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Will Cyber War Come to a Contract Near You?

Client Alert | 1 min read | 02.01.12

Cyber war has arrived: Sec. Panetta warns of a "digital Pearl Harbor," the Stuxnet cyber missile penetrates Iran's Bushehr nuclear facility, and cyber attacks shut down power grids in other countries, as discussed in David Bodenheimer's article "Cyberwarefare in the Stuxnet Age: Can Cannonball Law Keep Pace with the Digital Battlefield?" in the ABA's SciTech Lawyer. Focusing on what cyber warfare means for the private sector, this article explains how government contractors supporting offensive or defensive cyber operations (or even just standing by) face unprecedented and potentially ruinous legal liability for cyber weapons gone awry, multi-billion-dollar class actions for assisting federal agencies in authentication efforts to track down covert cyber adversaries, and huge economic losses when private information networks must be disconnected, shut down, or disabled due to foreign cyber infections or botnets, leaving the private sector to ask who foots the bill.

Insights

Client Alert | 8 min read | 09.09.25

FTC Stops Defending Rule Banning Noncompete Agreements, Opting Instead for “Aggressive” Case-by-Case Enforcement

On September 5, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) withdrew its appeals of decisions issued by Texas and Florida federal district courts, which enjoined the FTC from enforcing a nationwide rule banning almost all noncompete employment agreements. Companies, however, should not read this decision to mean that their noncompete agreements will no longer be subjected to antitrust scrutiny by federal enforcers. In a statement joined by Commissioner Melissa Holyoak, Chairman Andrew Ferguson stressed that the FTC “will continue to enforce the antitrust laws aggressively against noncompete agreements” and warned that “firms in industries plagued by thickets of noncompete agreements will receive [in the coming days] warning letters from me, urging them to consider abandoning those agreements as the Commission prepares investigations and enforcement actions.”...