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White-Collar Sentencing Under the Amended Guidelines: Fewer Steps, Same Dance
FEATURED
November 12, 2025
White-Collar Sentencing Under the Amended Guidelines: Fewer Steps, Same Dance
By: Robert Ward
For years, the U.S. Sentencing Commission’s Guidelines Manual has guided courts through a three-step process to determine the sentence to be imposed. At a high level, that process looked like this: First, the court would calculate the guideline range based on relevant offense conduct and related factors, along with the defendant’s criminal history. Second, the court would consider the Sentencing Commission’s policy statements or commentary relating to “departures” from the guidelines as well as the defendant’s specific personal characteristics. Third, and finally, the court would consider the statutory factors set out in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a) in determining the sentence to be imposed (whether within the guideline range or varying in either direction). As of November 1, 2025, this three-step…
Personal Information Flo-wing out of Control
October 20, 2025
Personal Information Flo-wing out of Control
By: Lauren Scribner
In September, a nearly $60 million settlement was reached in Frasco, et al v. Flo Health, Inc., Meta Platforms, Inc., Google, LLC, and Flurry, Inc. The case,[1] a class action filed in 2021, alleged inter alia that Flo Health Inc. (“Flo”), a popular women’s health tracking application estimated to have over 38 million monthly users, invaded the privacy of its users by sharing personal and…
New Laws for AI Developers: California’s Fork in the AI Regulatory Road
October 16, 2025
New Laws for AI Developers: California’s Fork in the AI Regulatory Road
By: Steven Hess
AI Regulation and The Transparency in Frontier Artificial Intelligence Act Artificial intelligence (“AI”) products have become an increasingly significant aspect of U.S. innovation, growth, and development. Generative AI is being used to predict the structure of proteins and other biomolecules in pharmaceutical research,[1] to simulate wargames for the U.S. military,[2] and to drive an estimated hundreds of billions of dollars of growth in sectors from…
Online Protests Hit Hard Against Anti-Piracy Bills
January 20, 2012
Online Protests Hit Hard Against Anti-Piracy Bills
By: Ifrah Law
Organized online protests over two bills in Congress targeting online copyright infringement — the House’s Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate’s Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) — seem to have crippled these bills’ progress and ended their chances of becoming law in their present form. We have previously written about the protests mounting against the bills. Just this week, high-profile protests cropped up…
New DOJ Opinion Paves Way to Legal Online Poker
December 26, 2011
New DOJ Opinion Paves Way to Legal Online Poker
By: Ifrah Law
On December 23, 2011, the U.S. Department of Justice revealed that it has reversed a long-held position by stating that the Wire Act applies only to sports betting. This marks a major change in policy for DOJ, which has long contended that the Wire Act prohibits all forms of Internet gambling, including poker. Late that day, the DOJ released a 13-page legal opinion dated September…
New Step for Nevada: Commission Approves Online Gambling Regulations
December 23, 2011
New Step for Nevada: Commission Approves Online Gambling Regulations
By: Ifrah Law
On Dec. 22, 2011, the Nevada Gaming Commission unanimously approved regulations drafted by the Nevada Gaming Control Board that could make Nevada the first state to provide online gambling within its borders. Earlier this year the Nevada state legislature passed legislation allowing for intrastate online gaming. In June, Governor Brian Sandoval, a former Nevada Gaming Commission Chairman, signed the legislation into law. Earlier this year,…
Judge Dismisses Lindsey FCPA Case, Finding Prosecutorial Misconduct
December 12, 2011
Judge Dismisses Lindsey FCPA Case, Finding Prosecutorial Misconduct
By: Ifrah Law
In May 2011, a federal jury in Los Angeles convicted Lindsey Manufacturing Co., its president Keith Lindsey, and CFO Steve Lee, on foreign bribery charges for their dealings with Mexico’s state-owned electricity utility, Comision Federal de Electricidad. The prosecutors claimed that Lindsey Manufacturing retained Enrique Aguilar, a Mexican company representative, after repeatedly failing to win contracts legitimately – and that the defendants knew that the…
More Big Pharma Companies Cough Up Big Dollars in DOJ Settlements
November 30, 2011
More Big Pharma Companies Cough Up Big Dollars in DOJ Settlements
By: Ifrah Law
The parade of major drug companies coughing up nine-digit or ten-digit dollar amounts in settlements with the U.S. government is continuing. GlaxoSmithKline recently broke a record by agreeing to pay the federal government $3 billion to settle an illegal pharmaceutical marketing case. This surpasses the previous record of $2.3 billion paid by Pfizer in 2009 over the marketing of its Bextra painkiller and other drugs….
