DROPLETS
In-house counsel for multinationals with China-linked operations, suppliers, or customer relationships must act because two new binding Chinese State Council decrees create direct legal conflict between standard global sanctions and supply chain compliance policies and PRC law, exposing parent companies to enforcement risk.
China has issued two binding State Council decrees that formalize and operationalize its previously intermittent counter-sanctions and anti-extraterritoriality framework, elevating rules beyond prior MOFCOM-level guidance. Decree No. 834 establishes a whole-of-government mechanism to monitor and respond to risks to Chinese industrial and supply chains, while Decree No. 835 creates a formal process to identify and block foreign extraterritorial measures China deems unjustifiable, including a new Malicious Entity List for entities that comply with such measures. For multinationals, this creates direct conflict between standard global sanctions, export control, and supply chain diligence policies and PRC law. Legal teams must conduct dedicated conflict-of-laws analysis for all China-facing compliance activities, tighten controls over China-based data collection and cross-border information sharing, and update escalation protocols to account for PRC enforcement risk when executing global compliance decisions involving Chinese parties.
Companies with operations, supply chains, or commercial relationships in China face elevated anti-corruption enforcement risk following new lowered bribery thresholds, expanded entity-level liability, and extraterritorial jurisdiction provisions for Chinese regulators.
In the first half of 2026, Chinese regulators implemented the first major update to the country’s criminal bribery judicial interpretation in a decade, effective May 1 2026, which lowers bribery and corruption thresholds for non-state actors and revises standards for entity-level liability for companies and other organizations. The State Administration for Market Regulation also issued immediate-effect guidance enforcing the revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law, which for the first time explicitly penalizes bribe acceptance and asserts extraterritorial jurisdiction over misconduct disrupting China’s domestic market order. Enforcement remained robust, with 245,000 anti-corruption cases opened in Q1 2026 and high-profile investigations of former senior financial and provincial officials for family-linked corruption. Companies with China ties should update anti-bribery compliance programs to account for lowered liability thresholds, expanded entity enforcement risk, and extraterritorial AUCL exposure, and enhance due diligence on third-party partners and officials’ family members.
Employers with operations in Germany must track the governing coalition’s agreed employment reform package, which will modify core workplace obligations and labor costs once enacted.
The CDU/CSU and SPD federal coalition’s joint committee has approved a comprehensive “Program for Growth and Employment” that includes a slate of employment law reforms. The package proposes updates to working time rules, temporary employment regulations, employee representation requirements, and other core workplace provisions, designed to balance labor market flexibility with worker protections. In-house counsel for organizations with operations in Germany should review the proposed changes now, assess impacts to existing workplace policies and compliance programs, and monitor the formal legislative timeline for introduction and passage.
In-house counsel representing parties in civil RICO claims or defenses must account for circuit splits on accrual timing and tolling eligibility to avoid time-barred filings or successful dismissal arguments.
The article outlines the four-year statute of limitations governing civil RICO claims, details conflicting circuit rules on when claims accrue (either upon a plaintiff’s discovery of injury or completion of the last predicate act supporting the RICO claim), and explains the narrow, specific circumstances where equitable tolling may extend the standard filing deadline. In-house counsel should audit all pending or potential civil RICO matters to confirm filing timelines align with the governing circuit’s accrual standard, and assess whether tolling arguments are viable for both pursuing late-filed claims and defending against untimely suits filed by opposing parties.
Public company in-house counsel defending securities fraud class actions must account for this binding Fourth Circuit precedent that enforces Comcast's requirement for plaintiffs to tie classwide damages methodologies to their liability theories at the certification stage.
On July 20, 2026, the Fourth Circuit issued a published decision reversing class certification in the high-profile Boeing securities fraud litigation stemming from the January 2024 Alaska Airlines door-plug incident. The court held plaintiffs failed to satisfy Comcast’s requirement for a classwide damages methodology aligned with their liability theory, a critical deficiency given the proposed class sought billions in damages over three years of alleged misstatements. The ruling creates binding precedent for all Fourth Circuit district courts, giving defendants a clear roadmap to challenge class certification by attacking misalignments between plaintiffs’ damages models and liability claims. In-house counsel for public companies facing similar securities class actions should review their litigation strategies to leverage this precedent at the certification stage.
Derivatives market participants, energy commodity traders, and swap dealers must monitor the extended CFTC comment deadline and new final rules impacting 24/7 futures, energy perpetual contracts, and uncleared swap margin obligations.
