š§© GoPro shareholders had a good day
PLUS: Blackstone's latest deal, a new SEC rule proposal, and Judge Albright joins A&O Shearman
September 2, 2026
Lookzy: all your daily legal news in 0.1 billable hours. Plain English coverage of deals, litigation and legal trends trusted by lawyers at Cravath, Latham, Skadden, Gunderson and elsewhere.
Welcome to Lookzy. In today's Lookzy:
The Eleventh Circuit revives a qui tam case
The SEC proposes a 40-year transfer-agent rewrite
The shale-oil MDL gets past dismissal
GoPro shareholders take cash and keep 10%
Judge Albright joins A&O Shearman
THE VERDICT
Arguing today's litigation news
Qui tam revived.
The Eleventh Circuit revived Clarissa Zafirov's Medicare-fraud case, rejecting the argument that a whistleblower must be appointed under Article II before suing for the United States. FCA relators do not hold a continuing federal office, Judge Elizabeth Branch wrote. The district court must still decide the defendants' other Article II theories.
Forty years later.
The SEC proposed its first broad transfer-agent rewrite in roughly four decades, expressly covering tokenized securities and wallet whitelisting. Transfer agents also would need written compliance policies and reasonable-basis controls for removing restrictive legends. Comments are due 60 days after Federal Register publication.
Domestic conduct.
Diamondback, Occidental, Pioneer and other producers failed to dismiss the core claims in the shale-oil antitrust MDL. Judge Matthew Garcia found the alleged domestic coordination plausible; OPEC did not turn the case into a nonjusticiable foreign-policy dispute. A narrower group of state-law claims remains beside the federal cartel theory.
THE DEAL
Wheelin' and dealin' today's corporate news
Blackstoneās dealing.
Blackstone will own about 24% of Lottomatica after its all-share combination with Cirsa and gets two board seats. Each Cirsa share converts into 0.668 Lottomatica share; Cirsa also pays a ā¬262 million dividend before closing. Existing Lottomatica holders wind up with 67.5%.
GoPro up 50%+ in a day.
GoPro shareholders get an aggregate $285 million in cash, or $1.14 a share, and keep roughly 10% of the combined listed company after the Starman Optical merger. The deal also repays about $92 million of GoPro debt at closing. GoPro stock trading was halted due to the speed in which its price appreciated.
SOCAR's $1.65B LOI.
Comstock and SOCAR have an LOI for $1.65 billion in cash across Haynesville assets; definitive documents are targeted for Oct. 31. SOCAR's 15% Western Haynesville stake halves after five years and a 15% return. A separate Jones-family drilling venture funds up to $450 million, with O'Melveny for Comstock and Baker Botts for SOCAR.
BOILERPLATE
Albright to A&O Shearman.
Former Western District of Texas Judge Alan Albright joined A&O Shearman in Austin as an IP-litigation partner; his Waco courtroom handled roughly one-quarter of U.S. patent cases at its peak.
Haas to Linklaters.
Linklaters hired Erik Haas, J&J's worldwide VP of litigation, as a New York partner in U.S. Litigation, Arbitration & Investigations. Haas recently directed J&J's proposed $5.5 billion talc settlement, which requires 95% claimant participation.
Alright, back to billing. That's all, folks!
