Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Votes and Verdicts podcast, hosted
Speaker 1: by the Litigation and Policy team at Bloomberg Intelligence, the
Speaker 1: investment research platform of Bloomberg LP on the Bloomberg Terminal.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Intelligence has five hundred analysts and strategists working across
Speaker 1: the globe and focused on all major markets. Our coverage
Speaker 1: includes over two thousand equities and credits, and we have
Speaker 1: outlooks on more than ninety industries and one hundred market industries,
Speaker 1: currencies and commodities. This podcast series examines the intersection of
Speaker 1: business policy and law, and today we're doing our mid
Speaker 1: year outlook on the litigation and policy catalysts that we're
Speaker 1: watching in the second half of twenty twenty five and
Speaker 1: that we think will impact companies across a number of
Speaker 1: different sectors. My name is Elliott Stein. I'm an analyst
Speaker 1: with Bloomberg Intelligence covering litigation in the financials sector, and
Speaker 1: I'm delighted as always today to be joined by several
Speaker 1: of my BI colleagues. As always, you can find all
Speaker 1: of our research on the Bloomberg terminal at BI go,
Speaker 1: and you can find the majority of our litigation and
Speaker 1: policy research on our dashboard at BI laws go. We're
Speaker 1: recording this over two days July ninth and tenth, which
Speaker 1: we always we always like to timestamp these episodes because
Speaker 1: things move quickly and sometimes some of the things we
Speaker 1: say maybe out of date by the time the episode
Speaker 1: is published. But with that, let's get started with the content.
Speaker 1: Let's bring in Nathan Dean, who covers financials policy and
Speaker 1: also some other policy issues across other sectors down in DC. Nathan,
Speaker 1: I feel like the first half of the year was
Speaker 1: focused on tariffs and the One Big Beautiful Bill. The
Speaker 1: One Big Beautiful Bill, of course, is pretty much is
Speaker 1: done at this point. Tariffs is sort of still an
Speaker 1: evolving story. But the second half of the year looks
Speaker 1: like it's going to be largely focused on deregulation for
Speaker 1: big banks, at least in your coverage area. And I
Speaker 1: know you've written a lot about that. So what specifically
Speaker 1: are you watching for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, you hit it right on the head
Speaker 2: with you know when you said deregulation, Because if you
Speaker 2: go back to Treasury Secretary Scott Besson's three pillars for
Speaker 2: economic growth, the first one was taxes, Well, the One
Speaker 2: Big Beautiful Bill is complete. The second is tariffs and
Speaker 2: that's ongoing in the thirties deregulation. Now, we've always said
Speaker 2: the President Trump just doesn't have a magic one where
Speaker 2: he can wave and say go forth and deregulate. There's
Speaker 2: a process and that process takes time. Now, you needed
Speaker 2: agency leaders to come into place, and that largely happened
Speaker 2: in the first half of this year. So now if
Speaker 2: you look at like agency leaders like FED Vice Chair
Speaker 2: Michelle Bowman or you know, Jonathan gold Over the contro
Speaker 2: the currency was just confirmed about thirty minutes ago here
Speaker 2: on July tenth. You know, those agency leaders are now
Speaker 2: in place, and so they are going to move forward
Speaker 2: with proposals to deregulate these sectors. Now, let's talk about
Speaker 2: financials in particular. You know, there's about three areas of
Speaker 2: focus that the financial industry is going to see in
Speaker 2: two age. Most of the benefiting the jesips, so like
Speaker 2: the Bank of Americas, the JP, Morgan's City Groups, Goldman, Sachs,
Speaker 2: et cetera. A little bit more less of an impact
Speaker 2: on the regionals. But some of the proposals that you're
Speaker 2: going to see, well, one is one call that's impacting
Speaker 2: the supplemental leverage ratio. This is also the Enhanced Supplemental
Speaker 2: Leverage Ratio also known as the ESLR for a reserve
Speaker 2: release to proposal last week essentially taking the ratio from
Speaker 2: five percent down to three percent plus a fifty percent
Speaker 2: JESIP surcharge. So for the big banks you're looking at
Speaker 2: somewhere around three and a half to four and a
Speaker 2: half percent, depending on the bank, so there's definitely leverage relief.
Speaker 2: You're also going to potentially see a new Buzzle three
Speaker 2: endgame proposal. We think this is going to come out
Speaker 2: after around September October timeframe. You know when it was
Speaker 2: proposed under the Biden administration to increase capital requirements in
Speaker 2: nineteen percent. We think this is most likely at a
Speaker 2: starting point, going to be capital neutral. And then third,
Speaker 2: you've got proposals altering the stress testing process. There was
Speaker 2: one from April that already came out. It's not that
Speaker 2: big of a deal. It just really is more of
Speaker 2: a technical proposal. But a more substantial proposal is going
Speaker 2: to come out probably by September that will make it
Speaker 2: a little bit more transparent for these banks to go
Speaker 2: through the stress testing process and make it easier for
Speaker 2: these banks to go through the process. So a lot
Speaker 2: of this work is going to kick off in two
Speaker 2: h It's going to be proposal work. You're not going
Speaker 2: to see finalizations until twenty twenty six. But keep that
Speaker 2: in mind that these process is going to take place
Speaker 2: and there's not much here the Democrats could do to
Speaker 2: block it.
Speaker 3: The regulators should just move ahead, gotcha.
Speaker 1: So we'll be talking about this again for our twenty
Speaker 1: twenty six outlook then, and hopefully by then you'll have
Speaker 1: the rule the proposals at least, and you can talk
Speaker 1: about you know what the timing is for finalization. Okay,
Speaker 1: what about crypto? I know you've also written a bunch
Speaker 1: about crypto. I feel like here it's sort of like
Speaker 1: the inverse of deregulation because there's actually legislation and potentially,
Speaker 1: you know, more clarity around laws.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's move away from regulation to move to legislation.
Speaker 2: And there's two bills that are worth talking about. The
Speaker 2: first is called the Genius Act. Now, this is a
Speaker 2: stable cooin bill, and as a reminder, recording this on
Speaker 2: July tenth, and the reason why I bring that up
Speaker 2: is this bill has already passed the Senate sixty eight
Speaker 2: to thirty and could pass the House of Representatives as
Speaker 2: soon as Tuesday of next week, so so the week
Speaker 2: of July fourteenth is when this bill will most likely
Speaker 2: become law. Now, this bill would require stable coin issuers
Speaker 2: like Circle to be backed up by one hundred percent
Speaker 2: high quality liquid assets, and would also allow bank issuers
Speaker 2: a way to register with the Futteral Reserve and non
Speaker 2: bank issuers a way to register with the Office of
Speaker 2: the Control or the Currency. And if you're a smaller
Speaker 2: issuer and you have less than a ten billion dollar
Speaker 2: market cap, you have to issue with your state regulator. Now,
Speaker 2: obviously this is going to increase compliance costs. You know,
Speaker 2: you're going to need compliance spend, technology spend and so forth.
