Keep your finger on the legal world's pulse

Nicole Daedone, the founder and former CEO of sex-focused women's wellness company OneTaste, has been sentenced to nine years in federal prison on forced labor charges. During the trial, prosecutors revealed that Daedone and another woman orchestrated a scheme that exploited victims of sexual trauma, grooming them to fulfill their demands. "The two women ran a yearslong scheme that groomed adherents," prosecutors said. The women who testified at the Brooklyn trial likened the group to a sex cult. The judge, Diane Gujarati of U.S. District Court, said Daedone had caused “long-lasting, if not irreparable” harm to former OneTaste employees. “What she was doing wasn't about enlightenment or operating in a different dimension,” Judge Gujarati said. “It was criminal.” The ethos of OneTaste viewed female orgasms as key to sexual and psychological wellness and interpersonal connection.

 

The Baltimore Sun

New York Times

U.S. News

Delaware judge Kathaleen McCormick is reassigning cases involving Elon Musk to other judges in the state’s business court. Last week, lawyers for Musk called for McCormick to step back from cases involving the billionaire entrepreneur after she allegedly responded with a supportive emoji to a LinkedIn post that was viewed as critical of Musk. McCormick said in a subsequent letter to Musk’s attorneys that she didn’t intend to click any emoji expressing support for the post, and that she had reported possible “suspicious activity” on her account to LinkedIn. McCormick wrote in her order that “disproportionate media attention surrounding a judge’s handling of an action is detrimental to the administration of justice,” and said she has “complete faith” in her colleagues’ abilities to adjudicate the cases.

 

CNBC

Financial Times

Reuters

A California appeals court has ruled that the West Contra Costa Unified School District failed to comply with state law by not hiring qualified teachers for every classroom. The case, Cleare et. al v. WCCUSD, is the first to enforce the Williams Act, which mandates a qualified teacher in every classroom, among other school standards. The court found that the district didn't exhaust all options before claiming compliance was “impossible.” In its judgment, the court wrote: “As we see it, the issue before us is simple and straightforward . . . The importance of public education is beyond question - or need of justification. Central to its function is the belief that knowledge should be imparted by qualified instructors. As quoted, California law mandates the District's duty to fill every classroom with a permanent and qualified teacher for the school year.”

 

U.S. News

Match Group has settled a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit that accused the company of giving an outside facial recognition firm, Clarifai, access to personal data of millions of OkCupid users, including photos, demographic information, and location data, without users' knowledge or consent and contrary to OkCupid's privacy policies. The settlement in ​Dallas federal court prohibits Match from misrepresenting ‌the ⁠privacy of user information, and requires the Dallas-based company to certify compliance. A ​spokesperson for OkCupid said ​it ⁠has strengthened its privacy practices, and the alleged conduct "does not reflect how ⁠OkCupid ​operates today."

 

Reuters

JPMorgan's bid to dismiss Wells Fargo's breach of contract lawsuit to recoup losses for investors in a defaulted $481m commercial real estate loan has been rejected by a federal judge. U.S. District Judge ​Dale Ho in Manhattan said Wells Fargo, acting as the ​investors' trustee, adequately alleged that JPMorgan knew of an ⁠event of default by Manhattan real estate development ​firm Chetrit, which took the loan in 2019 to buy 43 ​multifamily properties with 8,671 apartments in 10 U.S. states.

 

Reuters

Major U.S. airports, including Baltimore, Houston, New York, New Orleans and Dallas, that saw extended disruptions after 50,000 ‌Transportation Security Administration (TSA) security officers went unpaid since mid-February say operations are returning to normal. President Donald Trump signed ​an emergency directive on Friday ordering TSA workers to get paid despite a failure of ⁠Congress to end the 45-day-old partial government shutdown. The Homeland Security Department said most TSA officers on Monday received a retroactive paycheck that included at least two full two-week ​paychecks and plans to provide workers with the remainder of a partial missed paycheck from the beginning of the shutdown as soon as possible.

 

Chicago Sun Times

OregonLive.com

Intercontinental Exchange, the parent of  the New York Stock Exchange, has invested $600m in prediction markets platform Polymarket. The funding comes as regulators and lawmakers scrutinize whether prediction markets are vulnerable to manipulation. 

 

CoinDesk

Reuters

Ferish Patel has joined Paul Hastings as a partner in its private equity practice in London. His expertise includes advising on late-stage private financings, M&A, IPOs, and regulatory compliance in complex multijurisdictional settings. Patel's work encompasses financial services, payment regulation, cybersecurity, data privacy, technology transactions, and life science partnering. He previously worked at Cooley.

 

Bloomberg Law

Australia's federal court has fined Binance's local unit A$10m ($6.9m) for misclassifying over 85% of its Australian clients ‌that exposed them to high-risk crypto products. Binance ⁠Australia Derivatives admitted the failures in a statement of agreed ​facts with the Australian Securities and Investments ​Commission (ASIC). Reuters notes that in ​one instance, ⁠a client was incorrectly deemed a professional investor based solely on a self-certification as an "exempt ​public authority", without proper verification.

 

Reuters

The loss of small perks and the rise of AI in a push seemingly aimed at squeezing more work out of fewer people have conspired to strip the office of all fun, many employees are saying. The Wall Street Journal notes that chief financial officers at large U.S. companies mentioned “efficiency” at least once on 307 conference calls in the latest quarter as of March 26, up from 219 a year earlier and the highest level since at least 2020, according to AlphaSense. “There’s almost nobody who is feeling positive vibes about their job right now,” said Rocco Seyboth, a longtime software marketer outside Seattle. “Everyone I talked to is consumed by AI - either how to use it, how to pretend to use it, how much they hate using it, how it’s going to eliminate their position or their company’s product,” he said. Human resources executives say they are aware of the concerns of white-collar staff.  “There’s fear in the workforce,” said Jacqui Canney, chief people and AI enablement officer at the technology company ServiceNow. 

 

Wall Street Journal