Commercial Litigation Update

By now, the story of two New York attorneys facing scrutiny for citing nonexistent cases generated by the artificial intelligence (“AI”) tool ChatGPT has made national (and international) headlines. Late last month, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York sanctioned the attorneys and their firm $5,000. The court’s decision (Roberto Mata v. Avianca, Inc., No. 22-cv-1461-PKC (S.D.N.Y. June 22, 2023) (ECF No. 54)) provides a humbling reminder of both an attorney’s responsibilities in ensuring the accuracy of his or her filings, and the limits of certain technologies in the legal profession.

The U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) remains busy updating its policies relating to corporate prosecutions, evaluations of compliance programs, and voluntary disclosures. In a pair of speeches at March’s ABA White Collar Conference in Miami, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco and Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite, Jr. returned to the Department’s revision of its Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Program (“ECCP”) by unveiling several significant policies, including those relating to a corporation’s access to and retention of employee electronic communications as well as a company’s compensation structure for executives and employees.

For better or worse, trademark infringement claims enjoy relaxed standing requirements which enable plaintiffs to move quickly to quash would-be infringers. These requirements are at their lowest ebb when parties seek declaratory judgments. This results in some creative uses of the declaratory judgment claim.

Many employers have granted their white collar workers increased flexibility to work remotely in response to the pandemic. As a result, some employees have moved away from the areas surrounding their offices and into places with lower costs or higher quality of living. In cases where an employee with a non-compete moves to a state such as California, which has a prohibition against any “contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind,” that can present potential problems for a Company. Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code. § 16600.