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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

REASONS – We now know more about why Sidley Austin partner James Cole, a former Obama-era DOJ leader, was disqualified in December from serving as a defender for the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei in a U.S. criminal case. Mike Scarcella and C. Ryan Barber report that U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly in New York has partially unsealed her ruling that sheds light on the decision. Cole, the judge reasoned, had immediate access to classified and confidential information substantially related to this case. She added: "The fact that Mr. Cole has 'no recollection of the matters' does not change the analysis." 

SCRUTINIZED - New U.S. Treasury Department regulations governing reviews by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. took effect earlier this month, and, as MP McQueen reports, financial technology companies and their venture capital and private equity investors are among the industries most affected. "The way CFIUS looks at this now is like this is an episode of 'Homeland,' " says Doreen Edelman, chair of Lowenstein Sandler's global trade and policy practice.

POST-WEINSTEIN – Critics of Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance Jr.'s overall record of handling sex assault cases are not placated by the guilty verdict in the Harvey Weinstein case. Jane Wester reports that women's rights advocates say the Weinstein verdict indicates more about how attitudes are changing among juries than in the DA's office. Vance's handling of a case against a former Columbia University obstetrician whom Andrew Yang's wife said sexually assaulted her is particularly troublesome, they say. The DA's office says that the sex crimes unit has made numerous changes since the #MeToo movement accelerated in the fall of 2017.

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EDITOR'S PICKS

Dentons Defends Sprawling Verein Structure, Blasting $32M Malpractice Verdict

In Google Antitrust Discovery, A Small Victory for In-House Counsel

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WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

ASIA PUSH – Accounting giant KPMG has launched a legal services arm in Thailand. Anna Zhang reports that the Thailand-based legal arm will include 25 lawyers and about 20 additional legal staff and will provide local law advice on commercial and corporate law, mergers and acquisitions, reorganization, employment law, compliance and investigations, and privacy law matters. The legal team will work alongside KPMG's existing audit, tax and advisory services.

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WHAT YOU SAID

"A young, skinny black kid from Queens is going to be attorney general of the United States? Yeah right. And yet, it happened."

— Eric Holder, former U.S. Attorney General who is now partner at Covington & Burling, on the advancement, although slow, of people of color and women in the legal profession. 

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