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All eyes are on the Supreme Court, which will consider whether former President Donald Trump should be barred from holding future office. But the business community will likely be watching other high court cases closely as well.
In 2024, many industries are facing major crises.
Supreme Court justices are expected to issue decisions that could limit the reach of social media, the ability of federal agencies to police companies and the power of bankruptcy courts to shield the powerful from liability.
We take a closer look at these lawsuits below. All of these cases are expected to be decided by the end of the Supreme Court’s term this summer.
Social media
Should tech giants be allowed to decide what content and users are allowed on social media platforms without government intervention?
This is one of the core questions facing the Supreme Court in 2024.
The report calls for restrictions on major social media companies from deleting the accounts of major publishers and political candidates, as well as moderating the posts of users who express certain views, including political views. and two lawsuits challenging the Texas law.
An appellate court upheld the Florida law, and another appellate court blocked the Texas law.
NetChoice, a technology group that defends Big Tech companies including Yahoo Finance, opposes both laws and is currently involved as a plaintiff in the Texas dispute and as a defendant in the Florida case.
Social media companies argue that they have their own First Amendment rights to block users and user content from their platforms.
Other states may wait to see what the high court rules before filing further lawsuits or proposing new laws to challenge content moderation. do not have.
“The irony of both the Texas and Florida laws is that they invoke journalistic freedoms that force social media platforms to host speech they don’t like,” said Cliff Davidson, partner at Snell & Wilmer. he said.
He said the law could be difficult for social media companies to interpret and comply with because it applies to “news companies” based on the amount of content they produce and the number of paid subscribers or users they have. .
However, “it is unclear how social media platforms decide what content these laws protect on a day-to-day basis.” This is because the law is silent on how these numbers are determined, how long minimum values must be met, and how long the reported numbers must be achieved. You need to check the number of users.
federal power
How much power should U.S. government agencies have when interpreting their authority to regulate businesses?
This is another core issue that the High Court will consider in 2024. The High Court’s ruling could curb the power regulator’s ability to intervene in a wide range of industries, from finance and banking to fishing, cars and pharmaceuticals.
On January 17, the court is scheduled to hear two specific cases featuring disputes between the Commerce Department’s U.S. Fisheries Regulatory Authority and fishing companies, in which the Commerce Department is expected to impose federally mandated regulations on regulated companies. They argue that demands for pay for shipboard observers go too far. .
These cases represent a high-profile test of a 40-year-old legal precedent known as Chevron deference.
This doctrine, first established by the Supreme Court in a 1984 case centered on the Environmental Protection Agency’s interpretation of federal law, states that when a law is ambiguous, judges should stipulates that the federal government’s interpretation must be followed.
Subsequent Supreme Court decisions have mandated that courts delegate “substantial matters” to federal agencies, i.e., matters of “extreme economic or political importance,” unless Congress explicitly authorizes them to do so. The court also ruled that the law should be refrained from interpreting the law in a way that was too harsh.
The Supreme Court has already indicated that it intends to reconsider the Chevron Doctrine.
In a ruling last year, the high court said the EPA had no right to honor its interpretation of the Clean Water Act (CWA) definition and overstepped its authority to impose regulations that could infringe on private property.
The court also ruled that in 2022, 18 Republican-led states, the governor of Mississippi, and two coal mining companies that argued the EPA did not have the authority to subject existing coal and gas-fired power plants to new carbon targets. This principle was also invoked when the court handed down a favorable judgment. Emission restrictions.
The court said that without explicit Congressional authority, EPA cannot enact sweeping new emissions standards for plants that predate EPA’s new rules.
There are other Supreme Court challenges to federal agencies that could limit their powers.
One targeted the financing structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the financial regulator created by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in response to the 2008 subprime housing meltdown and financial crisis. There is.
Payday lenders argued that the funds the CFPB receives through the Federal Reserve are unconstitutional and that the funds should be appropriated by Congress.
However, some Supreme Court justices expressed skepticism about the claims made by payday lenders during oral arguments last October.
CFPB Director Rohit Chopra told Yahoo Finance that if the Supreme Court succeeds in its attempt to invalidate the agency’s funding, it would add further uncertainty to the mortgage industry and cause “a lot of headaches” for consumers. He said that it would bring about the seeds of
“I think the financial markets as a whole are much better off with the CFPB,” Chopra said on Yahoo Finance LIVE after oral arguments in October. “If the CFPB had existed in the early 2000s, I don’t think the subprime mortgage crisis would have happened.”
bankruptcy
Can corporate defendants use federal bankruptcy to protect themselves from legal risks? The Supreme Court is expected to consider the issue as early as 2024.
The justices ruled last month in a case that could decide whether the billionaire Sackler family, which controlled OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, could use bankruptcy to protect its personal assets from future opioid-related debt. The hearing was heard.
At the heart of this case is the power of federal bankruptcy courts to sign settlement agreements that relieve non-bankrupt parties of liability without the consent of litigants.
This agreement, known as a third-party release, has been used in bankruptcy proceedings for decades to end mass tort lawsuits against bankrupt companies and distribute assets to injured victims. Ta.
Purdue filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2019 under pressure from thousands of lawsuits accusing Purdue of fueling the opioid crisis, but no member of the Sackler family filed. There wasn’t.
Through a series of negotiations, the Sacklers agreed to pay $6 billion to opioid victims, their families, and state and local governments in exchange for relief from these claims. The fund is intended to compensate victims of opioid-related injuries and deaths and to help governments establish assistance programs to combat opioid addiction.
Although a majority of the litigants agreed to the settlement as a way to extract as much money as possible for their injuries, not all agreed that the Sackler side would avoid personal liability for the claims.
During arguments, the justices across the political spectrum argued that by passing bankruptcy laws, Congress intends to deprive personal injury victims of the right to sue third parties who are not subject to bankruptcy proceedings. I doubted that.
“The Supreme Court’s Purdue Pharma decision could result in one of the most significant bankruptcy decisions in more than a decade,” said George Singer, a partner at Holland & Hart.
Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on Twitter @alexiskweed.
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