In a high-stakes decision on expert exclusion authored late last month, the District Court for the Northern District of California granted defendants’ motion to exclude plaintiffs’ general causation expert witnesses in In re Baby Food Products Liability Litigation—a consolidated mass tort of over 100 pending cases regarding the alleged presence of toxic heavy metals in baby food.

The U.S. Department of Labor (the DOL) has published its long-awaited proposed rule on selecting alternative investments in participant-directed 401(k) plans.

On February 24, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) jointly announced that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago would be a lead prosecutorial partner on the recently launched interagency Trade Fraud Task Force. Originally launched on August 29, 2025, the Trade Fraud Task Force aims to aggressively pursue importers, purchasers, supply chain actors, and other entities engaged in customs fraud, including duty evasion, misclassification of goods, and smuggling of prohibited items. In this article, we evaluate DOJ’s continued commitment to designate substantial resources to its initiative to combat customs and trade fraud.