United States: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration

A federal judge in Florida has ordered TCPA defendant Czar Marketing Group to appear in court with their CRM system for live examination after defense counsel failed to produce promised discovery records. The court's unprecedented decision to conduct an in-person evidentiary hearing stems from suspicious similarities between production documents and concerns about altered records, raising questions about discovery compliance and potential spoliation.

On July 25, 2026, a Reddit user reported that the search operator site:claude.ai/share returned strangers' conversations with Claude. Tech reporter Beatrice Nolan covered it for Fortune two days later, cataloguing work notes, names, addresses, and cryptocurrency wallet keys sitting in the index.

The Commercial Division Advisory Council has proposed two rule amendments for public comment: one requiring transparency in discovery cost-shifting requests with good-faith cost estimates...

A third party successfully challenged a U.S. trademark registration for DISCUSS.IO, forcing its cancellation due to insufficient proof of actual commercial use. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board found that promotional materials, articles, and archived screenshots failed to demonstrate that services were genuinely rendered in commerce at the application filing date, highlighting the critical importance of maintaining direct evidence of trademark use.

As my colleague, Serene Carino, recently blogged, the Commercial Division Advisory Council has proposed a rule requiring accurate pinpoint citations in all Commercial Division filings, a reform designed to ensure that “[t]he reader should never be left guessing where the referenced authority resides.

A federal judge has approved settlements worth up to $2.5 billion between New Jersey and major chemical manufacturers over PFAS contamination at legacy manufacturing sites. The agreement requires cleanup of four contaminated facilities and funding for natural resource restoration over the next 25 years. Taft partners Rob Bilott and Dave Butler were part of the legal team that secured this landmark environmental settlement.

A third party successfully challenged a U.S. trademark registration for DISCUSS.IO, forcing its cancellation due to insufficient proof of actual commercial use. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board found that promotional materials, articles, and archived screenshots failed to demonstrate that services were genuinely rendered in commerce at the application filing date, highlighting the critical importance of maintaining direct evidence of trademark use.

As my colleague, Serene Carino, recently blogged, the Commercial Division Advisory Council has proposed a rule requiring accurate pinpoint citations in all Commercial Division filings, a reform designed to ensure that “[t]he reader should never be left guessing where the referenced authority resides.

A Texas Business Court ruling in Fiberwave v. AT&T Enterprises offers critical guidance on fraud claims, contractual disputes, and the economic loss rule. The court granted summary judgment dismissing fraud claims from both parties while finding contract ambiguities that will proceed to trial. What standards must businesses meet to prove fraudulent intent, and how do merger clauses and the economic loss rule shape commercial litigation outcomes?

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.

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act shields foreign states from suit in the United States, but determining whether an entity qualifies as the foreign state itself, a political subdivision, or an agency or instrumentality can be complex. This classification affects critical procedural and substantive protections, including service of process rules, immunity defenses, and attachment protections. Understanding these distinctions is essential from the outset of any case involving sovereign defendants.

The Supreme Court's 2025-2026 term delivered landmark rulings that reshape the landscape for arbitration enforcement and Helms-Burton Act claims. From clarifying federal courts' continuing jurisdiction over arbitration proceedings to expanding liability under Title III, these decisions favor award-creditors and claimholders while leaving critical sovereign immunity questions unresolved through strategic cert denials.