Speaker 2: But the amount of regulatory clarity you get with this,
Speaker 2: you can now move forward with a new regulatory framework
Speaker 2: and there's not gonna be much of the way of
Speaker 2: enforcement risk for these stablequin issuers. So for somebody like Circle, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to pony up more, but they'll gladly
Speaker 2: do it to get that clarity that they need. But
Speaker 2: then for the rest of the crypto industry, it's a
Speaker 2: little bit more murkier because there is a bill called
Speaker 2: the Clarity Act, and this act would define what is
Speaker 2: a security, what is a commodity. It just gives it
Speaker 2: the CFTC authority over spot markets. This bill, you know,
Speaker 2: the House is trying to pass it as well the
Speaker 2: week of July fourteenth, and they may, but there's gonna
Speaker 2: be a little bit more difficulty getting some of these
Speaker 2: Democratic senators on board like they did the Stable Cooin Bill,
Speaker 2: because even though it passed sixty eight to thirty, I'm
Speaker 2: nowhere anywhere close to getting the sixty votes in my
Speaker 2: vote counts right now, just because of our additional concerns
Speaker 2: with the crypto industry at a large or broader perspective. Now,
Speaker 2: we know that the Senate does not want to take
Speaker 2: up this bill until September at the earliest. They're going
Speaker 2: to wait until after the August recess, so we have time.
Speaker 2: But I'm telling my clients, and I may be a
Speaker 2: little bit out of consensus here, but I'm telling my clients,
Speaker 2: I think this can get done in the first half
Speaker 2: of next year.
Speaker 1: How do you, I mean, what are sort of the
Speaker 1: some of the issues that are giving Democrats.
Speaker 4: Pause, but that they'll be able to come around on
Speaker 4: to get to the sixty vote threshold.
Speaker 2: Well, a lot of it is on bank secrecy and
Speaker 2: anti money laundering and risk perspective, and for you know,
Speaker 2: just taking a very simplistic view on it, anything like that,
Speaker 2: I think you get negotiated. I mean, it's not usually
Speaker 2: something that really derails these bills. And it's the same
Speaker 2: thing we saw in the Stable Cooin Bill. There was
Speaker 2: a hiccups over Stable Secrecy Act to AML. They work
Speaker 2: through it, they got it done. You know, some of
Speaker 2: the Democratic senators are going to be an absolute no.
Speaker 2: They still believe that nineteen thirty zero securities law should
Speaker 2: still apply and that a lot of these tokens should
Speaker 2: be you know, adhering to that type of securities law.
Speaker 2: There shouldn't be a specific carve out. But I go
Speaker 2: back to the idea that Chairman Gary Gensler tried this
Speaker 2: under the Biden administration and the courts overwhelmingly, as you've
Speaker 2: written many times, Elliott, the Court's overwhelmingly ruled against the
Speaker 2: administration on this and as a result, it was courts,
Speaker 2: not Congress that was dictating what crypto policy looked like.
Speaker 2: And if I'm a Democratic Senator, do I I do
Speaker 2: nothing and allow the crypto industry to continue to operate
Speaker 2: for four to five years with piecemeal regulations, or do
Speaker 2: I try and get myself involved to actually take control
Speaker 2: of the narrative. And I think that's what's significant. Number
Speaker 2: of Democrats are at least enough number of Democrats. So
Speaker 2: think of Senators like Mark Warner, Reuben Gallaghos from Arizona.
Speaker 2: They voted for these stable coin bills to probably vote
Speaker 2: for the crypto bill. Senator Christin Jillobrand as well from
Speaker 2: New York. They're there, it's just they need a little
Speaker 2: bit more time and a little bit work to get through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, one of the ironies I feel
Speaker 1: like with this law is that you're potentially giving the
Speaker 1: CFTC in particular much more authority than it has now,
Speaker 1: which is sort of ironic to see that happen in
Speaker 1: a Republican Congress, but you know, pretty unique to see
Speaker 1: Congress getting much done at all. So it's always always
Speaker 1: interesting to see what gets past and what doesn't. All. Right,
Speaker 1: good stuff, Thanks Nathan. We are going to stick with
Speaker 1: financials the financial sector here. I'm going to just talk
Speaker 1: about three cases I'm watching. This is a little more
Speaker 1: company specific and actually involves mostly non US banks. The
Speaker 1: first involves French bank BNP Pariba, which is scheduled to
Speaker 1: go to trial September eighth in the class action case
Speaker 1: by suiting these refugees, accusing the bank of aiding and
Speaker 1: abetting genocide and Sudan. We expect the bank to settle
Speaker 1: ahead of the trial, and that's based on a June
Speaker 1: thirtieth letter from the parties asking the court to push
Speaker 1: the September eighth trial date back a month to give
Speaker 1: the parties more time to formalize basically a process for
Speaker 1: resolving the case through mediation. The court denied the request
Speaker 1: to push back trial date, so for now trial is
Speaker 1: on for September eighth, unless the parties reach a settlement
Speaker 1: or at least some sort of settlement than principle. But
Speaker 1: we expect them to be able to do that because
Speaker 1: I don't think either side really wants to go through
Speaker 1: with the trial and the risks that come with it.
Speaker 1: As far as how much a settlement might be, our
Speaker 1: best comparable is probably one point twenty five billion dollar
Speaker 1: Holocaust settlement by two Swiss banks in nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1: That implies roughly a sixty five million dollar cord here
Speaker 1: based on the number of plaintiffs, but you know, we
Speaker 1: really can't rule out a settlement for more, potentially several
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars, So that's one thing we're watching. The
Speaker 1: second case we're watching in the second half of this year.
