A federal judge blocked the $54 billion merger between health insurance giants Anthem and Cigna, saying the deal would increase prices and reduce competition, according to a report by The Washington Post.

Carolyn Y. Johnson reports that this ruling is the second recent court decision to uphold the Justice Department’s opposition to deals that would have consolidated the five largest insurers in the United States into three companies.

“The evidence has also shown that the merger is likely to result in higher prices, and that it will have other anticompetitive effects: it will eliminate the two firms’ vigorous competition against each other for national accounts, reduce the number of national carriers available to respond to solicitations in the future, and diminish the prospects for innovation in the market,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote in a 12-page order.

In the merger agreement, Anthem had agreed to pay Cigna a $1.85 billion termination fee if the deal is blocked because of regulatory interference.

Read the Washington Post article.

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Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee, outlined proposed legislation to clear away many rules bankers say have hobbled investment and economic growth in a staff memo reported by Reuters.

Hensarling’s plan would roll back Wall Street rules and consumer protections conceived after the 2008 financial crisis, a step that will largely define the financial deregulation debate in the Trump era.

“Under Hensarling’s plan, the largest U.S. banks would face less oversight — though not as little as they had been hoping for – while startups would have easier access to investors,” writes reporter Patrick Rucker.

Read the Reuters article.

Comprehensive due diligence review of any target company is imperative when determining whether to buy another company, writes Kimi Murakami for Piliero Mazza.

“Layer on the fact that the target company has government contracts then several unique issues must also be critically evaluated when performing due diligence. Failure to do so could result in a significant loss in value of the target – and its contracts – after the acquisition has closed. What follows is a list of certain key issues that should be analyzed when engaging in due diligence review of a government contractor,” she explains in an article in the firm’s PM Legal Minute blog.

The article covers subjects such as set-aside contracts, pending proposals, security clearance, import/export issues, oci issues, subcontracts, non-us buyer, and novation.

Read the article.

A Washington lawyer at a prominent firm was arrested in a disguise while trying to sell a copy of a secret lawsuit involving a company that was under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, Bloomberg Law is reporting.

Jeffrey Wertkin immediately lost his job with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP after he was picked up Jan. 31 in the lobby of a hotel in Cupertino, California. The FBI said he believed he was about to collect $310,000 for selling the lawsuit.

Wertkin believed he would hand a copy of a complaint to an employee of the company, which was accused in the complaint by a whistle-blower of falsely billing the government, report Bloomberg’s Jef Feeley, David Voreacos and Joel Rosenblatt.

That employee turned out to be an FBI agent, according to arrest documents unsealed on Feb. 6.

Read the Bloomberg article.

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American Banker asks the question of what will be the immediate impact of President Trump’s executive order  calling for a review of financial regulatory policy, especially the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.

The magazine’s conclusion is that the impact likely will be small in the short term.

In the article, Joe Adler writes that the order was framed as “core principles” rather than any immediate policy change.

“The president has very little direct authority to change Dodd-Frank, repeal the fiduciary duty rule or revamp Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result, his orders will urge other parts of the government to make changes,” wrote Jaret Seiberg, an analyst at Cowen Group. “With the possible exception of the fiduciary duty rule, actual changes for the banks are unlikely to occur quickly.”

As for the long-term impact, Adler writes that a complete unwind of the 2010 law is unlikely in the current political environment in Washington.

Read the American Banker article.

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Public-interest advocacy groups say the Trump administration appears to be deliberately structuring the president’s growing roster of business-focused advisory groups in order to avoid becoming subject to a federal transparency law that requires such meetings be formally announced in advance and open to the public, reports Politico.

“A 1972 law aimed at limiting back-room influence by special interests, the Federal Advisory Committee Act, regulates the operation of federal government advisory council,” writes Josh Gerstein. “Normally, the meetings of such groups are announced at least ten days in advance in the Federal Register and the sessions are open to the public.”

Although there have been no official notices of any meetings and no executive orders laying out the duties of the “Strategic and Policy Forum” or any other groups Trump is convening, a White House office insisted the meetings are in compliance with the law.

Read the Politico article.

Baretz+Brunelle, a strategic communications agency, announced that Erin Harrison, former editor-in-chief of ALM’s Legaltech News and InsideCounsel, has joined the firm as a managing director.

In a release, the firm said Harrison will lead Baretz+Brunelle’s legal technology practice and focus on the development of the firm’s digital content strategies for existing and future clients – both natural areas of focus, given her deep ties to the fast-growing legal technology sector and extensive experience in digital media, including content strategy, SEO and social media.

The release continues:

A veteran journalist and publisher, Harrison served as editor-in-chief of American Lawyer Media’s Legaltech News and InsideCounsel and directed the multimedia editorial coverage of ALM’s global events, including two of its flagship events, Legaltech and cyberSecure. She also played an integral editorial leadership role in developing and implementing ALM’s digital media campaigns, directing the content strategy for the launch of new digital products including digital news packages, webcasts and websites.

