. Representatives for Stability, DeviantArt and the artists did not immediately respond to requests for comment Wednesday. Midjourney's motion said that the lawsuit also does not "identify a single work by any plaintiff" that it "supposedly used as training data." The case is Andersen v. Stability AI Ltd, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No.

Lawyers for Kroger said in a filing in California federal court that the grocery store shoppers who sued over the deal have failed to define the relevant market necessary to evaluate grocery store competition and to identify how the acquisition would hurt consumers. The attorneys said the lawsuit was lacking "real-world facts." U.S. competition law "does not turn every grocery store consumer in the country into a roving antitrust enforcer," lawyers for Kroger told U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria. State antitrust enforcers also are looking at the deal. The case is Whalen v The Kroger Co, Albertsons Companies Inc et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No.

U.S. District Judge Edward Davila sentenced Holmes to 11 years and three months in prison in November. "Contrary to her suggestion that accuracy and reliability were central issues to her convictions, Ms. Holmes’s misrepresentations to Theranos investors involved more than just whether Theranos technology worked as promised," he said. In denying the release appeal, Davila noted that Holmes was unlikely to flee or endanger the community. Prosecutors said during the trial that Holmes misrepresented Theranos' technology and finances. On appeal, Holmes plans to challenge several of the judge's rulings, including his allowance of evidence about Theranos' test accuracy that postdated her statements to investors.

U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley dismissed the plaintiffs' first complaint in March after finding it failed to present enough information to back claims the acquisition would harm industry competition. The judge said at the time the plaintiffs could refile a new suit, which challenges the largest-ever video game industry deal. Lawyers for Microsoft said in a court filing last week that the gamers' original case "relied largely on flawed legal arguments based on outdated Supreme Court cases." The plaintiffs' lawyers have served subpoenas on companies including Activision and rivals including Nintendo of America Inc and Sony. The case is Demartini v. Microsoft, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, 3:22-cv-08991-JSC.

☆ Elizabeth Holmes must report to prison this month while waiting out her appeal, judge rules
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —A judge on Monday denied Elizabeth Holmes’ request to remain free while she appeals her conviction, setting the stage for the disgraced Theranos founder to report to prison later this month. Davila previously ordered Holmes to turn herself into custody on April 27, 2023. Balwani’s request to remain out of prison during his appeal was also denied, and he has been ordered by Davila to surrender to prison on April 20. Holmes’ trial was initially delayed multiple times, due to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and then because of her pregnancy. Following her sentencing in November, Holmes sought to delay the start of her prison term after giving birth to her second child.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 7 (Reuters) - A California Tesla owner on Friday sued the electric carmaker in a prospective class action lawsuit accusing it of violating the privacy of customers. "Tesla needs to be held accountable for these invasions and for misrepresenting its lax privacy practices to him and other Tesla owners," Fitzgerald said. It said Yeh was filing the complaint "against Tesla on behalf of himself, similarly-situated class members, and the general public." Reuters reported that some Tesla employees could see customers "doing laundry and really intimate things. The lawsuit asks the court "to enjoin Tesla from engaging in its wrongful behavior, including violating the privacy of customers and others, and to recover actual and punitive damages."

April 5 (Reuters) - Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc sued fast-casual dining rival Sweetgreen Inc in California federal court Tuesday, claiming the salad chain's new "Chipotle Chicken Burrito Bowl" violates its trademark rights. Chipotle's lawsuit said Sweetgreen's "very similar and directly competitive" bowl is an attempt to capitalize on the Chipotle brand and likely to confuse consumers. Chipotle said it suggested changing the name to something that uses "chipotle in lower-case, in a textual sentence, to accurately describe ingredients of its menu item," like a "chicken bowl with chipotle." Chipotle asked the court for an order blocking Sweetgreen from using the "Chipotle" name and an unspecified amount of money damages. The case is Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc v. Sweetgreen Inc, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, No.

☆ Chipotle is suing Sweetgreen over its use of the word 'chipotle' while promoting a new burrito bowl
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Sweetgreen's chipotle chicken burrito bowl is the subject of a lawsuit filed Tuesday by Chipotle. The Mexican chain's complaint centers on the "chipotle-chicken burrito bowl," which Sweetgreen added to its menu last month. Chipotle's issue isn't that Sweetgreen used the word "chipotle" alone, the company said in a complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Southern California. One example cited in the complaint shows a sign that Sweetgreen uses to promote the burrito bowl. A portion of Chipotle's complaint against Sweetgreen shows a Sweetgreen sign promoting the chipotle-chicken burrito bowl, with the word "chipotle" in all-caps and against a red background.

