The Indiana Department of Environmental Protection is seeking the dismissal of a township’s challenge to a permit to a shale gas wastewater injection well to operate in the community, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

“The long-running legal battle, which is being watched statewide for its potentially precedent-setting outcome, pits [Grant Township], which wants to protect water wells from contamination, against the DEP, which approved a permit for the injection well in 2014 and again in 2017,” explains the Post-Gazette‘s Don Hopey.

The town passed a community bill of rights ordinance in 2014 in an attempt to block Pennsylvania General Energy Co. from converting one of its former shale gas production wells to a 7,500-foot deep injection well for disposal of fracking waste.

Read the Post-Gazette article.

Attorney Peter Idziak, who practices in residential mortgage lending, has joined the Dallas office of Texas-based Polunsky Beitel Green, LLP.

Idziak is an honors graduate from both Harvard University and the University of Texas School of Law.

He works in residential lending law, regulatory matters, and compliance issues.

Idziak is licensed to practice in both Texas and New York. He works with the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), Truth in Lending Act (TILA), Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA).

He also provides guidance concerning Veterans Administration (VA), Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and Government-Sponsored Enterprise (GSE) requirements.

Rudy Giuliani has tapped Miami-based veteran attorney Jon A. Sale, of counsel with Nelson Mullins, to represent him before the congressional inquiry into whether President Donald Trump improperly pressured Ukraine’s president for a political favor.

The Miami Herald reports that “Sale is also no stranger to navigating the ways of Washington, having served as an assistant special Watergate prosecutor looking into the secret White House tapes of President Richard M. Nixon. Sale worked under two special prosecutors — Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski.”

Giuliani and Sale are former classmates at New York University law school.

Read the Miami Herald article.

Goldman Sachs and Dell Technologies will pay a combination of almost $17 million to settle separate Labor Department allegations of pay bias based on gender and race, reports Bloomberg Law.

“Both Goldman Sachs and Dell-EMC agreed to nationwide ‘early resolution’ agreements, whereby their compliance will be routinely monitored in exchange for five years free of random OFCCP audits,” explains Bloomberg’s Paige Smith. “These are at least the fourth and fifth ‘early resolution’ agreements with the agency, joining those with Bank of America, Performance Food Group, Cintas Corp., and US Foods Inc. ”

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Bloomberg Law reports that the 10th Circuit Judicial Council publicly reprimanded District Court Judge Carlos Murguia for sexual harassment, the judiciary’s most severe available sanction.

The council found that the judge — appointed by Bill Clinton to the court in Kansas — “gave preferential treatment and unwanted attention to female employees of the Judiciary in the form of sexually suggestive comments, inappropriate text messages, and excessive, non-work-related contact, much of which occurred after work hours and often late at night.”

Murguia apologized for his conduct, but the council found his apologies “more tied to his regret that his actions were brought to light than an awareness of, and regret for, the harm he caused ….”

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Over the past few decades, Republican and Democratic administrations have increasingly leaned on deferred prosecution agreements in corporate criminal cases and non-prosecution agreements to settle allegations against corporations, according to a Washington Post report.

For example, JPMorgan Chase, the country’s largest bank, has repeatedly resolved federal investigations over the last eight years by striking a deal: It wouldn’t be prosecuted as long as it stayed out of trouble, writes the Post‘s Renae Merle.

“This comes at a time when the Trump administration is prosecuting fewer white-collar crimes,” she explains. “The number of cases brought against corporations fell to 99 last year, compared with 181 in 2015, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Most were against small companies, 62.9 percent employed fewer than 50 workers, the commission reported.”

Read the Post article.

Taxpayers lose billions each year in royalties generated from oil and gas leases on public lands while fossil fuel developers reap profits at their expense, but Democrats have pushed legislation that would overhaul leasing laws that have not been updated in a century, reports Courthouse News Service.

For the eighth consecutive year, the Government Accountability Office placed the Interior Department’s oil and gas leasing program on its high risk list of federal programs mottled with waste, fraud and abuse.

That report found that “Interior’s methods to determine and collect royalties hasn’t been updated since 1920, and with the coal, gas and oil industry in far different shape today than it was a century ago, the time to develop a system that meets energy needs while delivering fair market returns is long overdue,” writes Courthouse News’ Brandi Buchman.

Read the Courthouse News article.

For nearly seven years, a small South Carolina law firm allegedly helped operate a nationwide scheme that authorities say preyed on desperate military veterans, misled investors and netted millions of dollars in profit, reports The Post and Courier of Charleston.

