By: Ryan Lee
Facebook announced that it has agreed to pay $550 million to settle a class action lawsuit. The class action began over Facebook’s use of facial recognition technology in Illinois on Illinois residents. The case, In re Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation (15-cv-03747-JD) (N.D. Cal.), comes specifically from a photo-labeling service rolled out by Facebook to make it easier to identify the people in your photos and then to tag them. The service, known as Tag Suggestions, uses a face-matching software to suggest the names of people in users’ photos.

By: Jacqueline Pakula

Rising student loan debt has been a prevalent issue in the lives of many Americans, both young and old. With tuition costs on the rise, the primary concern with student loans is that they seem to be taking longer to pay off and are accompanied by higher interest rates or repayment plans. Many students face hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt as soon as they graduate from a university or college. The problem is widespread, and many students unfortunately find themselves in bankruptcy—unable to pay off their total debts.

By: Kyle Broadfoot

T-Mobile and Sprint are the third- and fourth largest wireless service carriers in the United States, and they want to merge to create a cellular giant to compete with Verizon and AT&T. The two announced the plan in April 2018, when T-Mobile CEO John Legere announced that the two had reached an agreement on a $26 billion deal, followed by an application for approval by the Federal Communications Commission in June 2018.

By: Madeline Sobek

On November 1, 2019, the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether SEC disgorgement is permissible as a penalty for securities fraud.

By: Jacklyn Brandby

In 2017, a former Uber employee published an essay describing the details of her work experience as a site reliability engineer. In this essay, the employee wrote about inappropriate behavior by her manager and stated that when it was reported to human resources, the company provided no relief.

By: Nicholas Beatty

On November 6, 2019, Plaintiff Gerald Lovoi, derivatively on behalf of Netflix, Inc. (“Netflix”), brought a stockholder derivative complaint against the company’s board of directors (the “Board”) and executive officers.

By: Noah Schultz-Rathbun

Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, and the rest of the U.S. Senior Women’s National Soccer Team (“WNT”) notched another major victory in early November. Morgan and Rapinoe, along with teammates Carli Lloyd and Becky Sauerbrunn, were named class representatives for the rest of the team by U.S. District Court Judge R. Gary Klausner in his November 8 order granting their motion for class certification.

By: Jada Allender

Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda is currently before the Supreme Court to determine whether discrimination based on sexual orientation is prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1 1964. Oral argument was heard on October 8, 2019 and a decision is expected in 2020.

By: Olivia Stitz

Gone are the days where companies are forced to decipher and interpret the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) published declination letters. After supplementing Title 18 Sentencing Guidelines with its April 2019 Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs, the DOJ left a gaping hole in how they would evaluate Inability-to-Pay claims.

By: Alexa Weber

In The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has sued Match Group, Inc. (“Match”) for allegedly tricking individuals to subscribe to Match.com, an online dating service, through fraudulent advertising, deceptive business practices, and unfair denial of access to subscriber accounts. Match controls about one-quarter of the online dating market and owns approximately 45 separate online dating services, including Match.com, OKCupid, Tinder, and PlentyOfFish.