On The Merits

It's now clear that the Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs last year raised more questions than it answered. The latest example of this came late last Friday when a pair of opinions from federal judges threw the legality of a long-used abortion medication into doubt.A judge from Washington state ordered the FDA to maintain the status quo for the drug mifepristone. Another judge from Texas came to the opposite conclusion, ordering the FDA to take mifepristone off the market despite the drug having won approval more than 20 years ago.Bloomberg Law reporter Celine Castronuovo walks us through these developments and looks at what's coming in the fight over abortion—including another likely ruling from the Supreme Court—on the latest episode of our weekly podcast, On The Merits.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

During the Cold War, the U.S. was the undisputed leader in a field of science called geodesy—the precise measurement of the shape and magnetic field of the Earth. The development of GPS sprung from this, along with many other useful technologies.But fast forward to today. Numerous countries have surpassed America in this field, with China in particular making extraordinary leaps. Scientists are now saying the US may have fallen so far behind in geodesy that catching up is nearly impossible.On this episode of On The Merits, our weekly news podcast, Bloomberg Government reporter Jack Fitzpatrick talks about the profound national security implications of this and why Washington's current anti-China mood may help reverse this trend.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

It used to be that bank runs took weeks, or even months, to gain steam. Not anymore.Thanks to the speed of electronic financial transactions and near-instantaneous online communication, the financial panics that felled Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank earlier this month materialized in a matter of days.Is there a solution for preventing this? Bloomberg Law reporter Evan Weinberg looked into this question for a recent story. He joins our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, to explain why it's unlikely regulators will be able to stop flash bank runs anytime soon.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Bankruptcy law is the ultimate countercyclical industry: business is booming when when things get bad. And things have almost never been worse in the crypto world, with even the most prominent coins down more than 40% in just the past year.Numerous crypto platforms—Voyager Digital, Celsius, BlockFi, and, most famously, FTX—have filed for Chapter 11. That means bankruptcy attorneys have a lot of work on their plates.Bloomberg Law spoke to more than half a dozen of the attorneys working on these cases to hear if managing a crypto bankruptcy is just another day at the office. They say nothing in their careers prepared them to unwind what were essentially quasi-banks dealing with some of the most volatile financial assets known to humankind."I knew that they would present novel issues of law and technology," White & Case lawyer Greg Pesce, who's working on the Celsius bankruptcy, told us. "And that couldn't begin to describe what we confronted."On this special episode of our weekly podcast, On The Merits, we hear what it's like to be an attorney managing the downfall of the titans of crypto.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Court supervised guardianships are meant to protect people who can no longer manage themselves and their assets. But a Bloomberg Law investigation found that people in guardianships can easily be taken advantage of, and that getting out of one is extraordinarily difficult.Reporters Ronnie Greene and Holly Barker just released a five-part series that looks at how guardianships can go wrong—from wealthy celebrities like Britney Spears to indigent senior citizens.They join our weekly podcast, On The Merits, to talk about how a lack of oversight creates conditions ripe for fraud and abuse. Holly discusses the particularly galling case of a New Mexico guardianship company that stole millions from its clients and whose CFO she spoke to from jail.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Britney Spears’ conservatorship dispute brought the guardianship system to the public eye. It’s a system that entraps thousands more Americans without a platform to fight back. The industry is regulated loosely and ripe for exploitation of elderly and disabled people, Bloomberg Law found in a six-month investigation.Read the full 5-part series: https://www.bloomberglaw.com/bloomberglawnews/us-law-week/BNA%2000000186a58cdac2afe7e7ecdc9b0001

Suing your own customers usually isn't a wise business strategy. But that's what some insurance companies are doing as litigation over PFAS continues to flood the courts.Many of the companies that are, themselves, facing lawsuits over allegedly exposing people to the so-called "forever chemicals," are saying their insurers should be footing the costs of defending these suits. However, not only are the insurers rejecting these claims, but they're taking their own clients to court in the hopes of getting a judge to rule that their policies don't cover PFAS litigation.Bloomberg Law's Daphne Zhang has been reporting on this, and she joins this episode of our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits. Daphne explains what's a stake for insurers in these suits and why, in the very near future, it may be all but impossible to find an insurer willing to cover PFAS.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is keeping his friends close, and his caucus closer.At least, that appears to be the intent behind what the California Republican is calling his "Five Families" strategy—a not-so-subtle reference to the classic 1972 film "The Godfather." In the hopes of avoiding the infighting that preceded his raucous Speakership vote, McCarthy is giving five different ideological factions within the House Republican caucus a much larger say in the legislation that makes it to the chamber's floor.On this episode of our weekly podcast, On The Merits, Bloomberg Government's Emily Wilkins explains what McCarthy is doing and how his strategy represents a break with his predecessor, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). Emily also talks about whether this power sharing agreement will make it more or less likely that Congress will breach the debt ceiling later this year.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

A Massachusetts inmate says he deserves a new trial because his lawyer was racist, and the justices on his state's highest court aren't sure what to make of this argument.That was the takeaway from last week's oral argument in the closely-watched appeal of Anthony Dew. Dew is a Black Muslim man who says the discovery of extremely racist Facebook posts from his court-appointed lawyer should invalidate his 2016 guilty plea.Bloomberg Law's Allie Reed is covering this first-of-its-kind trial. She joins our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, to talk about what it would mean if an attorney's personal animus toward their client could, by itself, create a conflict of interest.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Back in the 1920s, the Supreme Court granted Major League Baseball an exemption from US antitrust rules. But since then, some members of the Court—including several current justices—have said they think they may have made a mistake.Now, the Department of Justice is joining the club. Last week, it asked an appellate court to apply this exemption as narrowly as possible in an amicus brief on behalf of several defunct minor league teams that are suing MLB.On today's episode of our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, we talk with Bloomberg Law reporter Mike Leonard about why this policy has persisted for a century if a growing number of those serving in the judicial or executive branches seem to dislike it. Mike also talks about how the Supreme Court seems eager to take on sports-related cases and whether this means MLB's exemption is down to its last strike.Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.