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Ban on Contractor Political Contributions Upheld

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 07.13.15

In Wagner v. FEC (July 7, 2015), the D.C. Circuit upheld the seventy-five-year-old ban on political donations by individual contractors to federal candidates and political parties. Despite the First Amendment and equal protection arguments the plaintiffs raised, the court held that the compelling interests that support the contribution ban – protection against quid pro quo corruption and defense of merit-based public administration – are "neither theoretical nor antiquated, but rather are grounded in unhappy experience stretching to the present day."


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Client Alert | 2 min read | 06.29.26

When Trade Secret Theft Becomes Racketeering: What the Fifth Circuit’s New Ruling Means

RICO was built for the mob. But Congress gave trade secret victims access to it in 2016, and a recent U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit decision shows that access is real....