Tyler G. Newby

The California Supreme Court recently held in Hohenshelt v. Superior Court that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) does not preempt a California law that penalizes businesses that have consumer and employee arbitration agreements but fail to pay arbitration fees. But, the court held, the law does not have a hair trigger that imposes sanctions for an inadvertent or de minimis violation. Instead, the court interpreted California Code of Procedure § 1281.98 as incorporating equitable principles that allow relief from statutory sanctions based on a party’s excusable neglect or good faith efforts to comply with their contractual obligations.

On July 23 and 24, 2025, the Trump administration released its “Winning the AI Race: America’s AI Action Plan,” a far-reaching strategy aimed at advancing U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence. Accompanied by three executive orders, the plan outlines more than 90 proposed federal actions organized into three main pillars: accelerating innovation, building domestic AI infrastructure, and leading globally on AI diplomacy and security. Together, these initiatives represent a major shift in federal policy, prioritizing deregulation and private-sector leadership. For companies in the technology and life sciences sectors, the plan creates significant market opportunities to advance automation and build related infrastructure but also introduces new compliance challenges. In particular, businesses seeking federal contracts or exporting AI-related products will need to ensure their operations meet the plan’s new standards and adapt to evolving policies.

On Tuesday, July 8, the Eighth Circuit struck down the Federal Trade Commission’s new “click-to-cancel” rule just days before the FTC planned to begin enforcement on July 14, 2025. In the unanimous decision, the Eighth Circuit held that the FTC failed to follow proper procedures once an administrative law judge determined that the cost of implementation on the annual economy would exceed $100 million. The court held that the FTC erred by going ahead with the planned amendment without conducting a preliminary regulatory analysis of the proposed rule change as required under § 22 of the FTC Act.

A flurry of developments in late January 2025 has caused quite a buzz in the AI world. On January 20, DeepSeek released a new open-source AI model called R1 and an accompanying research paper. R1 was touted as performing comparably to proprietary frontier models at a fraction of the cost, with drastically reduced computational resources needed both to train and run the model. DeepSeek explained that it used new techniques in reinforcement learning, but others suspect that it might also have benefitted from unauthorized model distillation. Within a week, there was a strong market reaction, with AI-related semiconductor stocks dropping more than 10% on Monday, January 27.

On January 16, 2025, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) finalized amendments to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Rule (Final Rule), which completes the process that started back in 2019 when the FTC sought comments for the first update to the COPPA Rule since 2013. The Final Rule ushers in several important changes that will affect when child-directed sites can target advertisements to children, how the FTC defines a “mixed audience” site, required disclosures in privacy notices, and data retention, among others.

CLE compliance deadlines are approaching, and Fenwick’s got you covered. Join us for our annual virtual CLE Speaker Series, where you’ll earn MCLE credit and get a front-row seat to the latest legal updates and insights in dynamic practice areas from Fenwick’s lawyers. Pick and choose from over a dozen programs specifically curated for our network’s in-house attorneys, general counsel, and business professionals covering various practice areas, timely updates from Fenwick lawyers, and including specialty programs on ethics and bias.

Join Fenwick’s advertising attorneys in collaboration with BBB National Programs' National Advertising Division for a virtual half-day seminar. The program consists of five engaging sessions, providing comprehensive insights into navigating the NAD, implementing best practices to prevent FTC enforcement actions and litigation, understanding the updates to COPPA, and delving into cutting-edge trends and developments within AI content creation and AI-driven advertising. See full agenda and list of our speakers below.

CLE compliance deadlines are approaching, and Fenwick’s got you covered. Join us for our annual virtual CLE Speaker Series, where you’ll earn MCLE credit and get a front-row seat to the latest legal updates and insights in dynamic practice areas from Fenwick’s lawyers. Pick and choose from over a dozen programs specifically curated for our network’s in-house attorneys, general counsel, and business professionals covering various practice areas, timely updates from Fenwick lawyers, and including specialty programs on ethics and bias. Watch recorded sessions on demand below. Please note that MCLE credit applies for CA self-study credit only. Unless otherwise noted, all events are led by Fenwick lawyers and are 60 minutes in length. Please reach out to our  MCLE team  with questions.

This marks the second installment of our hybrid CLE series. You will hear from us and our in-house clients on the intricate world of AI considerations that are vital for B2B enterprise companies leading the way in adopting technological advancements. This CLE is intended to provide a comprehensive exploration of topics including considerations in developing company policies and contracts, navigating the changing regulatory and privacy landscape, intellectual property and open source protections and risk mitigation strategies, and unique mergers and acquisitions (M&A) diligence considerations.

If you missed Fenwick’s latest CLE Speaker series or want to get caught up on legal issues and updates that may impact your company, we are offering select sessions on demand. Spanning December 2022 through January 2023, Fenwick lawyers led 14 webinars covering the latest legal updates, insights and a look at key issues for the year ahead across antitrust, corporate governance, cybersecurity, employment, litigation, tax and privacy, as well as specialty programs on ethics, competence issues and implicit bias. Watch recorded sessions on demand on our 2022/2023 CLE Speaker Series event page. Please note that MCLE credit applies for CA self-study credit only. Unless otherwise noted, all events are led by Fenwick lawyers and are 60 minutes in length. Please reach out to our MCLE team with questions.