The Upstate Law Group, owned by Candy Kern-Fuller, allegedly worked with a network of salesmen to lure in cash-strapped veterans and persuade them to sign over their monthly pensions and disability payments, according to Post and Courier reporter Andrew Brown.

The businesses then persuaded retirees to invest in the federal benefit payments, promising up to an 8 percent return on their money. Participating veterans received a lump-sum payout for handing over several years of future income to the investors.

“The problem is the entire arrangement is illegal, according to state and federal authorities. Federal law prohibits veterans from assigning their pension or disability payments to another person,” Brown explains.

In a similar case, federal officials have arrested the alleged ringleader of a nationwide business in which veterans sold their military pensions.

Read the Post and Courier article.

Dallas lawyer Steve Stodghill, a partner in Winston & Strawn LLP, has been appointed to the Texas Public Safety Commission by Governor Greg Abbott for a term running through Jan. 1, 2024.

The Commission oversees the Texas Department of Public Safety (TxDPS), the agency responsible for statewide planning and policy formation regarding the enforcement of criminal, traffic, and safety laws; crime prevention; and law and public safety education. With an annual budget of $1.2 billion, TxDPS employs 11,000 across 13 divisions including the Texas Rangers, Texas Highway Patrol, Driver License, Regulatory Licensing, and Intelligence and Counterterrorism. In addition, the Commission interfaces with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, Department of Defense, and similar federal agencies, while advising the Governor in responding to state emergencies such as natural disasters, mass shootings, insurrections, invasions, and acts of terrorism.

Stodghill is the latest attorney to be appointed to the commission. Recent members have included former Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson, Judge Ada Brown of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Judge Jason Pulliam of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, and former Texas secretaries of state John Steen and Carlos Cascos.

One of the founding partners of Winston’s Dallas office, Steve has represented numerous high-profile clients, ranging from prominent billionaires to major corporations, across am array of complex commercial litigation areas.

“Steve is one of the most accomplished and sought-after commercial litigators in the country,” said Tom Melsheimer, Winston’s Dallas Managing Partner. “This appointment is a natural evolution of his work and demonstrates his commitment to helping the community and the State of Texas.”

In addition to his legal practice, Stodghill is chairman of the American Film Institute National Council and board member of The University of Texas Harry Ransom Center, UT College of Liberal Arts Advisory Board, and the UT System Chancellor’s Council Executive Committee. Additionally, he is a member of the Southern Methodist University Meadows School of the Arts Executive Board. He also is an Eagle Scout as well as a former Circle Ten Council of the Boy Scouts of America Executive Committee member.

“It’s a tremendous honor just to be considered for something such as this and to be placed in a position where you can serve the people of your state,” Steve said.

Stodghill received a bachelor of arts from UT-Austin and a J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law.

Google scored a major overseas victory Tuesday, as Europe’s highest court ruled that the “right to be forgotten” online only applies inside the European Union, reports Courthouse News Service.

In the rulings, the European Court of Justice ruled that “there is no obligation under EU law, for a search engine operator who grants a request for de-referencing made by a data subject … to carry out such a de-referencing on all the versions of its search engine.”

The dispute was between Google and France’s Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties over how Google complies with requests for link removals.

Read the Courthouse News article.

Employers may not be aware that the National Labor Relations Board has issued an opinion holding that arbitration agreements that could be “reasonably construed” to prohibit an employee from filing unfair labor practice charges with the board are invalid under the National Labor Relations Act, warns a post from Foley & Lardner.

“What is significant about this unanimous employee-friendly decision is that even if the language in your arbitration agreement does not expressly prohibit the filing of an NLRB charge (or accessing the Board or its processes), you may not be safe from a determination that your agreement is invalid,” explains the author, Cristina Portela Solomon.

She lists three steps employers should take if they use arbitration agreements.

Read the article.

A group of 23 states on Friday sued to block the Trump administration from undoing California’s authority to set strict car pollution rules, one of the biggest U.S. battles over climate change, reports Reuters.

“The legal fight pits a Democratic majority state that has become the U.S. environmental champion against a Republican president who wants to boost the economy by cutting regulation,” writes Reuters’ David Shepardson. “The debate already is playing out ahead of the presidential election next year.”

Friday’s lawsuit takes aim at a U.S. Transportation Department conclusion that federal law preempts state and local regulation of vehicle fuel economy, including California’s rules.