Speaker 1: This involves Swedish bank sweat Bank, which has been investigated
Speaker 1: for several years now by US authorities over possible money
Speaker 1: laundering violations. Again, we expect these probes to also wrap
Speaker 1: up by year end, given how long they've been going on,
Speaker 1: which is roughly about five years, and we think the
Speaker 1: fines in this case could be about approaching four hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars, which is close to the three hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty six million dollars a sweat Bank paid to Swedish
Speaker 1: authorities in twenty twenty. But again we can't rule out
Speaker 1: a higher amount, maybe even one approaching a billion dollars
Speaker 1: if it's structured similarly to penalties that Danish bank Donska
Speaker 1: Bank paid in twenty twenty two. And just lastly, the
Speaker 1: third case I want to talk about involves Turkish bank Hawkbank,
Speaker 1: which is fighting a Justice Department lawsuit, a criminal lawsuit
Speaker 1: accusing the bank of violating US sanctions on Iran. Hawk
Speaker 1: Banks principal defense so far is that it should be
Speaker 1: immune from prosecution in the US because the bank is
Speaker 1: owned primarily by the Turkish government, and the bank therefore
Speaker 1: argues that it should enjoy sovereign immunity in the US.
Speaker 1: So far, courts have rejected that defense. Indeed, even the
Speaker 1: US Supreme Court has rejected that defense at least based
Speaker 1: on the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act Statute. But when the
Speaker 1: case went to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three allowed the bank to pursue a related
Speaker 1: sovereign immunity defense, not based under statute, but based under
Speaker 1: the common law. So that's where we are now. The
Speaker 1: bank is trying to argue that it still has sovereign
Speaker 1: immunity under the common law, but again lower courts have
Speaker 1: rejected that defense so far, and now Hawkbank is back
Speaker 1: at the Supreme Court asking the High Court to review
Speaker 1: those decisions. I think we'll get a decision in October
Speaker 1: from the Supreme Court just on the petition the cert petition,
Speaker 1: meaning we'll know in October whether or not the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court will take up Hawkbank's case. We give the bank
Speaker 1: a sixty percent chance of actually getting their cert petition
Speaker 1: granted and getting Supreme Court to review the case. But
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, we think the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court will again rule against the bank on the merits
Speaker 1: like it did the first time, and we think the
Speaker 1: High Court will take up the case, but only to
Speaker 1: clarify sort of what the relevant immunity standard is under
Speaker 1: the common law. But ultimately it'll rule against the bank
Speaker 1: and say that the bank is not immune from prosecution,
Speaker 1: and that'll probably put the bank on a path to settlement.
Speaker 1: We've said all along that we think settlement could be
Speaker 1: about one billion to two billion dollars just based on
Speaker 1: the amount of money that allegedly went through the US
Speaker 1: financial system. But we think the bank and the Turkish
Speaker 1: government may be able to convince the Trump administration to
Speaker 1: sort of go a little soft in terms of a settlement,
Speaker 1: but that's still a ways away. For now, we're just
Speaker 1: waiting to see if the Supreme Court will take up
Speaker 1: Hawkbank's most recent cearch petition, So that's what I'm watching.
Speaker 1: Let's move on to tariffs, which we touched on just
Speaker 1: briefly earlier, but let's bring in Holly from who's been
Speaker 1: covering the many different lawsuits challenging the Trump administration's tariffs.
Speaker 1: We got some very big rulings at the end of
Speaker 1: May from the Court of International Trade. Those are on
Speaker 1: appeal now. I know, Holly, you're watching these intently. Why
Speaker 1: don't you come in and tell us exactly what you're
Speaker 1: watching for in the second half.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thanks, Elliott. So, yeah, we're watching the lawsuits that
Speaker 5: challenged reciprocal terraffts and so called ventanyl trafficking terrafts. Those
Speaker 5: reciprocal terroifs were announced in April. They were supposed to
Speaker 5: be imposed April ninth. That was subsequently extended to July nine,
Speaker 5: with a baseline tearff of ten percent imposed in their place.
Speaker 5: The July ninth deadline was just extended to August first,
Speaker 5: But in any event, the US International Trade Court, as
Speaker 5: you mentioned, held them unlawful in May. The court found
Speaker 5: that if the president is going to address trade deficits
Speaker 5: using tariffs, which the reciprocal tariffs are supposed to do,
Speaker 5: he must do that through Section one twenty two or
Speaker 5: the Trade Act. He cannot use the emergency statute called
Speaker 5: AIPA that he used. And another District Court in Washington,
Speaker 5: d C. Held that they were unlawful for different reasons.
Speaker 5: That court basically said APA doesn't allow tariffs at all.
Speaker 5: Both of those rulings are on appeal. The International Trade
Speaker 5: Court's ruling is on appeal to the Fed Circuit and
Speaker 5: the Washington d C. District Court's ruling is on appeal
Speaker 5: to the DC Circuit. And with regard to the Fed
Speaker 5: Circuit appeal, opening briefs have been filed, opposition briefs have
Speaker 5: been filed, and there was a hearing before the Fed
Speaker 5: Circuit on July thirty first. The full panel of the
Speaker 5: court will be hearing that appeal, so we should get
Speaker 5: a better idea of the course leadings after oral argument
Speaker 5: on July thirty first, and we think that decision could
Speaker 5: come retively quickly, perhaps in August. The DC Circuit hasn't
Speaker 5: scheduled a hearing yet, but we think that court will
Speaker 5: also rule relatively quickly, and whoever loses that appeal will
Speaker 5: probably appeal to the Supreme Court. And we think that
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court will take the case and it could
Speaker 5: rule as early as four Q on the merits. What
Speaker 5: we've said is we think reciprocal terroriffs will be deemed
Speaker 5: unlawful because the trade deficit cited as the basis is
Speaker 5: not an emergency that poses an unusual and extraordinary threat
Speaker 5: as required by a EPA. But fentanyl trafficking tariffs maybe
Speaker 5: deemed lawful because we think that the Supreme Court will
Speaker 5: disagree with the lower court that leverage on countries, which
Speaker 5: is what the terrorists are supposed to create, cannot address
Speaker 5: the emergency sited. And in other lawsuits that may inform
Speaker 5: the issue, there's a hearing on appeal a lower court
Speaker 5: order out of California dismissing a challenge to the tariffs.
Speaker 5: That court, it was a district court in California, said
Speaker 5: that it lacked jurisdiction. That's on appeal and there's a
Speaker 5: hearing on that appeal on September seventeenth. And in addition
Speaker 5: to that, today on July tenth, there is a hearing
Speaker 5: on a lawsuit challenging elimination of the dominimus exemption. And
Speaker 5: what that exemption is is it says that goods that
Speaker 5: are eight hundred dollars or less are exempt from tariffs.
