Keep your finger on the legal world's pulse

Amazon has scrapped a planned partnership between its Ring doorbell unit and surveillance firm Flock Safety following widespread public criticism over privacy concerns. The proposed integration would have allowed law enforcement to request home video footage from Ring users through Flock’s automated license plate recognition system. Although participation would have been voluntary, critics warned the technology could be used to monitor individuals, raising fears of racial profiling, immigration enforcement misuse and expanded state surveillance. Amazon and Flock Safety said the project was cancelled after determining it would require more time and resources than anticipated, but the decision follows mounting backlash from privacy advocates. The episode underscores growing scrutiny over the role of smart home devices in law enforcement and the balance between security tools and civil liberties.

 

International Business Times

The Justice Department has sued Harvard University for allegedly failing to comply with a federal investigation into whether its admissions practices discriminate on the basis of race, escalating a broader standoff between the Trump administration and the Ivy League institution. Officials say Harvard has refused to provide detailed admissions data needed to assess its compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which curtailed the use of race in college admissions. Harvard maintains it is following the law and responding in good faith, describing the lawsuit as retaliatory amid wider federal pressure that includes threats to freeze research funding, revoke tax-exempt status and impose financial penalties.

 

New York Times

Politico

Costco is facing a proposed class action alleging its Nebraska poultry plant fails to meet USDA safety standards, leading to salmonella contamination in rotisserie chickens. The complaint cites testing showing 9.8% of whole chickens and 15.4% of parts positive for salmonella. The retailer sold more than 157m rotisserie chickens in 2025. The lawsuit seeks damages for shoppers since 2019, claiming consumer protection violations. Costco has not commented.

 

OregonLive.com

Reuters

A judge has declared a mistrial in the case involving five current and former Stanford University students related to the 2024 pro-Palestinian protests, where demonstrators barricaded themselves in the school president's office. The jury was deadlocked, voting nine to three on the felony vandalism charge and eight to four on the felony trespass charge. Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen said: "This case is about a group of people who destroyed someone else's property and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage." The protests were part of a larger movement demanding an end to U.S. support for Israel and divestment from companies supporting it. Over three thousand arrests occurred during the protests, with some students facing severe disciplinary actions.

 

U.S. News & World Report

A federal court has ruled that U.S. tax filing and payment deadlines were effectively suspended from January 20, 2020 to July 10, 2023, after pandemic-era disaster declarations combined with a 2019 change to the tax code paused statutory deadlines. The decision has triggered a scramble among taxpayers and lawyers seeking refunds of interest and penalties paid during the period, with companies including Western Digital suing for millions of dollars and potential class actions emerging on behalf of individual taxpayers. Attorneys argue the IRS may have improperly charged interest or failed to pay refund interest during what the court says was an extended disaster window. The government can appeal the ruling, and many taxpayers may already be outside the usual time limits for filing claims. Congress amended the law in 2021 to prevent a similar open-ended suspension in future disasters, but that fix applies only prospectively.

 

Wall Street Journal

Goldman Sachs plans to eliminate race, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other diversity-related factors from the criteria its board uses to assess prospective candidates. The bank's decision follows a request that it removes the DEI criteria from the conservative activist nonprofit National Legal and Policy Center, a small shareholder in the lender. The Wall Street Journal notes that the DEI climate has changed radically for companies in recent years. A turning point was President Trump’s executive order last year directing federal departments and agencies to launch civil investigations into corporate DEI programs.

 

Wall Street Journal

Mustafa Suleyman, Microsoft's AI chief, predicts that most white-collar jobs could be fully automated within 12 to 18 months. He said that AI is nearing "human-level performance" in tasks including law, accounting, and project management. Suleyman noted that AI-assisted coding is already common in software engineering. The potential job losses could be severe, with estimates suggesting up to 80% of entry-level positions might be at risk.

 

Fortune

Financial Times

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is scaling up scrutiny of Microsoft and is seeking answers from the company's rivals on the tech giant's licensing and other business practices. The agency, which is also requesting information on Microsoft’s bundling of artificial intelligence, security and identity software into other products, including Windows and Office, has delivered civil investigative requests in recent weeks to Microsoft's competitors in the enterprise software and cloud computing markets, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, who said at least half a dozen companies had received the requests. 

 

Bloomberg

Keystone Law has enhanced its international arbitration capabilities by hiring Milena Szuniewicz-Wenzel and Ian Hopkinson as partners from Clyde & Co. Szuniewicz-Wenzel, with over 20 years of experience, has represented various sectors in high-stakes disputes, including the notable case of Beijing Urban Construction Group (BUCG) v Yemen. Hopkinson, a qualified barrister turned solicitor-advocate, has focused on energy and commercial arbitration throughout his 18-year career. Keystone Law founder and CEO James Knight praised the new partners as “exceptional additions to our international arbitration team,” and highlighted their expertise in complex, multi-jurisdictional matters. Szuniewicz-Wenzel noted the firm’s “dynamic model and strong disputes bench,” while Hopkinson appreciated its “flexibility and international reach.”

 

CDR

Tax police in Italy have searched Amazon's headquarters in Milan in a new tax evasion probe, two sources have told Reuters. The Guardia di Finanza tax police also searched the homes of seven Amazon managers and the offices of auditing firm KPMG. The tech giant said in a statement that the Milan prosecutors' actions were "aggressive and wholly disproportionate" at a time when it was engaged in a "transparent dialogue with Italian tax authorities to gain clarity on complex technical matters." The ongoing investigation is examining whether the company had an undisclosed, permanent base in Italy from 2019 to 2024 and should therefore have paid more local taxes.

 

Reuters

Kent Walker, president of global affairs and chief legal officer at Google, tells the Financial Times that Europe risks undermining its own competitiveness drive by restricting access to foreign technology.

 

Financial Times

The U.S. economy is showing its strongest signs yet of achieving a “soft landing,” with inflation easing, unemployment steady and growth holding up - though policymakers and economists remain cautious about celebrating too soon. Core inflation fell to 2.5% in January, its lowest since the pandemic price surge began, while the unemployment rate dipped to 4.3% and employers added 130,000 jobs. The data suggests inflation could return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target without triggering a recession, a scenario many once considered unlikely. However, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge remains closer to 3%, and some economists warn that tariff-related price pressures and resilient consumer spending could keep inflation stuck above target.

 

Wall Street Journal