Insights

Washington – September 24, 2025: Crowell & Moring today announced the arrival of two seasoned attorneys, Rachel Park and Jill Abrams, to its nationally recognized Health Care Group. Both join Crowell after more than two decades at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where they served in various senior level positions across the department. The addition of Park and Abrams further strengthens the firm’s ability to advise sophisticated health care clients on complex regulatory, compliance, enforcement, and litigation matters. They join the firm as senior counsel in Washington, D.C.

Washington – August 21, 2025: The 2026 edition of The Best Lawyers in America® has recognized 49 Crowell & Moring lawyers as Best Lawyers and 33 lawyers as Best Lawyers: Ones to Watch. The publication also named partner Jason Murray as Lawyer of the Year for Antitrust Law in Los Angeles.

Washington – July 15, 2025: Crowell & Moring was honored to represent MP Materials in its landmark partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense, making DoD the company’s largest shareholder. On July 9, MP and DoD signed a multibillion-dollar package of investments and long-term commitments, providing for, among other things, construction of the company’s second domestic magnet manufacturing facility. The agreements include convertible preferred equity, warrants, loans, and price floor and offtake commitments.

On October 1, 2025, the IRS Independent Office of Appeals launched a two-year pilot program to make Post Appeals Mediation (PAM) more attractive and accessible to taxpayers. See IRS Announcement 2025-10. The new PAM pilot program offers taxpayers the opportunity to be assigned to a new Appeals team, which is otherwise unconnected to the underlying case, who will represent the original Appeals team in the mediation session. The assignment of the new Appeals team does not begin a new appeals process but rather is intended to help facilitate an expedited and impartial look at the underlying case with the goal of further exploring all potential paths to resolution prior to litigation.

This week, California Governor Newsom signed a new California pricing law that will have significant impact to companies doing business in California. The new legislation—known as AB325—will go into effect January 1, 2026 and makes it unlawful under California’s Cartwright Act to collude using a pricing algorithm and to “coerce another person to set or adopt a recommended price or commercial term” using a “common pricing algorithm.”

Last year, the California General Assembly passed the California AI Transparency Act (CAITA), which Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law on September 19, 2024, and goes into effect on January 1, 2026. This may change because this year, the same General Assembly passed AB 853, an amendment to CAITA with potentially far-reaching implications.

You’re invited to join Crowell & Moring for a day-long program focused on providing an overview of the fundamentals of contracting with the federal government.

The landscape of AI governance and regulation is shifting. Following the release of the White House’s “America’s AI Action Plan” in July 2025 and the President’s signing of related Executive Orders, the White House has emphasized (at least rhetorically) a preference for innovation, adoption, and deregulation. But that does not tell the entire story. The Administration remains committed to exercising a heavy hand in AI, including by banning the U.S. government’s procurement of so-called “woke AI,” intervening in the development of data centers and the export of the AI technology stack, imposing an export fee for certain semiconductors to China, and assuming a stake in a U.S. semiconductor company. State legislatures are also racing to implement their own regulations, particularly around AI’s use in critical areas, such as healthcare, labor and employment, and data privacy. The many sources of regulation raise the specter of a fragmented compliance environment for businesses. This webinar will delve into the Administration’s AI strategy, going beyond the headlines to analyze:

Crowell's Rebecca Springer and Andrew Bagley discuss the legal implications for employers during the government shutdown including wage and hour issues that arise for government contractors. The Lightning Round podcast is Crowell’s biweekly rundown on developments and trends in the Labor and Employment space.

Global Trade Talks co-hosts Nicole Simonian and Dj Wolff welcome Karen Gerwitz, President of the World Trade Center Denver, as she provides insight to our listeners on how companies are managing and operating in this uncertain trade environment where they are often waiting for the next shoe to drop. Global Trade Talks is a podcast that shares brief perspectives on key global issues on international trade, current events, business, law, and public policy as they impact our lives.

This week’s episode covers common questions about the federal government shutdown, and is hosted by Peter Eyre and Chris Haile. Crowell & Moring's "Fastest 5 Minutes" is a biweekly podcast that provides a brief summary of significant government contracts legal and regulatory developments that no government contracts lawyer or executive should be without.