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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 | 4 min read | 04.01.26

Supreme Court Rejects “Mere Knowledge” Standard for Contributory Copyright Infringement in Cox v. Sony, Reverses $1 Billion Judgment Against Cox

On March 25, 2026, in Cox Communications, Inc. v. Sony Music Entertainment, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a $1 billion verdict against Cox. The judgment was the result of a jury trial in which Sony claimed that Cox was liable for contributory copyright infringement because it knew that its customers were using its service to infringe yet did not respond with sufficient diligence to prevent that infringement....