On May 12, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order titled “Delivering Most-Favored-Nation Prescription Drug Pricing to American Patients.”  This executive order aims to lower the cost of prescription drugs for U.S. consumers by requiring drug manufacturers to sell their products to consumers at a most-favored-nation price through direct-to-consumer purchasing programs facilitated by the Secretary of Health and Human Services (“HHS”).  Under the proposed most-favored-nation approach, consumers would pay no more than the lowest price for a prescription drug sold by a drug manufacturer to customers in comparably developed nations. 

The executive order directs HHS to take steps to implement a most-favored-nation approach to prescription drug pricing.  This includes communicating most-favored-nation price targets to pharmaceutical manufacturers within 30 days.  If “significant progress” towards implementing the most-favored-nation approach is not made, the executive order directs HHS to, among other things, propose a rulemaking plan to impose most-favored-nation pricing.  The executive order does not specify a timeline for measuring “significant progress.” The executive order states that if drug manufacturers fail to implement most-favored-nation pricing, the Administration will take “additional aggressive action.”

Continue Reading Trump Administration Issues Executive Order Aimed At Lowering Prescription Drug Pricing

Since assuming office on January 20, 2025, President Trump’s Administration, together with various federal agencies and Congress, have initiated several actions that have the potential to reshape the digital asset industry within the United States. Marking a notable departure from the prior administration’s approach, the Trump administration’s policy initiatives combine a de-emphasis on regulation by enforcement with greater reliance on deregulation and industry input, all with a view toward positioning the United States as the global leader in digital assets and digital financial technology. The discussion below is a high-level overview of various executive branch, regulatory, and legislative developments in the digital asset and cryptocurrency space during the last three months. While too early to say what impact the Trump Administration’s initiatives will have, they signal a strong willingness to support the digital asset industry.

Continue Reading The Trump Administration’s Reshaping of Digital Asset Policy

Recent actions by the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) highlight a sharp escalation in agency antitrust enforcement, particularly for dominant technology platforms. The DOJ has brought two significant cases against Google—one concerning its dominance in search, and another targeting its control over digital advertising technologies. At the same time, the FTC is pursuing a case against Meta, focusing on its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

Continue Reading Antitrust Pressure Mounts for Dominant Tech Platforms

On Monday, April 14, 2025, a federal jury convicted Eduardo “Eddie” Lopez of conspiring to fix the wages for home healthcare nurses in Las Vegas and for fraudulently failing to disclose the criminal antitrust investigation during the sale of his home healthcare staffing company.  According to the complaint and trial evidence, Lopez, who oversaw recruitment, hiring, retention and assignments of nurses for three home health agencies, conspired with unnamed conspirators in a series of meetings and communications to artificially cap the wages of Las Vegas-area nurses between March 2016 and May 2019.  He will be sentenced on July 14 for one count of participating in a wage-fixing conspiracy and five counts of wire fraud. 

Continue Reading DOJ Notches First Trial Win in Wage-Fixing Case

On April 10, 2025, the Senate confirmed Mark Meador to serve as the third Republican on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in a 50-46 party line vote. Commissioner Meador takes his seat on a Commission now comprised of three Republicans and no Democrats since President Trump fired Democratic Commissioners Slaughter and Bedoya in March. The fired commissioners are challenging their dismissals in court, alleging that President Trump does not have the power to remove sitting commissioners without cause.

Prior to his confirmation, Commissioner Meador was in private practice and was a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation Tech Policy Center. Before that, he served as Deputy Chief Counsel for Antitrust and Competition Policy for Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), and served in the first Trump Administration as a trial attorney for the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division.

There is a lot of discussion regarding U.S. tariffs at this time, and it is still too soon to tell what the ultimate U.S. tariff landscape will look like. For now, however, it is important to recall that certain basic import rules and caveats still apply.

Continue Reading Remember Basic Import Rules when Calculating Tariffs

In the first major initiative of the Antitrust Division within the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice, the DOJ announced on March 28, 2025 the creation of a task force to “advocate for the elimination of anticompetitive state and federal laws and regulations that undermine free market competition and harm consumers, workers, and businesses.” Citing President Trump’s Executive Order 14219, which mandated such reviews, the DOJ’s announcement called out for special scrutiny the “regulatory capture” of agencies by “special interests and big businesses” in five economic sectors:  housing, transportation, food and agriculture, healthcare, and energy.

Continue Reading U.S. Department of Justice Launches “Anticompetitive Regulations” Task Force

On March 19, 2025, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued two technical assistance guidance documents (found here and here) focused on educating “the public about how well-established civil rights rules apply to employment policies, programs, and practices—including those labeled or framed as ‘DEI.’”[i]

Continue Reading EEOC Technical Guidance Warns Against DEI-Related Discrimination at Work

The American Bar Association held its 40th Annual National Institute on White Collar Crime conference on March 5, 6, and 7, 2025, in Miami, Florida. The conference featured robust panel discussions with the federal and state judiciary, law enforcement officials, defense attorneys, corporate in-house counsel, and members of the academic community on a variety of topics. The conference speakers and panels also provided an update on litigation, judicial, and legislative developments. Notably, this conference differed from years past because most Department of Justice officials withdrew from participation days before the conference began.

Continue Reading Government Agencies to Continue Pursuing Core Enforcement Initiatives and Other Highlights from the ABA 40th Annual National Institute on White Collar Crime

On February 25, 2025, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order titled “Making America Healthy Again by Empowering Patients with Clear, Accurate, and Actionable Healthcare Pricing Information” (the “2025 Order”) aiming to provide increased transparency regarding the pricing of health care services.  This executive order builds upon a prior executive order issued during President Trump’s first term in June 2019 (the “2019 Order”) that required hospitals to disclose to consumers pricing information for certain “shoppable” health care items and services and maintain this pricing information in accessible, consumer-friendly formats.  The 2019 Order also mandated the establishment of rules requiring health care providers, health insurance issuers and self-insured group health plans to facilitate consumer access to information concerning expected out-of-pocket costs for health care items and services prior to receiving care.

Continue Reading Trump Administration Issues Executive Order Mandating Implementation and Enforcement of Health Care Pricing Transparency