Speaker 5: The Trump administration eliminated that exemption with regard to goods
Speaker 5: from China. So a lawsuit challenging that says Trump didn't
Speaker 5: have the power to do that under the statute. He
Speaker 5: used that there's a hearing on that. There's a most
Speaker 5: preliminary injunction trying to enjoin the administration's elimination of the exemption,
Speaker 5: and there is a hearing on that motion today July tenth,
Speaker 5: and I think that the court will again rule relatively quickly,
Speaker 5: possibly next month. And I think what we said about
Speaker 5: that is we think that the elimination of the dominimous
Speaker 5: exemption is probably on stronger footing than fentanyl trafficking tariffs
Speaker 5: because the court, the the International Trade Court found that
Speaker 5: the pentonal trafficking tariffs didn't deal with the emergency because
Speaker 5: it was a terriff. Tariffs on every good doesn't deal
Speaker 5: with the emergency, and UH leverage on countries created through
Speaker 5: the use of tariffs doesn't deal with the emergency. But
Speaker 5: here what the government has said is that shippers have
Speaker 5: been using deceptive means such as the diminishment mis exemption
Speaker 5: to import fentanyl. So I think there's a stronger connection
Speaker 5: to the emergence to the fentanyl crisis. So that that's
Speaker 5: why we think that these are on stronger legal uh footing,
Speaker 5: and but we expect a ruling probably in August.
Speaker 1: So the the elimination of the dominimus exemption that was
Speaker 1: also done under AEPA correct. So is there is there
Speaker 1: a chance that all these issues go up to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court together, the deminimous the elimination of the dominimous
Speaker 1: execs I'm sharing, the reciprocal terriffs, and the and the.
Speaker 4: Trafficking the fentanyl trafficking teriffs.
Speaker 5: It's possible to the extent that it's it's the same
Speaker 5: basis for you know, finding them unlawful. Yes, but I
Speaker 5: think that there are other grounds to find the diministnce
Speaker 5: exemption lawful. So I don't think they necessarily have to
Speaker 5: be decided together. There are there is some overlap with
Speaker 5: regard to whether he has a power to impose terras
Speaker 5: at all through AIPA, and that's you know that that's
Speaker 5: a question that would probably be answered by the Supreme Court.
Speaker 5: But even if he answered they answered that question, there
Speaker 5: would still be a question of whether he can do
Speaker 5: what he did. Uh with regard to the elimination of
Speaker 5: the the minimus exemption, because it's a different statute that
Speaker 5: governs that so I don't think they necessarily have to
Speaker 5: be decided together, but they can be.
Speaker 4: Got it.
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that the extension of a
Speaker 1: lot of the reciprocal terraffs was pushed August first, which
Speaker 1: is the day after the FED Circuit hearing.
Speaker 4: But that may have just been a coincidence. I don't know.
Speaker 1: All Right, great, thanks, olly good stuff. All right, Tamlin's
Speaker 1: let's bring in Tamlin Basin to talk about copyright and
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence. I think it's one of the most interesting
Speaker 1: legal issues playing out right now. So, Tamlin, you've been
Speaker 1: following cases against companies like Anthropic and Meta alleging that,
Speaker 1: you know, the training of their large language models on
Speaker 1: copyright copyrighted content constitutes copyright infringement. What I know, you're
Speaker 1: tracking a bunch of these cases. What are you watching
Speaker 1: for in two h and in the cases that you're following?
Speaker 6: Yeah, surely there are lots of these cases. There's I
Speaker 6: think last count, close to fifty of these lawsuits in
Speaker 6: the US alone, and these have been brought by all
Speaker 6: manner of content owners, from sort of the print news
Speaker 6: media companies like The New York Times, through music publishers
Speaker 6: have filed a number of suits. Image creators Getty Images
Speaker 6: has filed suits and sort of one of the most
Speaker 6: recent ones, we saw Disney and Comcast team up to
Speaker 6: file play lawsuit, as well as a bunch of authors
Speaker 6: of both fiction and non fiction works. We have been
Speaker 6: tracking a lot of them and in late June, we
Speaker 6: actually had had two decisions and these are the decisions
Speaker 6: on fair use at the summary judgment stage. So essentially,
Speaker 6: the developers of large language models are arguing is is
Speaker 6: fair use under the Copyright Act for them to use
Speaker 6: this copyrighted content in order to train their large language models.
Speaker 6: These decisions came in cases they were asserted against Anthropic
Speaker 6: and in another case where the allegations were asserted against Meta.
Speaker 6: The plaintiffs in both of these cases were book authors,
Speaker 6: so and nonfiction. In both of those decisions, the judges
Speaker 6: and these are two separate judges sitting and both sitting
Speaker 6: in the Northern District of California, they did find in
Speaker 6: favor of the large language models on fair use. However,
Speaker 6: they took fairly divergent views. Starting first with the Anthropic judge,
Speaker 6: he looked at their use and fair use is sort
Speaker 6: of this fact sensitive four factor test which judges have
Speaker 6: to weigh up and decide whether or not the equities
Speaker 6: favor allowing what has happened with this copyrighted work, whether
Speaker 6: that was fair or whether that was infringement. The judge
Speaker 6: in the first case in Anthropic said pretty clearly that
Speaker 6: it was highly transformative what Anthropic did, and he didn't
Speaker 6: spend a whole lot of time really drilling into the
Speaker 6: other three facts factors, So transformative use is sort of
Speaker 6: the first factor in that fair use test. Now, just
Speaker 6: a few days later, his colleague in the metacase he
Speaker 6: also said that, yes, what Meta has done is transformative,
Speaker 6: but he spent a lot of time looking at this
Speaker 6: fourth factor, which looks at whether or not there was
Speaker 6: a potential market impact from the large language models using
Speaker 6: this work on the original copyrighted content. He said he
Speaker 6: didn't necessarily find that here, partly because he sort of
Speaker 6: took issue with how the plantiffs prosecuted this case. He
Speaker 6: said they didn't sort of put enough evidence forward that
Speaker 6: there might be dilution in the market for the artists,
Speaker 6: sort of for the author's work based on the output
Speaker 6: of these large language models. But the thing I want
Speaker 6: to know is that both these cases only concerned inputs, which,
Speaker 6: as we said, it's just the data that went into
Speaker 6: training the large language model, so that's input infringement. Neither
Speaker 6: of them had allegations of output infringement. And I think
Speaker 6: that's important because in both decisions, the judges made very
Speaker 6: clear that their decision more than likely would have gone
Speaker 6: the other way if they was output infringement. Output infringement
Speaker 6: is a much less strong fair use defense in this case.
