Legal News

JPMorgan is preparing to finalize a deal with federal prosecutors and regulators in which the bank would pay nearly $1 billion to “settle civil and criminal charges that its traders rigged futures and securities markets” through alleged spoofing....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

Microsoft made a huge gaming move on Monday with its $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax Media, the “parent company of gaming studios like Bethesda,” and maker of titles like “The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Quake and Wolfenstein.” The deal “allows Microsoft to counter criticism that it lags behind Sony in the quality of its games"....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

The White House has given its crucial imprimatur to a deal for Oracle (and Walmart) to take a stake in Chinese video app TikTok, “an agreement that will delay the U.S. government’s threat to block the popular app in the United States over national security concerns.”...By: Robins Kaplan LLP

The latest on the potential Oracle/TikTok deal includes news that the Treasury Department has added requirements addressing “how TikTok’s data and source code would be handled and secured” to any potential deal that the companies have agreed to in principle [and that Walmart’s back in the mix]....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

The Fed sought to reassure markets for the foreseeable future on Wednesday by announcing that it plans to hold rates at their near-zero mark until into 2023 as it tries to “coax the economy back to full strength after the pandemic-induced recession”....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

Federal authorities are prepping to “reprimand Citigroup Inc. for failing to improve its risk-management systems—an expansive set of technology and procedures designed to detect problematic transactions, risky trades and anything else that could harm the bank.” That “expected rebuke” was apparently part of the bank’s move to hasten the departure of CEO Michael Corbat in favor of successor Jane Fraser....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

If not immune to surprise at this point in 2020, that might be the appropriate feeling at the apparent emergence of late-stage suitor Oracle as the winner of the TikTok sweepstakes. Though terms between ByteDance and Oracle are apparently still in flux, it appears the deal “will look more like a corporate restructuring than the outright sale Microsoft had proposed”....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

Blaming a “U.S. move to impose tariffs on French goods,” luxury brand conglomerate LMVH is pulling out of a proposed $16 billion deal to buy jeweler Tiffany & Co. Tiffany is now suing to enforce the ill-fated agreement....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

Walmart is again preparing to roll out its answer to Amazon Prime: Walmart+, a sub-$100/year membership service that features gas discounts and some free shipping (at qualifying thresholds)....By: Robins Kaplan LLP

Whoever emerges as the victor in the competition for TikTok will have to contend with another complication—this time from China, where on Friday the country “updated its export control rules to cover a variety of technologies it deemed sensitive, including technology that sounded much like TikTok’s personalized recommendation engine.” The change means that TikTok parent ByteDance “might need a license to sell its technology to an American” buyer....By: Robins Kaplan LLP