United States: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration

Companies that interact with federal agencies face growing risks that sensitive business information could be disclosed through Freedom of Information Act requests. Understanding FOIA Exemption 4 protections and implementing proactive confidentiality practices can help organizations safeguard trade secrets, commercial data, and proprietary information from public release.

Recent U.S. court decisions are reshaping the legal landscape for Japanese companies operating in America, from massive antitrust verdicts to contested tariff refunds and discovery conflicts. Five critical developments from May through July 2026 demand attention from Japanese businesses engaged in U.S. trade and litigation. Understanding these rulings is essential for managing legal risk and protecting commercial interests in the American market.

A federal magistrate judge in California has ruled that the use of generative AI in document review is subject to the same reasonableness and proportionality standards as traditional Technology Assisted Review (TAR), establishing that courts will not impose special requirements on AI-powered review tools absent specific evidence of deficiency. The decision addresses key questions about pre-culling documents with search terms before AI review and the extent to which parties must disclose validation metrics f

When a Chicago-based food company with decades-old federal trademark registrations for "Pizza Puff" challenged global pizza chain Little Caesars over its "Crazy Puffs" marketing, the Seventh Circuit delivered a stunning reversal that stripped away the local brand's protections. The appellate court's decision exposes how even officially registered trademarks can collapse when consumers view them as generic product categories rather than distinctive brand identifiers, forcing a critical examination of what tr

A North Carolina Supreme Court decision has upended conventional wisdom about guaranty agreements by holding that informal email exchanges can satisfy the Statute of Frauds. When a father's casual correspondence about his son's legal fees was deemed sufficient to create a binding guaranty, lenders and creditors learned that written obligations can arise from unexpected sources—and that the absence of a formal signed agreement may not be the shield guarantors think it is.

On July 20, 2026, Judge R. Gary Klausner of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California declared Vivek Shah a vexatious litigant and entered a pre-filing order requiring him...

Employers face mounting uncertainty as federal courts issue conflicting orders affecting Temporary Protected Status (TPS) work authorization and automatic EAD extensions. Recent USCIS guidance updates for Haiti, Somalia, and Syria TPS beneficiaries, combined with ongoing litigation over the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's implementation, create rapidly shifting compliance obligations that require immediate attention from HR and immigration professionals.

The Düsseldorf Local Division of the Unified Patent Court has issued a significant ruling in Brita SE v Wessper, finding indirect patent infringement through the supply of replacement filter cartridges. The decision explores critical questions about when supplying replacement parts crosses the line from permissible repair to impermissible reconstruction of a patented product, and whether patent exhaustion can serve as a defense in such cases.

A legal battle in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals challenges the DEA's final order to reschedule marijuana to Schedule III, with threshold procedural questions about standing, stays, and intervention potentially determining the fate of state-legal medical marijuana programs before the court even reaches the merits of the rescheduling decision. The litigation centers on whether the Department of Justice exceeded its statutory authority and whether additional treaty-compliance regulations required formal ru

For hundreds of years, the world’s sovereign nations refused to allow any other foreign sovereign to be sued in their courts without the sovereign’s consent. The guiding principle was “absolute sovereign immunity,” an outgrowth of the ancient legal precept rex non potest peccare, understood to mean “the king can do no wrong.” The principle also was recognized as wise foreign policy because it extended "grace and comity" to other sovereigns.

On June 29, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari in two enforcement proceedings under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), leaving intact D.C. Circuit rulings that rejected sovereign immunity defenses...

The Supreme Court's decision in Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Corporación CIMEX, S.A. fundamentally alters the landscape for litigation under the Helms-Burton Act by eliminating sovereign immunity as a defense for Cuban state-owned entities. This ruling opens the door for U.S. nationals to pursue trafficking claims against Cuban government agencies and instrumentalities without satisfying the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act's stringent exceptions. The decision raises critical questions about enforcement mechan