Speaker 6: It's not going to be transformative, and this is the
Speaker 6: reason it's going to be much less strong in this case. Now,
Speaker 6: what we see in the second half of twenty twenty
Speaker 6: five is we're going to have some decisions. So we
Speaker 6: think we're going to potentially start going against the large
Speaker 6: language models, partially because we're going to see some cases
Speaker 6: that also have some output allegations output infringement allegations. Now,
Speaker 6: the first one is in another case against Anthropic and
Speaker 6: this was brought by a group of music publishers so
Speaker 6: in Concord Music Group UMGCMG, and they are alleging both
Speaker 6: input and output infringement input because song lyrics were used
Speaker 6: to train these anthropicsge language model called quad as well
Speaker 6: as output infringement, and the users were able to say,
Speaker 6: what are the lyrics to, say, a Beatle song, and
Speaker 6: the model was generating that back. And that's a pretty
Speaker 6: clear situation of potential output infringement when you do that
Speaker 6: on the Internet and you get the lyrics to a song,
Speaker 6: those are mostly coming from licensed parties who are paid
Speaker 6: for the privilege of posting those lyrics. So I think
Speaker 6: summer in judgment hearing is scheduled for November. In that case,
Speaker 6: we may get a decision just just at the tail
Speaker 6: end of this year, if not in early twenty twenty six,
Speaker 6: I think that's going to be a much closer call
Speaker 6: on fair use. And then heading into twenty twenty six,
Speaker 6: I think we're going to have some more ones where
Speaker 6: fair use is going to be much more tricky for
Speaker 6: the large language.
Speaker 1: And these will be some of the first decisions of
Speaker 1: pining on the output issue.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they should be. Yeah, So this case has it,
Speaker 6: and there are a few others where there's really some
Speaker 6: strong allegations of output and that simply weren't at issue.
Speaker 1: The reason the first cases didn't include out put claims.
Speaker 6: Well, I think one there wasn't as much evidence for so,
Speaker 6: in theory, it should be easy or possible for large
Speaker 6: language model to tweak their software in a way that
Speaker 6: you're not necessarily going to get output infringement, especially on
Speaker 6: things like song lyrics. You can basically tell your model
Speaker 6: do not if a user asked for this, tell them
Speaker 6: it's against the realasy, don't essentially don't give it to them.
Speaker 6: And and Anthropic during the pendency of this litigation brought
Speaker 6: on the music publishers has tweaked its algorithm to make
Speaker 6: that much more difficult to get. Whether or not it
Speaker 6: was entirely efficient is another question. I think it's a
Speaker 6: little bit different with with the authors. We have a
Speaker 6: large work of fiction. I think what the judges said
Speaker 6: was nobody is necessarily going to chat GPT or Anthropic
Speaker 6: or Meta and saying, you know, give me the entire
Speaker 6: book of J. J. R. Tolkien or something. So so
Speaker 6: there there's less less likely given the works that issue,
Speaker 6: that you're going to have output in. Also, these were
Speaker 6: spiled to you know, a a little while ago, and
Speaker 6: I think from now on, especially based on so the
Speaker 6: reasoning and medicase, a lot more plaintiffs that are going
Speaker 6: to you know, try to include out infringement and definitely
Speaker 6: try to show sort of potential market harm. Looking at
Speaker 6: that fourth very.
Speaker 1: Status, so you're looking for a summary judgment. Hearing in
Speaker 1: November is right in the anthropic case, hearing in November.
Speaker 6: Possibly we get a decision in sort of December before
Speaker 6: the holidays, but also it could move to early twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Second.
Speaker 1: Okay, great, all right, thanks a lot, Danln, I think
Speaker 1: we'll leave that part there, all right. Sticking with TMT,
Speaker 1: let's bring in Matt Shettenhelm to talk about some broadcast
Speaker 1: and media ownership limits. Matt covers TMT litigation and policy
Speaker 1: for US out of Washington, d C. Matt, why don't
Speaker 1: you come in and tell us what you're looking at
Speaker 1: in the second half of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's sort of picking up on the deregulation team
Speaker 7: that Nathan touched on earlier. Similarly to his agencies, the
Speaker 7: FCC now has the person that in place to really
Speaker 7: start the deregulation that I think can happen over starting
Speaker 7: in the second half of the year. And I think
Speaker 7: the most significant place where investors should watch is the
Speaker 7: broadcast industry because a couple of the other industries that
Speaker 7: the FCC regulator are largely deregulated. Already. Broadcast industry is
Speaker 7: aggressively regulated by rules that have been on the books
Speaker 7: since the nineteen seventies or sometimes earlier than that, and
Speaker 7: there's been a big desire from Republicans to ease these
Speaker 7: rules for a long time. I think we're finally going
Speaker 7: to see it happen, and it's going to start to
Speaker 7: happen in the second half of this year. So what
Speaker 7: are we talking about here? Where the broadcasters that are
Speaker 7: most significant here are companies like Nextstar, Sinclair Tegna, who
Speaker 7: own TV stations or sometimes radio stations across the United States,
Speaker 7: and the FCC rules generally limit both how many stations
Speaker 7: they can own in any an individual market. You know,
Speaker 7: a big market like New York or Chicago, limit how
Speaker 7: many TV stations you can own there, as well as nationwide.
Speaker 7: The FCC has a rule that says no company subject
Speaker 7: to a discount can can own more than can reach
Speaker 7: more than thirty nine percent of the country. And just
Speaker 7: to take that as an example, the FCC could potentially
Speaker 7: use this rulemaking to scrap that rule entirely. So a
Speaker 7: company like Nextstar, which currently can only reach a fraction
Speaker 7: of the United States with its its broadcast stations, could
Speaker 7: could go ahead and buy stations across the entire country.
Speaker 7: Instead of reaching thirty nine percent, can reach one hundred
Speaker 7: percent via this rule change. And so a real opportunity
Speaker 7: for for M and a for for acquisitions, and the
Speaker 7: ECONO means of scale are significant from from owning most
Speaker 7: all those stations.
Speaker 1: So thirty percent seems like sort of random to me.
Speaker 1: Was there any logic behind that number? And then my
Speaker 1: other question is are they just going to scrap the
Speaker 1: limit entirely or are they going.
Speaker 4: To just raise it to a different number.