☆ Several more companies are suing Twitter, claiming it owes them around $230,000 in unpaid bills and they don't know if they'll ever be paid
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Four companies filed a class-action suit against Twitter, accusing it of failing to pay some bills. They said that Twitter has approved the invoices but they don't know when or even if they'll be paid. It's not the first time Twitter has been sued by companies claiming that their bills have gone unpaid. The company had provided Twitter with real-time captioning services throughout 2022, the lawsuit said. The four companies are suing Twitter for breach of contract and have asked for a trial by jury.

Two former college athletes filed the complaint against the NCAA, which is the governing body for U.S. intercollegiate sports, and a group of its member conferences. The lawsuit alleged an unlawful conspiracy to bar cash awards for academic success. The suit seeks to represent a class of "thousands" of current and former student athletes who competed on a Division I team starting in April 2019, before the academic awards were permitted. The complaint said the NCAA, its league conferences and member schools "generate billions of dollars a year in revenues from Division I sports." The plaintiffs "did not receive the academic achievement awards that they would have received in a competitive market," the complaint alleges.

☆ The second day of Tesla's racial bias trial included testimony from a former worker who said he found feces on a factory cart
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It was part of a retrial for an ex-contractor who filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against Tesla. Wheeler was one of a handful of former Tesla workers that testified on Tuesday regarding their experience as Black workers at Tesla's Fremont factory. Wheeler said that the incident occurred one evening during his night shift at the factory after he took a 30-minute break. Wheeler had testified about the alleged incident in the initial trial in 2021. His complaints echo similar lawsuits from other Tesla factory workers.

U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco said in his order that Google "fell strikingly short" in its duties to preserve records. Separately, the plaintiffs will have a chance to urge Donato to tell jurors that Google destroyed information that was unfavorable to it. The lawyers said Google was deleting chat records every 24 hours and "did so even after this litigation commenced." Google is separately fighting claims in a U.S. Justice Department antitrust case in Washington, D.C., federal court of destroyed chat records. The case is In re Google Play Store Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No.

March 26 (Reuters) - Some parts of Twitter Inc's source code have been leaked and the social media platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk is seeking information on the person responsible, a legal filing showed. According to the filing, "various excerpts" of Twitter's source code, which is used to run the company online, were posted on Github, a Microsoft-owned platform for sharing code for software development, by a user named 'FreeSpeechEnthusiast'. Github said it took down the code on Friday at Twitter's request. It also did not comment on how long Twitter's source code had been publicly available. Twitter also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

☆ Twitter says portions of source code leaked online
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

The leak saw excerpts of Twitter’s source code — the programming that powers the Twitter platform and its internal tools — posted to the online software repository GitHub, according to a court filing Friday by a Twitter attorney. The account was created on Jan. 3 and does not appear to have posted any other material besides the Twitter code. Leaked source code can not only provide insight into how a company designs its product but can also give criminals the chance to find or exploit security flaws and vulnerabilities. Twitter has launched an effort to identify the person or group behind the FreeSpeechEnthusiast GitHub account, as well as anyone who may have interacted with the leaked code. He has also said Twitter will charge fees for other software applications to access Twitter’s platform.

☆ Twitter executives reportedly think an ex-employee leaked the company's source code under the name 'FreeSpeechEnthusiast'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Grace Kay | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Twitter is leading a manhunt for a GitHub user who posted some of the company's source code online. Some Twitter execs think the leaker is an employee who left last year, The New York Times reported. In the past, Musk has said he plans to make some of Twitter's code public. Most recently, he said he would open source Twitter's code for recommending tweets by March 31. Read The New York Times' full story in its website.

☆ Twitter source code leaked online, court filings show
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Twitter issued a subpoena on March 24 to the software collaboration platform GitHub, where a user identified as "FreeSpeechEnthusiast" shared excerpts of Twitter's source code without permission, according to the filings. The purpose of the subpoena is to identify the person responsible for sharing the code, Twitter's counsel said in the documents. Musk has previously claimed that Twitter will open source the code used to recommend tweets on March 31. According to the DMCA request shared by GitHub, the company removed "proprietary source code for Twitter's platform and internal tools." It is unclear if the source code used to recommend tweets is part of the leak.

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