“There is so much opportunity now in the law firm space where competition is the fiercest it’s ever been, and that could not be more true than in the legal tech sector and law firms’ digital marketing efforts,” said Spencer Baretz, founding partner of Baretz+Brunelle. “Erin is the perfect leader to expand our firm’s reach in these two areas.”

Harrison directed the development, strategy and editorial operations of ALM’s contributed content, special sections, digital products and global event coverage strategy across the company’s legal, insurance, financial and real estate verticals serving more than 2 million visitors per month. Named among the 2016 Folio Top Women in Media, Harrison was recognized as a “Director-Level Doer” for her collaborative approach to building new digital media products and for elevating the Legaltech News brand. She also served as a member of the Legaltech Advisory Board and was a frequent moderator at Legaltech, the world’s largest and most prestigious legal technology event.

“I wanted to join a top communications firm where I could not only leverage my experience in journalism and the legal industry, but also become part of a smaller organization that feels more like a family,” Harrison said. “I am thrilled to join such an extraordinary team of seasoned communications leaders at Baretz+Brunelle and to help expand its services and enhance its impressive brand.”

“Erin is one of the most well-respected journalists in the legal industry and we always enjoyed working with her in that capacity. We can’t wait to work with her every day as a member of our team,” said Cari Brunelle, founding partner of Baretz+Brunelle.

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Scholars interviewed by The Washington Post say that President Trump’s executive order on immigration is likely to face a series of new legal challenges about whether it violates a 1965 anti-discrimination law and the Constitution, the newspaper reports.

Four federal judges have put various holds on the ban, and 16 state attorneys general have said they believe the executive order is unconstitutional.

Ruthann Robson, professor of law at City University of New York School of Law, said the order could be thrown out on grounds that it violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution. “She noted that courts have criticized governmental distinctions based on ancestry and race, write Michael Kranish and Robert Barnes.

Read the Washington Post article.

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The Internal Revenue Service’s Large Business and International division is taking a new approach to tax compliance, with a series of 13 campaigns aimed at cracking down on tax evasion, reports Accounting Today.

Reporter Michael Cohn writes that the IRS division is moving toward issue-based examinations and a compliance campaign process in which it decides which compliance issues present enough of a risk that they require a response.

Those responses, known as “treatment streams,” could include examinations and letters to achieve the IRS’s tax compliance objectives, leveraging IRS expertise in various compliance issues, Cohn explains.

Some of the areas considered will be tax credits for advanced energy projects, people who withdraw from or are denied entry to the Offshore Voluntary Disclosure Program, TV broadcasters and channels who claim film production tax credits for distributing shows produced by third parties, and micro captive insurance.

Read the Accounting Today article.

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A Dallas constitutional law attorney says President Trump’s temporary ban on immigrants and refugees at airports nationwide is extreme, but not without historical precedent, according to a post published by Androvett Legal Media & Marketing.

Issued Friday, the executive order prevents citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for three months. He also placed the U.S. refugee program on hold for four months. The order launched massive protests at airports in major cities across the country and brought attorneys together to offer free legal support to detained travelers.

But attorney David Coale of Lynn Pinker Cox Hurst says that presidents have conducted similar actions in the past:

“There is a very broad 1952 statute that lets the president suspend entry by classes of aliens for security reasons. But a 1965 statute imposes anti-discrimination limits on the executive branch in how it implements immigration policy. But beyond that, there is not a lot of case law to go. More modest bans have been allowed by courts, but with caveats that indicate they were thinking about a possibility such as this. Jimmy Carter did something vaguely like it in 1980 during the Iran crisis by requiring Iranians here on student visas to report to immigration officials, but it is a big leap from his limited action to this one. I think that once the temporary ban ends, however, the ‘extreme vetting’ in the current order will be DOA. The First Amendment prohibits government action that favors one religion over another, and the current executive order clearly does so by giving non-Muslims priority status.”

Donald Trump’s executive order Friday banning citizens of certain countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days blindsided the technology industry, reports The Los Angeles Times.

Reporter Tracey Lien writes that the industry had thought that its main battle on the immigration front was over the number of H-1B visas — granted to high-skilled foreign workers — that will be made available each year.

But now lawyers are fielding calls from worried tech workers with visas and green cards. And they’re having to adjust their advice to those clients as each day’s news comes out.

“For those abroad, we are telling them to come back as soon as possible, and be prepared to face questioning and possible refusal,” Los Angeles immigration attorney Ayda Akalin said.

Read the Los Angeles Times article.

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Reuters is pointing out that President Donald Trump’s executive order directing federal agencies to take away funding from self-proclaimed sanctuary cities had one big exemption for one of his favorite constituencies: the police, who would be protected from cuts.

In the article, reporters Mica Rosenberg, Dan Levine and Andy Sullivan explain that it’s possible that very exemption makes it much more likely that a judge could strike down that section of the order as unconstitutional.