Speaker 7: Yeah, both good questions. You know, so you can trace
Speaker 7: the history of this back to you know, as I said,
Speaker 7: it goes into the seventies. Initially Congress picked some number
Speaker 7: I think it was in the twenties, and then it
Speaker 7: was adjusted by Congress again in about two thousand and two,
Speaker 7: where for a while we were at thirty five, and
Speaker 7: then it was adjusted again to thirty nine. Do I
Speaker 7: think Congress did any math to justify this? No, I
Speaker 7: think these were these were political deals that and they
Speaker 7: they just ended up at a certain point and and
Speaker 7: so that's the that's but your question is important in
Speaker 7: part because Congress hold the FCC to make the limit
Speaker 7: thirty nine percent, and so one of the tricky legal
Speaker 7: issues is whether Congress is the only one who can
Speaker 7: fix this, and so that's going to be the legal
Speaker 7: fight after the FCC acts. I think there's a pretty
Speaker 7: decent argument that Congress didn't tie the FCC's hands and
Speaker 7: prevent it from adjusting its rule going forward. But there's
Speaker 7: going to be a big fight over that. And it
Speaker 7: also goes to your other question about adjusting, whether it's
Speaker 7: total repeal or an adjustment. When when a g PI
Speaker 7: was the chairman in Trump's first term, when he was
Speaker 7: trying to push this ahead, he was looking at, I
Speaker 7: think a doubling of it. So keep a cap in place,
Speaker 7: but make it go to seventy eight percent or something
Speaker 7: like that. Some cap, but adjust it based on the record. Now,
Speaker 7: i think the consensus among the broadcasters at least who
Speaker 7: are pushing the FCC to do this, and I'm talking
Speaker 7: about the National Association of Broadcasters, which is the lead
Speaker 7: lobbying group, it's now moved to say, look, none of
Speaker 7: it makes sense. We you know, let's let's repeal the
Speaker 7: whole thing, and you as an agency. You don't need
Speaker 7: to set a new limit. You can you can look
Speaker 7: at the record and say, look, it's not needed right now.
Speaker 7: And so the current push from broadcasters is to entirely
Speaker 7: eliminate the role.
Speaker 1: Interesting All right, good stuff. Yeah, okay, let's move on
Speaker 1: to anti trust and bring in our anti trust duo
Speaker 1: of Jen Ree and Justin Taresi. Jen, let's start with you.
Speaker 1: During President Biden's term, the approach of his anti trust
Speaker 1: officials to merger control seemed to be pretty aggressive and
Speaker 1: more interventionists than in the past, and that seemingly made
Speaker 1: it tough for deals to get cleared to close. Now
Speaker 1: that President Trump's appointees are in place, are you seeing
Speaker 1: more of the same. Are you seeing sort of a
Speaker 1: full scale return to the pre Biden approacher or something
Speaker 1: more in between.
Speaker 4: Thanks Ellie.
Speaker 8: You know, I definitely think what we're seeing so a
Speaker 8: is something that's more in between. And I say that
Speaker 8: because I do think there's an intention by Trump's anti
Speaker 8: trust enforcers to stay pretty tough on deals. You know,
Speaker 8: as you mentioned, anti trust enforcement in the merger control
Speaker 8: area was really really enlarged and increased and made more
Speaker 8: aggressive during the Biden administration, and because of that, a
Speaker 8: lot of deals were abandoned and a lot just weren't
Speaker 8: signed in the first place, given the hurdles that deal
Speaker 8: makers would have to get through to get their deals cleared.
Speaker 8: And I think things are changing now, and the reason
Speaker 8: is because what we're seeing in the first few months
Speaker 8: here is that this administration is willing once again to
Speaker 8: accept settlements for otherwise problematic deals. What that means, very generally,
Speaker 8: is that if two companies have an overlap in a
Speaker 8: line of products or services and it creates too much
Speaker 8: concentration in the market for that service or that product,
Speaker 8: the companies can sell that line to another competitor and
Speaker 8: then close the rest of the deal. And that's a
Speaker 8: pretty big deal, right because it gives these transactions a
Speaker 8: pathway to get closed that wasn't available really for the
Speaker 8: last four years.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 8: I don't think it means that every single deal is
Speaker 8: going to get cleared with some kind of remedy or
Speaker 8: with no remedy at all. I still think we're going
Speaker 8: to see some tough scrutiny. There will be deals that
Speaker 8: raise anti trust concerns that can't be resolved with a
Speaker 8: remedy or for which no appropriate remedy will be found,
Speaker 8: and that deal will probably either get abandoned or go
Speaker 8: to trial. But nonetheless, we still see that more deals
Speaker 8: have a pathway to get cleared and closed going forward
Speaker 8: for the next few years than they did previously. I
Speaker 8: don't see this as a complete return to what we
Speaker 8: think of as the pre Biden era of anti trust enforcement,
Speaker 8: which many thought was way too less, a fair too relaxed,
Speaker 8: allowing for too much concentration in too many industries. I
Speaker 8: don't think we're going to step back to that, but
Speaker 8: I do think hurdles have eased.
Speaker 1: Got it, And what are some of the major deals
Speaker 1: that you're watching in the second half, So I don't.
Speaker 8: Think we're going to see a lot of decisions for
Speaker 8: big deals, really big ones the second half. And the
Speaker 8: reason is because the decision timing would be in the
Speaker 8: second half for deals that were really signed about last year,
Speaker 8: in the middle of the year or maybe in the
Speaker 8: third quarter, and that was when we really saw deals
Speaker 8: everybody holding off fun making deals because there was a
Speaker 8: lot of uncertainty. You had the full force of the
Speaker 8: Biden administration in there, blocking deals or trying to block
Speaker 8: deals right and left. And then you had the uncertainty
Speaker 8: of the election, and nobody really knew what was going
Speaker 8: to happen, and so deal makers just held off to
Speaker 8: wait to see what would happen. So we don't have
Speaker 8: a whole lot going on. We do have some big
Speaker 8: pending deals that I think we'll get some decisions, maybe
Speaker 8: in the first half of next year. But there are
Speaker 8: two deals that were recently cleared by the USFTC that
Speaker 8: are still waiting for clearance from other jurisdictions, and I'm
Speaker 8: watching those. One of them is Synopsis Ansis and the
Speaker 8: other one is mars Kelenova. The FTC cleared both Synopsis
Speaker 8: Ansis with a remedy there was a divesteture and mars
Speaker 8: Kelenova with no remedy, but we still have the Chinese
Speaker 8: Merger control authorities investigating the Synopsis deal and the European
Speaker 8: Commission investigating mars Helenova. I think that both deals will
Speaker 8: ultimately get cleared, and I think probably in the second
Speaker 8: half and be able.
