Legal News

In a major shift (and with antitrust regulators breathing down its neck), Apple is halving the App Store fee it charges developers (from 30% to 15%) who produce “as much as $1 million in annual revenue from their apps and those who are new to the store.” Apple’s cut of App Store revenue has been a hot topic in recent months, as best exemplified in its ongoing battle with Fortnite maker Epic Games....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

Pittsburgh-based PNC Financial Services Group has reached a deal worth some $11.6 billion to buy the U.S. operations of BBVA, a Spanish lender. The mash-up, “one of the biggest banking deals since the 2008 financial crisis,” catapults PNC into the 5 spot among America’s biggest retail lenders....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

Wall Street had another come-to-Jesus day over the troubling recent Covid trends, as surging cases throughout the U.S. and across Europe drove markets to their worst performance since June....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

A handful of tech’s biggest leaders—the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Google, to be precise—descend upon the Hill today for a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on content monitoring and Section 230, the “slim and powerful law . . . that shields internet companies from liability for most of the material their users post.”...By: Robins Kaplan LLP

PE-backed Inspire Brands is in negotiations to take over Dunkin’ Brands Group, the parent of both Dunkin’ and Baskin-Robbins, in a deal valued at nearly $9 billion. Inspire includes Buffalo Wild Wings and Jimmy John’s among the big names in its stable of brands....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

Intel Corp. has reached a nearly $9 billion deal to sell its NAND flash memory unit to South Korea’s SKY Hynix, a “move that reorient[s] the semiconductor giant away from an area of historical importance that has become increasingly challenged”....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

ConocoPhillips is doubling down on its commitment to the Midland basin by buying Concho Resources Inc. in “an all-stock transaction valued at $9.7 billion,” even “as the American shale-drilling industry is facing a downturn after a historic crash in oil prices amid the Covid-19 pandemic”....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

New Disney CEO Bob Chapek made one of his biggest moves yet since taking the reins, announcing a realignment “of its business divisions on Monday that placed the focus squarely on Disney+ and its other streaming services as the future of the company’s creative efforts.” The shift has parallels to WarnerMedia’s reorg in August that “aligned all of its business units under HBO Max, its streaming service”....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

The SEC has sued “cybersecurity pioneer John McAfee” for “promoting the sale of cryptocurrencies without disclosing that he was being paid to do so.” McAfee allegedly recommended “at least seven initial coin offerings to his Twitter followers from at least November 2017 to February 2018 without revealing that he earned more than $23 million to boost them.” McAfee was arrested in Spain this week after fleeing Belize in 2012 “ahead of a murder investigation there”....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

A federal judge has delivered another win for TikTok over the weekend, temporarily blocking a White House ban “on new downloads of the video-sharing network, which would have gone into effect at 11:59 p.m. in Washington.” The Court hasn’t yet ruled on additional restrictions set to take place on November 12 “that are designed to further curb the app’s use in the U.S.”....By: Robins Kaplan LLP