The article says: “The Trump administration cannot cut funds for sanctuary cities’ healthcare and education while preserving money for police, since those jobs relate more closely to immigration enforcement, said Richard Doyle, city attorney in San Jose, California. He said it was not clear whether existing federal funding or only future grants would be targeted.”

Read the Reuters article.

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Thomson Reuters Practical Law developed a legal update containing the full transcript of the keynote address given by Mary Jo White, former Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commssion, at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law’s 44th Annual Securities Regulation Institute.

She began her address with a brief look back over her tenure at the SEC, the agency’s effort to evolve with market technology, evolution with new financial products, evolving with new paths to capital formation, pursuingn strong enforcement and examinations, and a look at the SEC going forward.

Read the transcript.

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Legal advocacy groups seeking to challenge President Donald Trump in court over alleged conflicts of interest said filing lawsuits is part of a larger strategy to highlight their concerns and put political pressure on the White House, according to a Reuters report.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington contended payments to Trump’s businesses for hotel rooms and office leases run afoul of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, report Andrew Chung and Dan Levine. The clause forbids U.S. officeholders from accepting various gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval.

“The American Civil Liberties Union is also preparing a lawsuit over Trump’s alleged violations of the emoluments clause, said ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero,” the reporters write. “Beyond winning favorable rulings, cases can serve to ‘gum up the machinery of the government and rob the Trump administration of momentum,’ he said.”

Read the Reuters article.

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Reuters is reporting that opponents of two controversial oil pipelines face an uphill battle if they fight construction of the lines.

The report by Joseph Ax relied on experts who commented after the Trump administration issued orders to advance the Keystone XL and Dakota Access projects.

The orders signed by President Trump could revive Keystone XL, which would bring oil from Canada, and Dakota Access, a nearly completed pipeline that was planned to under a lake near a Native American reservation in North Dakota

“Nevertheless, several groups immediately said they would challenge in court any attempt to resume the projects, which have become hot-button political issues at the intersection of environmentalism, Native American tribal rights and energy needs,” writes Ax.

Read the Reuters article.

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Dentons has published the latest edition of its “Government Contracts Legislative and Regulatory Update,” a summary of the relevant changes that took place during December.

Highlights this month include:

• President Obama signed into law legislation which extends and cements whistleblower protection for certain contractor employees
• FAR Council issues final rule amending the FAR in response to injunction of certain Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rules
• DoD issues class deviation regarding controversial IR&D costs rule
• FAR Council issues final rule mandating privacy training for contractor employees privy to PII

Read the update.

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Apple sued Qualcomm, its longtime partner,  over what it said was $1 billion in withheld rebates on Qualcomm’s smartphone technology, according to The New York Times.

Apple said the money had been promised in conjunction with an agreement not to buy chips from other suppliers or to divulge ualcomm’s intellectual property licensing practices, writes reporter Quentin Hardy.

The suit follows the Federal Trade Commission’s accusation that Qualcomm used anticompetitive practices to guarantee its high royalty payments for advanced wireless technology.

“The commission cited Qualcomm’s deals with Taiwanese companies that manufacture Apple iPhones over semiconductors it sells for the iPhone,” writes Hardy.

Read the NYT article.

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Among the many subjects to receive President-elect Trump’s attention in coming days are venerable defense contractors and their performance of major systems contracts, points out an article published in Covington & Burling LLP’s Inside Government Contracts.

Sandy Hoe and John Sorrenti write that a president always can pressure high-profile government contractors to “voluntarily” take actions to their detriment and in favor of the government, but what legal tools or contractual remedies are available if a president forces a particular outcome?

“From a purely legal standpoint, however, the Administration’s powers are circumscribed by the remedies available to contractors and challenges that prospective offerors can bring through the bid protest process.” the authors content.

Read the article.

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A majority of chief legal officers at U.S. companies expressed optimism that their business operations will be positively affected when Donald Trump becomes president, according to a survey by legal market research firm Acritas.

The survey found 72 percent of respondents believe their business operations will be impacted as a result of Trump’s election, Bloomberg Law reports. Fifty-six percent of respondents expected Trump to affect their business in a positive way while 44 percent had a negative outlook.

“Most of the positive responses related to a perception that Trump will cut back on the rules and regulations many companies believe hold them back unnecessarily, said Lizzy Duffy, vice president of Acritas US Inc.,” according to the report.

Read the Bloomberg article.

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Compliancy Group will present a complimentary webinar examining the major breaches and fines that made 2016 the most expensive year on record for HIPAA fines and enforcement.

The event will be Wednesday, Jan. 25, at 2 p.m. Eastern time.

HIPAA experts at Compliancy Group will analyze the causes of these breaches, the reasons for these substantial fines (almost $24 million in total), trends in compliance, and what to expect from OCR investigations in 2017.

Register for the webinar.

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