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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

WATCHFUL – As the EU's head of antitrust looks ahead to a second five-year term, U.S. tech giants such as Apple, Google and Facebook are bracing for more scrutiny. Simon Taylor reports that the role of Margrethe Vestager will expand to include oversight of digital issues. Vestager's official title is executive vice-president for making Europe "fit for a digital age." During the last five years, Vestager hit Apple with a $15.5 billion bill for unpaid taxes, fined Google $1.7 billion for abuse in the online advertising market, and charged Facebook $122 million for misleading competition authorities over the acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp.

WESTWARD – Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr continues its West Coast push with the hires of three transactional partners in Silicon Valley from Foley & Lardner. Xiumei Dong reports that the addition of Edwin Thom Rumberger Jr., John Rockwell and Frederic Adam follows Wilmer's recent recruitment of veteran intellectual property litigation partner, Sonal Mehta, from Durie Tangri. The new hires bring the lawyer head count in the firm's Silicon Valley office to 51. The D.C.-based law firm opened a new San Francisco office early in the year, which has since grown to 10 lawyers. Including 27 more in Los Angeles, the firm has a total of 85 lawyers in California.

DETAILS, DETAILS – A conflicts hearing is scheduled in Brooklyn federal court today in the case of Keith Raniere, the leader of the NXIVM organization who was convicted in June on federal charges for his role in what prosecutors said was a sex cult. One of his defense lawyers is Teny Geragos, who is a candidate to take a job with the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The government has taken the position that the potential conflict is waivable—since Geragos, who is the daughter of high-profile lawyer Mark Geragos, is not lead counsel—but wants to make sure Raniere makes a fully informed and voluntary waiver.