Judge Allows Antitrust Suit Over Newspaper Deal
Client Alert | 1 min read | 04.10.07
On Tuesday April 10, 2007, Judge Susan Illston of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that real estate investor Clint Reilly has legal standing to sue as an individual reader threatened by the potential decrease in newspaper quality as a result of MediaNews Group Inc.'s acquisition of the San Jose Mercury and the Contra Costa Times. Illston said that the Newspaper Preservation Act suggested that a reduction of content diversity is a "threatened loss or damage" that antitrust laws were designed to prevent. Reilly argued that the acquisitions would create a monopoly in Northern California that would hike up prices and harm readers. Illston cited that Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker had allowed Reilly to sue the Hearst Corp. in 2000 over its acquisition of the San Francisco Chronicle. A trial in the case is scheduled for April 30.
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Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.21.25
On November 7, 2025, in Thornton v. National Academy of Sciences, No. 25-cv-2155, 2025 WL 3123732 (D.D.C. Nov. 7, 2025), the District Court for the District of Columbia dismissed a False Claims Act (FCA) retaliation complaint on the basis that the plaintiff’s allegations that he was fired after blowing the whistle on purported illegally discriminatory use of federal funding was not sufficient to support his FCA claim. This case appears to be one of the first filed, and subsequently dismissed, following Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s announcement of the creation of the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative on May 19, 2025, which “strongly encourages” private individuals to file lawsuits under the FCA relating to purportedly discriminatory and illegal use of federal funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in violation of Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21, 2025). In this case, the court dismissed the FCA retaliation claim and rejected the argument that an organization could violate the FCA merely by “engaging in discriminatory conduct while conducting a federally funded study.” The analysis in Thornton could be a sign of how forthcoming arguments of retaliation based on reporting allegedly fraudulent DEI activity will be analyzed in the future.
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 3 min read | 11.20.25
Client Alert | 6 min read | 11.19.25
