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[ad_1] Win Mcnamee | Getty Images News | Getty Images Elon Musk asked a U.S. judge on Friday to throw out a $258 billion racketeering lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency Dogecoin. In an evening filing in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for Musk and his electric car company Tesla Inc called the lawsuit by Dogecoin investors a "fanciful work of fiction" over Musk's "innocuous and often silly tweets" about Dogecoin. The lawyers said the investors never explained how Musk intended to defraud anyone or what risks he concealed, and that his statements such as "Dogecoin Rulz" and "no highs, no lows, only Doge" were too vague to support a fraud claim. "There is nothing unlawful about tweeting words of support for, or funny pictures about, a legitimate cryptocurrency that continues to hold a market cap of nearly $10 billion," Musk's lawyers said. "This court should put a stop to plain...

[ad_1] James Trusty, attorney for Donald Trump, appears on "Meet the Press" in Washington, D.C., April 9, 2023. NBCUniversal | Getty Images An attorney who quit the team defending Donald Trump in the criminal classified documents case said Friday he would no longer represent the former president in a separate defamation lawsuit against CNN. The lawyer, Jim Trusty, said in a court filing that his request to withdraw from the $475 million civil suit "is based upon irreconcilable differences" with Trump. "Counsel can no longer effectively and properly represent Plaintiff," Trusty wrote in the filing in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Neither Trusty nor lawyers for CNN immediately responded to requests for comment on Trusty's move to withdraw as Trump's counsel. Lindsey Halligan, Trump's remaining attorney in the defamation case, referred CNBC to the former president's spokesman Steven Cheung, who said the defamation su...

[ad_1] People walk by the News Corporation headquarters, home to Fox News, on April 18, 2023 in New York City. Spencer Platt | Getty Images Fox Corp. Chief Legal and Policy Officer Viet Dinh will step down from his post, months after the company agreed to pay a $787.5 million settlement to Dominion Voting Systems. The departure comes after Dinh advised the company through the lawsuit with the voting machines company, which was halted just short of a trial with the April settlement. The company has continued to feel the fallout since. Dominion hit Fox with a defamation lawsuit arguing its networks "intentionally and falsely" blamed the company for the 2020 election loss of former President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden by airing unsubstantiated claims that Dominion's machines rigged the election. While Fox agreed to the settlement, its hosts weren't required to talk about the lawsuit or make any public apology for on-air statements. Days after the settlem...

[ad_1] Rupert Murdoch arrives at the Sun Valley Resort of the annual Allen & Company Sun Valley Conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 10, 2018. Drew Angerer | Getty Images Rupert Murdoch is being deposed Tuesday as part of the $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit filed against Fox Corp. by the voting technology company Smartmatic , a source familiar with the matter told CNBC. Murdoch is expected to sit for questioning in Los Angeles on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the source. It is the second time this year that Murdoch, 92, has been deposed in a high-stakes defamation lawsuit accusing Fox News of airing damaging lies about the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Under questioning in January as part of a similar defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems, Murdoch admitted that some Fox News hosts and personalities "endorsed" the false narrative that the election was stolen from then-President Donald Trump . Fox paid $787.5 million to settle Dominion...

[ad_1] A closely watched talc trial in California goes against Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), adding uncertainty around whether tens of thousands of other plaintiffs suing the company will sign on to J & J's proposed $8.9 billion settlement offer or seek to get their own days in court. Jim Cramer believes the biopharmaceutical company was "too hopeful" about winning. "The plaintiff system is stacked against them," Jim said. Still, he added, "I believe J & J is a great American company, I believe they'll see through this. ... They need to be a bit more realistic about what they say." Jim's conversations with J & J's legal team led him to believe there could be a path to victory in what we think is a pivotal case . But on Tuesday, J & J was ordered to pay $18.8 million after jurors found in favor of 24-year-old Emory Hernandez Valadez who claimed in his lawsuit that he developed mesothelioma, a deadly cancer linked to asbes...

[ad_1] Pavlo Gonchar | LightRocket | Getty Images Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday sued the Biden administration over Medicare's new powers to slash drug prices, making it the third pharmaceutical company to challenge the controversial provision of the Inflation Reduction Act .   The lawsuit filed in federal district court in New Jersey argues the Medicare negotiations violate the First and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Earlier suits brought separately by drugmakers Merck and Bristol Myers Squibb , as well as by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and PhRMA , the pharmaceutical industry's largest lobbying group, made similar arguments. J&J's complaint asks a judge to block the U.S. Health and Human Services Department from compelling the drugmaker to participate in the program. The company said its suit aims to stop the "innovation-damaging congressional overreach that threatens the United States' primacy in developing transformative therapies...