In February 2026, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it “secured a landmark settlement” with Express Scripts—one of the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit managers.  Formalized as a consent order, the settlement represents a milestone in efforts to rein in PBMs, whose practices largely escaped regulatory scrutiny until the FTC launched an industry-wide inquiry in 2022. That inquiry eventually led to the FTC bringing an administrative action against the “Big 3” PBMs in 2024, alleging that they inflated the list price of insulin drugs through rebate and other anticompetitive and unfair practices.

Retail bankruptcies are back. Commercial Chapter 11 filings hit a 10-year high in 2025. January 2026 continued the trend: 956 filings, up 76% from 544 a year earlier. Small business filings surged even faster. The stress runs from national chains to local operators. These cases move quickly. Courts set budgets and hear lease motions in the first weeks. If you are not in those early conversations, you lose leverage—and often money.

The Virginia Assembly passed Senate Bill 170, which adds new limits on the enforceability of noncompetes against terminated employees. Governor Spanberger is expected to sign this into law. The employer cannot enforce a noncompete unless it pays "severance benefits or other monetary payment" to the employee. Moreover, the employer must notify an employee of the benefit or payment to trigger the enforcement of the noncompete upon termination. This applies to all employees regardless of salary. Any noncompete agreed, amended, or renewed after July 1, 2026 is affected.

The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) recently rescinded its 2024 Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace (“Guidance”), which included guidance related to gender identity discrimination and harassment against LGBTQ+ workers. This rescission, while expected, signals an ongoing shift in priorities at the federal level, which creates confusion and uncertainty and raises compliance issues for employers. Based on this change, employers should stay up-to-date on the evolving guidance and best practices for creating and maintaining a compliant and inclusive workplace.

The intersection of emerging technologies and intellectual property law has never been more critical. As quantum computing advances from theoretical research to practical application, it presents both unprecedented challenges and opportunities for IP practitioners and their clients. This article examines how post-quantum cryptographic developments implicate core IP concerns, including patent strategy, trade secret protection, and the safeguarding of confidential information, and outlines practical considerations for organizations navigating this rapidly evolving landscape.

The federal government has made considerable changes to H-1B Lottery by replacing the purely random selection model with a wage-weighted registration selection model. We are answering the most important questions that employers are asking themselves as a result of this significant shift.

On February 18, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed additional amendments to the reporting requirements on Form N-PORT for certain registered investment companies that will, if adopted, provide those funds with relief from existing requirements, as well as adding certain new reporting requirements. The SEC is seeking public comments on the proposal, which will be due 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will stop collecting IEEPA tariffs at 12:00am ET February 24th, and start imposing a new additional global 10 percent Section 122 tariff (Trade Act of 1974) at 12:01am ET on February 24th.

The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision ruled today that President Trump's imposition of tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) - which constitute about half of the tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration - was not lawful. The Supreme Court did not explain how refunds would be processed.

The Supreme Court will hear Anderson v. Intel, a case that could reshape how ERISA fiduciaries evaluate and select alternative investments like private equity and hedge funds for retirement plans. The case arrives amid significant regulatory activity, including President Trump's August 2025 Executive Order directing the DOL and SEC to reduce barriers to alternative investments in 401(k) plans and pending DOL rulemaking on fiduciary duties in investment selection.

OLAW recently published a notice that it has updated its guidance to the regulated community about their reporting requirements to the agency. “Guidance on Prompt Reporting to OLAW Under the PHS Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals,” NOT-OD-05-034, issued on February 24, 2005, now rescinded, has been replaced with the new Guidance, “Notice on Update to Guidance on Prompt Reporting to OLAW Under the PHS Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals,” NOT-OD-25-148, “to refine and update examples of reportable situations, examples of situations where reporting is not normally required, the time frame for reporting, and the information to be reported.”

On January 13, 2026, President Trump nominated WeatherTech founder David MacNeil to the Federal Trade Commission. This nomination follows from the FTC tightening oversight of Made-in-USA claims in 2025, with the FTC declaring July “Made in the USA Month” and sending warning letters to companies with allegedly misleading marketing.

The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) recently issued a Technical Assistance Document - Discrimination Against American Workers is Against the Law – and signaled its intention to focus on discrimination against American employees in the workplace. In light of the agency’s action, employers should know what their obligations under the law are and proactively should ensure that their policies, programs, and procedures comply with the law to avoid charges of discrimination.

The Federal Circuit’s recent decisions have shifted the standards for induced infringement, now considering not just a generic drug's label, but also its marketing practices. This has led to a Supreme Court inquiry on whether a fully carved-out generic label can still encourage infringement.

Rejections of patent applications as being directed to patent-ineligible subject matter can be difficult to overcome, particularly for artificial intelligence or software-related applications. While arguments that a patent claim incorporates any ineligible abstract idea into a practical application or provides a technological advance over the prior art are supposed to be sufficient to overcome a rejection, they ultimately rely on the Examiner’s discretion to withdraw their own rejection – and getting someone to say they were wrong can be challenging at the best of times. Providing credible extrinsic evidence, however, can significantly strengthen those arguments.

Section 112 has decisively replaced obviousness-type double patenting (OTDP) as the primary litigation and PTAB vulnerability for ambitious biotech claims, with courts now demanding concrete possession and true enablement of claimed inventions rather than broad, suggestive genus disclosures. Claiming strategy in biotech must focus on disclosure-first breadth, ensuring that specifications clearly exemplify subgenera and teach across the scope of claims to meet strict enablement and written description requirements.​

We’ve been talking about In re Entresto and MSN Pharmaceuticals’ petition for certiorari. The crux of the case remains the same: if you wonder whether a patent can be undone by technology that didn’t exist when it was filed, MSN’s reply brief—and its spirited ode to Edison’s bamboo filament lightbulb—just made your day.

Recently, we posted about MSN Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s petition for certiorari and the several amicus briefs in support of that petition. On November 7, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. filed its brief in opposition. The case squarely presents the long-simmering doctrinal tension over how patent law treats “after-developed” or “after‑arising” technology—innovations not known at a patent’s filing but later alleged to fall within a claim’s scope.

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (“USCIS”) has issued new policy guidance regarding its evaluation of applicants for naturalization, the process through which foreign nationals become U.S. citizens. In August, USCIS issued a new policy memorandum entitled “Restoring a Rigorous, Holistic, and Comprehensive Good Moral Character Evaluation Standard for Aliens Applying for Naturalization.”

Over the past several weeks, the White House has put the H-1B nonimmigrant visa program under the microscope and has launched a volley of attacks against the program. The current administration has sought to revise the program and to amend existing regulations, and the result has caused confusion and anxiety.