California Brief

Anthropic AI Deal May Pay Justices, Trump

Anthropic’s $1.5 billion deal with authors whose books were part of a pirated database could benefit several US Supreme Court justices and US presidents.

AWS Outage Shows Vendor Dependency Risks

Amazon Web Services’ 15-hour outage last week exposed the global economy’s growing dependence on a few dominant cloud providers and showed how little companies can do to protect themselves when critical services go down.

Billionaires Face Proposed 5% Wealth Tax

A ballot initiative that would impose a one-time 5% tax on California billionaires’ wealth that advocates say could bring in about $100 billion to cover state health-care costs.

Apple Seeks Reprieve in Epic App Store Fight: California Brief

The resolution of a five-year antitrust battle between Epic Games and Apple could partially hinge on a recent US Supreme Court ruling limiting the power of universal injunctions, if the tech giant has its way.

Practitioner Insights

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Hostile M&A Activity Could Spur Comeback of Takeover Defenses

Frank Aquila

Sullivan & Cromwell

Stablecoin Accounting Treatment Requires More Than Semantics

Vivian Fang

Indiana University

Innovative Boutiques Offer Better Value Than Traditional Big Law

Rachel Wasserman

Wasserman Business Law

Latest Stories

Musk’s $1 Trillion Pay Package Opposed by Tesla Investor Calpers

California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest public pension plan in the US, is planning to vote against Elon Musk’s $1 trillion Tesla Inc. compensation agreement, delivering a setback for the company’s plan to award one of the most lucrative pay packages in corporate America.

By Loukia Gyftopoulou

Oakland Diocese Nears Bankruptcy Dismissal With No Deal Reached

A judge is poised to toss a bankruptcy case filed by the Diocese of Oakland, Calif., after the Catholic church, its insurers, and a committee representing child sex abuse claimants were unable to reach a resolution in the lengthy proceedings.

Microsoft Says It’s Recovering From Global Cloud Outage

Microsoft Corp. cloud services are recovering from an outage that disrupted its workplace software products and the operations of several companies, including Alaska Air Group Inc.

Trump to Name White House Aide Baasch as FTC Commissioner

President Donald Trump plans to nominate Ryan Baasch, a staffer at the National Economic Council, for a slot on the US Federal Trade Commission, according to people familiar with the matter.

Andreessen Horowitz Backs Harvey at an $8 Billion Valuation

Harvey, a startup building artificial intelligence tools for law firms, has closed its third major funding round of 2025 — bringing its valuation to $8 billion, according to a person familiar with the deal.

Musk Lawyer Vows Legal Fight to Unwind OpenAI Restructuring

Elon Musk’s lawyer pledged to continue the billionaire’s legal crusade against OpenAI as he slammed the attorneys general of California and Delaware for not blocking the artificial intelligence startup’s restructuring as a for-profit company.

Professors Urge Appeals Court to Clarify Hidden-Sale Patent Rule

Legal scholars from Stanford and the University of Chicago urged the Federal Circuit to rule that secret third-party sales don’t qualify as prior art when analyzing patents’ validity, challenging a broader reading of the on-sale bar from a recent district court decision.

Nvidia Becomes First $5 Trillion Firm as AI Rally Picks Up Steam

Nvidia Corp. achieved a historic $5 trillion market capitalization on Wednesday as Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang’s spree of deals catapults the artificial intelligence frenzy to new heights.

Florida Asks Justices to Bar California Corporate Tax Rule

The state of Florida is hoping to convince the US Supreme Court that California’s requirement that businesses exclude proceeds from “substantial and occasional” sales from their state tax returns deprives the former state of tax and investment revenue to the detriment of its citizens and businesses.

OpenAI Restructure Paves Way for IPO and AI Spending Spree

In late 2024, OpenAI, still recovering from the aftershock of the brief, messy ousting of Sam Altman, initiated what it hoped would be a relatively straightforward process of converting to a more traditional for-profit business that would be more appealing to investors. Then came the pushback.

Best Buy, Apple, Others Make Millions From California Tax Deals

A few dozen California cities have lucrative deals with retail giants like Apple, Best Buy, and Nike. These deals result in the cities paying millions of dollars from their local tax revenue back to the companies. In this video, we explore how these deals work and what some city and state lawmakers are hoping to do about it.