Speaker 4: To get closed. Got it.
Speaker 1: And then on the monopolization side of things, I know
Speaker 1: you've been You've tracked the Justice Department's case against Google
Speaker 1: oversearch very closely for several years now. There was a
Speaker 1: liability decision last year which went against Google, and so
Speaker 1: we're in the remedies phase now. I know there was
Speaker 1: a remedies hearing not too long ago. So are you
Speaker 1: still waiting for the remedy remedies decision and what's the
Speaker 1: timing on it.
Speaker 8: Yeah, so we expect a remedy's decision in August. They're
Speaker 8: hearing on remedies was conducted in two q and I
Speaker 8: think we'll we'll get this decision in August. This judge
Speaker 8: has been really organized and he has thus far kind
Speaker 8: of stuck to the schedule that he has promised, So
Speaker 8: I don't think it's going to slip very much. Google
Speaker 8: had been found guilty, as you mentioned in this liability
Speaker 8: decision last year, which was last August.
Speaker 6: Of.
Speaker 8: Illegally maintaining a monopoly in search and search techt ads.
Speaker 8: So here, because of the changeover and administrations, we have
Speaker 8: seen some continuity for this case between the Biden enforcers
Speaker 8: and the trump enforcers because it was Biden's DOJ that
Speaker 8: first put in the remedy request to the judge that
Speaker 8: was tried back in the second quarter, and they had
Speaker 8: asked for a really long list of pretty drastic remedies,
Speaker 8: including an order that Google divest Chrome. After the Trump
Speaker 8: DOJ folks came in, the judge allowed for an amended
Speaker 8: or revised request, and they put in a revised request
Speaker 8: that did tweak what Biden's administration had asked for, but
Speaker 8: only slightly, but kept the really more drastic remedies, which
Speaker 8: included a request for Google to sell Chrome. So we
Speaker 8: see some continuity there between the two agencies, and we
Speaker 8: don't really know yet if it's going to be fully
Speaker 8: within the monopolization space or just because this is about
Speaker 8: a big tech platform and we know that by the
Speaker 8: Trump administration, Andy's enforcers are no great friends to big
Speaker 8: tech platforms. But I think what we're going to see
Speaker 8: here is something short from the judge of a decision
Speaker 8: that forces Google to sell Chrome. Now, even if we
Speaker 8: get that by the way in August, Google will appeal
Speaker 8: and probably get it stayed. So no matter what the
Speaker 8: judge does in August, I don't think Google's going to
Speaker 8: have to implement those remedies right away. But elliott I
Speaker 8: think it's going to be pretty harsh, even if it
Speaker 8: doesn't include an order to sell Chrome. I think that
Speaker 8: Google is going to have to stop paying other companies
Speaker 8: to set Google Search as the default. For instance, they
Speaker 8: were paying Apple about twenty billion a year to set
Speaker 8: Google Search automatically as the default search engine behind Safari
Speaker 8: and other Apple Search Internet access points. Because Apple doesn't
Speaker 8: have like some of the other browsers have their own
Speaker 8: search engine. Apple does not, so it made sense for
Speaker 8: them to have this deal with Google Search. I think
Speaker 8: it's going to have to stop paying companies for that
Speaker 8: default position. I think it's probably going to have to
Speaker 8: add choice screens for Chrome and for new Android users
Speaker 8: that right off when they open up their new Android
Speaker 8: device allows them to choose what they want to set
Speaker 8: is their default search engine. And I do think they're
Speaker 8: going to have to share some search data. Through all
Speaker 8: the billions and billions of searches that have been done
Speaker 8: on Google Search over the years, they've gathered really valuable
Speaker 8: data that helps them get better. And one of the
Speaker 8: allegations here was that the others liked being couldn't get
Speaker 8: better because they didn't have that scale, they didn't have
Speaker 8: enough searches. So I think the judge will force them
Speaker 8: to share a lot of that data and probably even
Speaker 8: their search index, which is like a huge index of
Speaker 8: the Internet, and it's bigger than what everybody else has
Speaker 8: to allow some of these rivals to try to use
Speaker 8: that to try to improve got it.
Speaker 1: And so you said a decision in August. Do you
Speaker 1: have any sense when in August it might come.
Speaker 8: I think that it's likely it's going to be early August.
Speaker 8: And that's because the judge mentioned, hey, it would be
Speaker 8: great to have it out a year after the liability decision.
Speaker 8: I mean, he likes I guess you know that kind
Speaker 8: of a timeframe, and his liability decision was it was
Speaker 8: August fourth or fifth, I don't remember, but at least
Speaker 8: it was the first week of August last year. So
Speaker 8: I think we're going to see it early in the month.
Speaker 1: An interesting way to mark an anniversary the Ruined by
Speaker 1: dropping another Rulin. All right, great stuff, Jenna is always
Speaker 1: all right. Justin three see, let's bring you in. We'll
Speaker 1: continue the antitrust conversation, and we'll continue with the monopolization
Speaker 1: cases that you guys are watching. You've been tracking FTC
Speaker 1: versus Meta as well as the Google ad Tech case.
Speaker 1: I don't know which one you want to start with,
Speaker 1: but I'll kick it over to you to talk about
Speaker 1: what you're watching in two.
Speaker 3: H Yeah, you've got it. I think that the theme
Speaker 3: of continuity here really is continuing between the Biden DOJ
Speaker 3: and the Trump DJ and FTUC. That's what we're seeing
Speaker 3: here is we head into the second half, right there
Speaker 3: are these two main trial catalysts that we're really watching
Speaker 3: out for in second half this year. The first is
Speaker 3: the metatrial, which we've talked about before, where the FTC
Speaker 3: suit Meta seeking a divestiture of Instagram and WhatsApp, alleging
Speaker 3: that they purchases of those two apps made by Meta
Speaker 3: over a decade ago. We're anti competitive in nature. We
Speaker 3: still favor Meta with regard to a winning this case.
Speaker 3: It's seventy percent chance that we think Matt is going
Speaker 3: to walk away from this unscathed at the moment, and
Speaker 3: there's a timeframe for that. Parties are filing their post
Speaker 3: trial briefing between now and just after Labor Day here
Speaker 3: in the US, so we're expecting the judge to really
Speaker 3: dig in and start evaluating the claims that were made
Speaker 3: by a trial and probably expecting a ruling in the
Speaker 3: matter sometime before the end of the year. I think
Speaker 3: it's highly likely the judges looking to get this office plate.
