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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

PRACTICES PROPELLING PARTNER PROMOTIONS - With corporate partner promotions down in 2023, firms are elevating more lawyers in regulatory and countercyclical practices than they did last year, Law.com's Dan Roe reports. Antitrust, debt finance, health care and tax practices saw the biggest jumps in promotions this year. Meanwhile, with the number of total promotions across the cohort of firms down 2% from 2022, that left fewer new partners in most corporate practices. Capital markets partner elections fell 42%, and promotions in intellectual property were down 12%.

MICROSOFT-LIKE MONOPOLY? - For us old heads who remember waaaaayyyyy back to 2001, the DOJ and FTC's antitrust cases against Google and Amazon may be reminiscent of the government's landmark lawsuit that led to Microsoft's agreement to modify its business amid allegations that it had illegally cornered the personal computer market. But antitrust lawyers and law professors told Law.com's Maydeen Merino that past success does not necessarily dictate future performance because it will likely be more difficult for the government to prove anticompetitiveness against Google and Amazon. "There are no easy litigated victories in antitrust law for the government agencies in the modern environment," said former FTC Chair William Kovacic, a George Washington University law professor. "They have to fight hard for everything they get."

ON THE RADAR - Dustin F. Guzior, Ann-Elizabeth Ostrager and Alexander N. Gross of Sullivan & Cromwell have entered appearances for Lexeo Therapeutics Inc. in a pending trade secret lawsuit. The case, filed Oct. 12 in New York Southern District Court by Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner and Saiber LLC on behalf of Rocket Pharmaceuticals, pursues claims against Lexeo Therapeutics and former Rocket employees Kenneth Law and Sonia Gutierrez for allegedly misappropriating confidential and proprietary trade secret information in an effort to compete with Rocket's gene therapy programs. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel, is 1:23-cv-09000, Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Lexeo Therapeutics, Inc. et al. Stay up on the latest state and federal litigation, as well as the latest corporate deals, with Law.com Radar.  

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