Lookzy: all your daily legal news in 0.1 billable hours. Litigation, deals, lateral moves and industry news; we cover it all. 

Welcome to Lookzy.  In today's Lookzy:

• Elon Musk deflects another lawsuit

• Lizzo is legally "100% That B*tch"

• Dealmaking season: multiple multi-billion dollar bids

• A judge used ChatGPT in a trial

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ECON SNAPSHOT

The difference between special bonuses and layoffs

THE VERDICT

Arguing today's litigation news

Amazon antitrust.  The FTC is reportedly preparing an antitrust suit against Amazon, though the timing and scope of the suit are unclear.  FTC chair Lisa Khan kickstarted her career with a Yale Law Journal article titled "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox".

Teflon Musk.  Tesla and CEO Elon Musk were cleared of securities fraud related to Musk's "funding secured" tweets in California federal court, with the jury deliberating for only an hour.  Quinn Emanuel partner Alex Spiro represented Musk.  

Baseball antitrust.  The DOJ filed an amicus brief in a suit by several minor league baseball clubs against the MLB at the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, arguing that the MLB should not be able to extend its immunity from antitrust law to a dispute involving restrictions on the number of minor league teams that can be affiliated with MLB teams.  Sullivan & Cromwell is representing the MLB and Weil is representing the group of minor league teams.  

Artificial intelligence.  The latest in a series of suits against creators of AI image-creation tools, Getty Images sued Stability AI, the maker of Stable Diffusion, in Delaware District Court, claiming that Stability AI copied more than 12 million Getty photos to train Stable Diffusion.  Weil is representing Getty.  

About damn time.  Lizzo can officially be "100% That B*tch", at least for clothing trademarks, according to a USPTO tribunal which awarded Lizzo exclusive rights to use the phrase on apparel. 

THE DEAL

Wheelin' and dealin' today's corporate news

Storage wars.  Public Storage made an $11 billion unsolicited all-stock offer via 'bear hug' letter to management for rival Life Storage after a December attempt to buy the company was rebuffed.  If the offer is accepted, at a $15 billion enterprise value, the deal would mark 2023's largest corporate takeover so far.  

Golden offer.  Gold mining company Newmont Corp made a $16.9 billion all-stock offer for Australian rival Newcrest Mining Ltd.  Newcrest is reportedly considering the proposal, but investors have indicated they want a higher price.  If the offer is accepted, the deal would represent the largest mining takeover and the third largest corporate takeover in Australian history.  

Jay-Z buy-out.  Bacardi Ltd. agreed to buy out an undisclosed portion of Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter's stake in their joint cognac venture.  The buy-out is designed to end an extensive legal battle spanning multiple court cases and arbitrations.

Artificial investment.  Google invested $300 million into Anthropic, a startup AI research company founded by former OpenAI researchers which has created its own rival to OpenAI's ChatGPT, named Claude.  Google will own 10% of Anthropic, which concurrently agreed to a separate arrangement in which Anthropic commits to using Google for compute.  FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried and Alameda's Caroline Ellison, among others, each invested in Anthropic's April 2022 Series B round.  

Another IPO.  Drug developer Structure Therapeutics Inc. started trading Friday following an upsized $161 million IPO.  Cooley represented Structure and Latham represented the underwriters. 

BUSINESS OF THE FIRM

Lateral Moves:

• Arnold & Porter hired former US Representative Ron Kind as Senior Policy Advisor.

• Live Nation hired former Latham antitrust chair Dan Wall, who retired from the firm last month, as Executive Vice President for Corporate and Regulatory Affairs.

Industry News: 

• ChatGPT at court. Colombian Judge Juan Manuel Padilla Garcia reportedly used the AI tool ChatGPT to ask legal questions about a case and included its responses in his decision, which the judge said saved time writing the opinion.

• Kirkland alumni. Bloomberg Law detailed how Kirkland & Ellis uses its 6,000-person alumni network to help gain new clients and strengthen relationships with existing ones.

• Judge at trial. A Ohio judge accused of firing his Jewish staff attorney and magistrate because she wanted to take time off during the High Holidays was hit with a $1.1 million jury verdict in Ohio federal court.

BOILERPLATE

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