Speaker 1: This is Judge.
Speaker 3: Boseburg and DC's but really involved with so much regarding
Speaker 3: the Trump administration in addition to just the medic case,
Speaker 3: so really busy to get there. But I think, you know,
Speaker 3: just looking back at the evidence that it was really
Speaker 3: shown during that trial, we're still concerned that the relevant
Speaker 3: market put forth by the FDC doesn't really match the
Speaker 3: realities of how social networking exists today. And also, you know,
Speaker 3: there really are these questions about whether or not these purchases,
Speaker 3: if they were actually anti competitive, were all the pro
Speaker 3: competitive justifications involved with Instagram and WhatsApp since they were bought, really,
Speaker 3: you know, do they do they really justify? They do
Speaker 3: they outweigh the anti competitive concerns? And we think the
Speaker 3: answer is probably yeah. So the judge self really said, look,
Speaker 3: Instagram itself probably wouldn't have developed and grown to the
Speaker 3: level that it did, but for Meta really stepping in,
Speaker 3: I'm buying the app and developing it after it did,
Speaker 3: so that that's really what we're looking for there in
Speaker 3: the FTC versus metacase and then not the DOJ versus
Speaker 3: Google this time regarding ad tech as opposed to search
Speaker 3: that Jen just spoke about. Look, there was a liability
Speaker 3: finding made earlier this year in May by Judge Breakaman
Speaker 3: in the Eastern District of Virginia, similar to the to
Speaker 3: the to the Meda case. DJ here is looking for
Speaker 3: divestitures of of both the buyside and the cell side
Speaker 3: of of Google's platforms, as well as the at Exchange
Speaker 3: in the middle.
Speaker 4: The buy side was determined.
Speaker 3: Not to have an anti competitive issue with it, so
Speaker 3: that's off the table here. But no surprise, DJ is
Speaker 3: still pushing for a divestiture of addicts that at exchange
Speaker 3: and the DFP, which is the cell side of their
Speaker 3: ad stack platforms. So here we still think a breakup
Speaker 3: is unlikely, it's possible. I think the court's comments really
Speaker 3: seemed to zero wins on that exchange in the middle
Speaker 3: ad acts as being the potential issue for the court here,
Speaker 3: really seeing tying issues from from an anti trust perspective
Speaker 3: being the problem here in the case. I think the
Speaker 3: court views addicts as that tie. So if it's going
Speaker 3: to invest anything it's or ordered divestiture of anything, it's
Speaker 3: probably going to be Addicts. But again, you know the
Speaker 3: relevant markets in this case, they were really limited, right,
Speaker 3: So dog didn't didn't bring a case about the entirety
Speaker 3: of Google's ad tech stack. It was really about these
Speaker 3: display ads only that you see kind of served up
Speaker 3: on desktop websites. Right, So mobiles not included, video ads
Speaker 3: aren't included, all these other things that Google's ads tech
Speaker 3: transacts business. And so that being the case, probably going
Speaker 3: to be the Google's defense here moving into the remedies
Speaker 3: trial that look, you know, we didn't cover all of
Speaker 3: these other aspects of the business. Therefore it's really unfair
Speaker 3: for you to force a divestiture of any of it, right,
Speaker 3: And that trial, the remedies trial is downset for September
Speaker 3: twenty second, probably lasts a week, maybe a little bit
Speaker 3: more or but look, you know Judge Brinkhamash who took
Speaker 3: longer than folks thought she would in issuing her liability ruling.
Speaker 3: But you know, again it has moved really fast compared
Speaker 3: to other aspects, other aspects of ad tech litigation, if
Speaker 3: you will. So we are expecting a ruling from her
Speaker 3: either by the end of this year, perhaps sometimes in
Speaker 3: one que next year, but again relatively fast I think
Speaker 3: coming from her and just to point out too, it's
Speaker 3: not just her case right there. There is a case
Speaker 3: by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and a series of
Speaker 3: red states, if you will, that.
Speaker 2: Is pan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right right. You never know what I'll do next,
Speaker 3: but you know, uh, you know that this other case
Speaker 3: by by Texas in a series of what i'll i'll
Speaker 3: term you know, red states. It's pending in the Texas
Speaker 3: Federal Corp that's set for trials still on August eleventh,
Speaker 3: coming up really fast. There's a motion to continue the
Speaker 3: trial date, waiting for the ruling out of the Eastern
Speaker 3: each Eastern District of Virginia because it really involves a
Speaker 3: lot of the same factual predicates here in the set case.
Speaker 3: Congress and it's you know, wisdom passed the Venue Act
Speaker 3: relatively recently the past couple of years. That's allowed these
Speaker 3: cases to proceed in different forums and substantially the same
Speaker 3: claims outside of an MDL process. So this is where
Speaker 3: we're kind of left here, left with here is this
Speaker 3: soup of who goes first? And how does how does
Speaker 3: plain preclusion apply? How does one case affect the other?
Speaker 3: In other ways? All this is kind of a mess,
Speaker 3: But we think at least some aspects of that Texas
Speaker 3: case are probably going to be delayed while we await
Speaker 3: the ruling from Virginia. It's possible the court will move
Speaker 3: forward with the liability phase of that case, which will
Speaker 3: be in front of a jury, but then delay the
Speaker 3: remedies phase until a little bit later after we know
Speaker 3: whether or not some of those claims have kind of
Speaker 3: been mooted by what comes out of Virginia. So that's
Speaker 3: where we're watching with regard to Google ad Tech, and
Speaker 3: and we'll just briefly mention that, you know, even though
Speaker 3: the FTC case against pharmacy benefit managers has been stayed
Speaker 3: until at least February twenty twenty six, I think we're
Speaker 3: probably in for a whole lot more activity with regard
Speaker 3: to those folks as well on the second half of
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Great stuff, Thanks Justin. I think we're going to leave
Speaker 1: it there. We'll wrap up this episode of Votes and
Speaker 1: verdicts a lot of interesting catalysts across the different sectors
Speaker 1: that we're all watching for in two h as always,
Speaker 1: thank you for listening. If you have any questions about
Speaker 1: any of the matter. As we discussed on this episode.
Speaker 1: Please don't hesitate to reach out to us at your
Speaker 1: convenience with questions. As a reminder, you can find all
Speaker 1: of our research on the Bloomberg terminal at BI go
Speaker 1: or on our litigation and policy dashboard at BI laws go.
Speaker 1: And with that, thank you for listening and have a
Speaker 1: great day.