This weekly regulatory update covers multiple active CFTC rulemaking and final rule actions affecting derivatives market participants. The CFTC extended the public comment deadline to August 26, 2026 for its proposals to permit 24/7 trading for standard futures contracts and list energy commodity perpetual contracts, adding new questions for commenters and giving market participants extra time to weigh in on structural changes to energy derivatives markets. The agency also finalized amendments to uncleared swap margin requirements for non-prudentially regulated swap dealers and major swap participants, and sunsetted routine daily and event-based large trader reporting requirements for physical commodity swaps. Market participants should review the updated proposal texts and final rule language to assess compliance obligations and operational impacts.
In-house counsel advising on M&A, corporate governance, and finance operations must prioritize these insights because unvetted AI adoption claims, ungoverned AI agents, and inconsistent AI tool outputs create material legal, audit, and valuation risks for their organizations.
The article summarizes off-the-record takeaways from a Foley & Lardner CFO Executive Forum panel focused on real-world, not theoretical, AI adoption in finance functions. Key findings include that most finance teams have only achieved incremental AI efficiency gains rather than full operational transformation, that centralized, standardized data layers are the foundational requirement for successful AI deployments, that ungoverned AI agents pose material operational and data security risks, and that AI adoption maturity is now a standard benchmark in M&A diligence, fundraising, and board performance reviews. In-house counsel should collaborate with finance teams to document formal AI use cases, draft AI agent governance policies aligned with existing delegation of authority frameworks, validate AI-related claims in purchase agreements and investor materials, and budget for elevated audit fees tied to AI-driven finance processes.
Companies with operations, supply chains, or commercial relationships in China face elevated anti-corruption enforcement risk following new lowered bribery thresholds, expanded entity-level liability, and extraterritorial jurisdiction provisions for Chinese regulators.
In the first half of 2026, Chinese regulators implemented the first major update to the country’s criminal bribery judicial interpretation in a decade, effective May 1 2026, which lowers bribery and corruption thresholds for non-state actors and revises standards for entity-level liability for companies and other organizations. The State Administration for Market Regulation also issued immediate-effect guidance enforcing the revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law, which for the first time explicitly penalizes bribe acceptance and asserts extraterritorial jurisdiction over misconduct disrupting China’s domestic market order. Enforcement remained robust, with 245,000 anti-corruption cases opened in Q1 2026 and high-profile investigations of former senior financial and provincial officials for family-linked corruption. Companies with China ties should update anti-bribery compliance programs to account for lowered liability thresholds, expanded entity enforcement risk, and extraterritorial AUCL exposure, and enhance due diligence on third-party partners and officials’ family members.
Employers with operations in Germany must track the governing coalition’s agreed employment reform package, which will modify core workplace obligations and labor costs once enacted.
The CDU/CSU and SPD federal coalition’s joint committee has approved a comprehensive “Program for Growth and Employment” that includes a slate of employment law reforms. The package proposes updates to working time rules, temporary employment regulations, employee representation requirements, and other core workplace provisions, designed to balance labor market flexibility with worker protections. In-house counsel for organizations with operations in Germany should review the proposed changes now, assess impacts to existing workplace policies and compliance programs, and monitor the formal legislative timeline for introduction and passage.
Derivatives market participants, energy commodity traders, and swap dealers must monitor the extended CFTC comment deadline and new final rules impacting 24/7 futures, energy perpetual contracts, and uncleared swap margin obligations.
This weekly regulatory update covers multiple active CFTC rulemaking and final rule actions affecting derivatives market participants. The CFTC extended the public comment deadline to August 26, 2026 for its proposals to permit 24/7 trading for standard futures contracts and list energy commodity perpetual contracts, adding new questions for commenters and giving market participants extra time to weigh in on structural changes to energy derivatives markets. The agency also finalized amendments to uncleared swap margin requirements for non-prudentially regulated swap dealers and major swap participants, and sunsetted routine daily and event-based large trader reporting requirements for physical commodity swaps. Market participants should review the updated proposal texts and final rule language to assess compliance obligations and operational impacts.
In-house counsel representing parties in civil RICO claims or defenses must account for circuit splits on accrual timing and tolling eligibility to avoid time-barred filings or successful dismissal arguments.
The article outlines the four-year statute of limitations governing civil RICO claims, details conflicting circuit rules on when claims accrue (either upon a plaintiff’s discovery of injury or completion of the last predicate act supporting the RICO claim), and explains the narrow, specific circumstances where equitable tolling may extend the standard filing deadline. In-house counsel should audit all pending or potential civil RICO matters to confirm filing timelines align with the governing circuit’s accrual standard, and assess whether tolling arguments are viable for both pursuing late-filed claims and defending against untimely suits filed by opposing parties.