Read the Reuters article.

A lawsuit alleges that the Sackler family that owns Purdue Pharma has been transferring billions of dollars from the company to personal accounts in an effort to protect funds from litigation, reports The Washington Post.

“Now, as the maker of OxyContin heads to bankruptcy court, those billions represent a central sticking point in the company’s plan to resolve thousands of lawsuits against it. Purdue asked the bankruptcy judge, Robert D. Drain, on Wednesday to take the unusual step of temporarily halting lawsuits against the Sackler family,” write the Post‘s Renae Merle and Lenny Bernstein.

The company said the Sackler family could back out of a settlement agreement with multiple states if it cannot get the protection it seeks.

Read the Post article.

A New York attorney who used a client’s money for her personal expenses was disbarred by the state’s highest court, reports Bloomberg Law.

A client paid Melissa Bernier $1,375 to pay a fine in a burglary case.

Bloomberg’s Melissa Heelan Stanzione writes that, instead of paying the fine or depositing the amount into her escrow account, Bernier used $827 to pay for business and personal expenses unrelated to his case, the court said.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

The New York Times reports that the White House on Tuesday fired John Mitnick, the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, after months of shake-up at an agency responsible for carrying out President Trump’s immigration agenda.

A Trump administration official said Tuesday evening that Chad Mizelle, an associate counsel to the president, would replace Mitnick. But a Department of Homeland Security official said later that Joseph B. Maher, the department’s principal deputy general counsel, would be taking over, write the times‘ Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Maggie Haberman.

Mitnick was the fifth general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security.

Read the NY Times report.

Bloomberg Law reports that LexisNexis Risk Solutions Inc. has been hit with a proposed class action alleging it unlawfully sold to law firms the personal information of drivers involved in car accidents.

Bloomberg’s Alexis Kramer explains:

“The data analytics company obtained names, addresses, and other data from thousands of motor vehicle records and sold that information to personal injury firms, plaintiff Jonathan Hatch alleged in a complaint filed Sept. 12 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.”

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Legal experts predict the National Rifle Association won’t get far in its lawsuit challenging San Francisco’s decision to brand it a terrorist group, but that could change if the city takes action against contractors that work with the NRA, according to one First Amendment scholar.

If the city cuts ties with contractors that do business with the gun rights advocate, “that would violate the First Amendment because it would punish people and entities for their association,” University of California, Berkeley, professor Erwin Chemerinsky told Courthouse News Service Tuesday.

University of California-Hastings law professor David Levine said, “I don’t think the NRA can do much about it. I think a better plaintiff would be a vendor saying you can’t do this to us.”

Read the Courthouse News Service article.

The Washington Post reports that state attorneys general  are initiating sweeping antitrust investigations against Silicon Valley’s largest companies, probing whether they undermine rivals and harm consumers.

More than 40 attorneys general are expected to announce their plan to investigate Google, delivering a rare rebuke of the search-and-advertising giant — and its efforts to maintain that dominance — from the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, writes the Post‘s Tony Romm.

Romm explains that the states are potent actors in their own right, with the power to invoke local laws on antitrust and consumer-protection and to tap Washington’s antitrust statutes on behalf of their residents.

Read the  Post article.

Photo by Kārlis Dambrāns

Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith says the way the U.S. government is treating Huawei is un-American, reports Bloomberg Businessweek.

He said China’s leading maker of networking equipment and mobile phones should be allowed to buy U.S. technology, including software from his company, according to Businessweek’s Dina Bass.

“U.S. President Donald Trump has said Huawei, run by a former Chinese army technologist, is a national security threat, and his Department of Commerce has added the company to an export blacklist scheduled to take full effect in November,” Bass writes.

Read the Bloomberg Businessweek article.

Image by NY Photographic

The recently signed “Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019″ creates a subchapter to Chapter 11 for small business debtors, i.e. those with no more than $2,725,625 in secured and unsecured debts combined, to address the unique issues faced by those companies in the bankruptcy process, explains Timothy J. McKeon in a post on Mintz’ website.

In addition to the creation of “subchapter V” to Chapter 11, the SBRA also makes important amendments to statutory provisions governing preference actions.

The new rule requires a debtor or trustee to consider a party’s statutory defenses “based on reasonable due diligence in the circumstances of the case and taking into account a party’s known or reasonably knowable affirmative defenses” prior to commencing an action under section 547, McKeon writes.

Read the article.