It wasn't what you'd call an eloquently rousing defense of net neutrality, but 22 attorneys general led by New York AG Eric Schneiderman on Tuesday filed a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit challenging the Federal Communications Commission's rollback of open internet rules.

As a legal document, it's more of a placeholder than an actual lawsuit—an anticlimactic beginning to what's sure to be an impassioned fight.

Although the petitioners wrote that they believe the FCC's Jan. 4 order “should be deemed final on the date that it is published in the Federal Register … State petitioners recognize the possibility that the order may be construed to be final on the date that it was issued.”

This petition—submitted “out of an abundance of caution”—gets them in under the wire either way.

It's 11 pages long, but the first page is taken up with listing the parties, and the last eight are nothing but signatures.

The actual argument gets one sentence. The FCC's repeal of net neutrality is “arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion” under the Administrative Procedure Act and “violates federal law including but not limited to the Constitution, the Communications Act of 1934, as amended, and FCC regulations promulgated thereunder; conflicts with the notice and comment rulemaking requirements of 5 U.S.C. Section 553; and is otherwise contrary to law.”

So there you go. Any questions?

Mozilla Corp., which makes the open-source Firefox web browser, filed a similar bare-bones petition with the D.C. Circuit on Tuesday as well.

Represented by Steptoe & Johnson's Markham C. Erickson and Georgios Leris, Mozilla noted that while the FCC's so-called “Restoring Internet Freedom” order hasn't actually been published yet in the Federal Register, the agency in prior open internet challenges has been tricky about dates.

In USTA v. FCC, for example, Erickson and Leris pointed out that “US Telecom and Alamo filed protective petitions within ten days of public release of the FCC's final order, but prior to Federal Register publication.”

The FCC objected to the petitions, but nonetheless forwarded them to the Multidistrict Litigation panel for inclusion in the lottery—a random selection to determine which appellate court gets review when there are multiple petitions challenging the same FCC order.

“The MDL panel then held the lottery on March 30, 2015, almost two weeks before Federal Register publication, which occurred on April 13, 2015,” Erickson and Leris wrote for Mozilla. “As a result, any party that failed to file a protective petition was excluded from the lottery.”

Free Press wasn't about to get left out either. The First Amendment advocacy group filed its petition challenging the order in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on Tuesday.

“Our filing is preliminary in some respects, as the shot clock for filing appeals is settled,” said policy director Matt Wood. “Yet that doesn't diminish the importance of making the case that the FCC was wrong to repeal its Net Neutrality rules.”

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Shout-Out: Simpson Thacher Puts a Stake Through Securities Fraud Class Action

A team from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett led by Palo Alto-based partners James Kreissman and Stephen Blake won final dismissal with prejudice in a securities fraud class action against client Global Eagle Entertainment.

Global Eagle, which provides in-flight entertainment, was sued in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California last February after the company abruptly announced that its CEO and CFO had resigned.

Represented by lawyers from Pomerantz and Bronstein, Gewirtz & Grossman, the plaintiffs alleged that Global Eagle made material misrepresentations or omissions regarding its internal controls and the success of its acquisition of Emergency Markets Communications in 2016.

But the suit got no traction. In October, U.S. District Judge Percy Andersondismissed the case, ruling that there was “no meaningful way” for the plaintiffs to amend their pleadings to “adequately allege scienter or falsity of statements at the time they were made” and that leave to amend was therefore “futile.”

Still, they gave it another try. The plaintiffs filed a motion to alter or amend the court's judgment based on “new evidence which is sufficient to sustain allegations to permit plaintiff's claims to proceed past the pleading stage and on to discovery.”

Last week, Anderson said no. He ruled much of the allegedly new information was “disclosed to the public prior to entry of judgment” and that none of it “would have changed the outcome of the case.”

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Lateral Watch

Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer added Steve Benz, former head of litigation at Eli Lilly and Company, as partner in Washington, D.C.

He's known for his “deep experience on anti-kickback and government pricing issues,” said Dan Kracov, co-chair of the firm's life sciences and healthcare regulatory practice, “areas of significant importance to our clients.”

The firm on Tuesday also announced that former Senator Christopher J. Dodd(co-author of the Dodd-Frank Act) has joined as senior counsel. Most recently, Dodd was chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America.

For more, see this story by Ryan Lovelace.

BakerHostetler has nabbed securities litigator Douglas Greene from Lane Powellin Seattle. He joins the firm as head of its securities and governance litigation practice. BakerHostetler litigation chair W. Ray Whitman noted Greene's “well-earned reputation as being one of the best, particularly related to 'stock drop' cases.”

Greene's clients have included Amazon, Boeing, Expedia, Liberty Mutual, Micron Technology, Nordstrom, OfficeMax, Safeco Corporation and Washington Mutual, according to BakerHostetler.

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