Companies with operations, supply chains, or commercial relationships in China face elevated anti-corruption enforcement risk following new lowered bribery thresholds, expanded entity-level liability, and extraterritorial jurisdiction provisions for Chinese regulators.
In the first half of 2026, Chinese regulators implemented the first major update to the country’s criminal bribery judicial interpretation in a decade, effective May 1 2026, which lowers bribery and corruption thresholds for non-state actors and revises standards for entity-level liability for companies and other organizations. The State Administration for Market Regulation also issued immediate-effect guidance enforcing the revised Anti-Unfair Competition Law, which for the first time explicitly penalizes bribe acceptance and asserts extraterritorial jurisdiction over misconduct disrupting China’s domestic market order. Enforcement remained robust, with 245,000 anti-corruption cases opened in Q1 2026 and high-profile investigations of former senior financial and provincial officials for family-linked corruption. Companies with China ties should update anti-bribery compliance programs to account for lowered liability thresholds, expanded entity enforcement risk, and extraterritorial AUCL exposure, and enhance due diligence on third-party partners and officials’ family members.
In-house counsel for multinationals with China-linked operations, suppliers, or customer relationships must act because two new binding Chinese State Council decrees create direct legal conflict between standard global sanctions and supply chain compliance policies and PRC law, exposing parent companies to enforcement risk.
China has issued two binding State Council decrees that formalize and operationalize its previously intermittent counter-sanctions and anti-extraterritoriality framework, elevating rules beyond prior MOFCOM-level guidance. Decree No. 834 establishes a whole-of-government mechanism to monitor and respond to risks to Chinese industrial and supply chains, while Decree No. 835 creates a formal process to identify and block foreign extraterritorial measures China deems unjustifiable, including a new Malicious Entity List for entities that comply with such measures. For multinationals, this creates direct conflict between standard global sanctions, export control, and supply chain diligence policies and PRC law. Legal teams must conduct dedicated conflict-of-laws analysis for all China-facing compliance activities, tighten controls over China-based data collection and cross-border information sharing, and update escalation protocols to account for PRC enforcement risk when executing global compliance decisions involving Chinese parties.
Public company in-house counsel defending securities fraud class actions must account for this binding Fourth Circuit precedent that enforces Comcast's requirement for plaintiffs to tie classwide damages methodologies to their liability theories at the certification stage.
On July 20, 2026, the Fourth Circuit issued a published decision reversing class certification in the high-profile Boeing securities fraud litigation stemming from the January 2024 Alaska Airlines door-plug incident. The court held plaintiffs failed to satisfy Comcast’s requirement for a classwide damages methodology aligned with their liability theory, a critical deficiency given the proposed class sought billions in damages over three years of alleged misstatements. The ruling creates binding precedent for all Fourth Circuit district courts, giving defendants a clear roadmap to challenge class certification by attacking misalignments between plaintiffs’ damages models and liability claims. In-house counsel for public companies facing similar securities class actions should review their litigation strategies to leverage this precedent at the certification stage.
In-house counsel advising on M&A, corporate governance, and finance operations must prioritize these insights because unvetted AI adoption claims, ungoverned AI agents, and inconsistent AI tool outputs create material legal, audit, and valuation risks for their organizations.
The article summarizes off-the-record takeaways from a Foley & Lardner CFO Executive Forum panel focused on real-world, not theoretical, AI adoption in finance functions. Key findings include that most finance teams have only achieved incremental AI efficiency gains rather than full operational transformation, that centralized, standardized data layers are the foundational requirement for successful AI deployments, that ungoverned AI agents pose material operational and data security risks, and that AI adoption maturity is now a standard benchmark in M&A diligence, fundraising, and board performance reviews. In-house counsel should collaborate with finance teams to document formal AI use cases, draft AI agent governance policies aligned with existing delegation of authority frameworks, validate AI-related claims in purchase agreements and investor materials, and budget for elevated audit fees tied to AI-driven finance processes.
Grade 3 — worth a glance, not the full analysis.
- Senate HELP Committee Delays Labor Secretary Nominee Vote
In-house counsel overseeing labor compliance and workforce policy must monitor the delayed nomination, as it creates near-term uncertainty around upcoming federal labor rulemaking and enforcement priorities.
- AmLaw 100 Associates Lead Legal AI Experimentation Across Top Firms
In-house counsel retaining AmLaw 100 outside counsel must track associate-led legal AI experimentation at those firms, as unvetted use may introduce data security risks, inconsistent work product, and unanticipated billing changes for client matters.