Federal prosecutors in San Jose unsealed an indictment against the co-founder of Super Micro Computer and two associates for conspiring to divert at least $2.5 billion in Nvidia AI servers to China — using dummy machines, false export documents, and hair dryers to strip serial numbers — in direct violation of U.S. export controls that have been in place since 2022.
The defendants allegedly used a Southeast Asian pass-through entity, inspection decoys, and physical hardware manipulation to route restricted Nvidia H100 GPU servers to Chinese customers
Source: Reuters · CNN · The Register
HELD: Defendants shall restore Voice of America's operations and return all employees from administrative leave within seven days. The agency's de facto shutdown violated mandatory broadcasting obligations under 22 U.S.C. § 6202 and constituted unlawfully withheld agency action under 5 U.S.C. § 706(1).
"Defendants have provided nothing approaching a principled basis for their decision. The record before this Court is extraordinary in its paucity of reasoned justification." — Senior Judge Royce C. Lamberth
In March 2025, USAGM Director Kari Lake halted nearly all broadcasting and placed 1,042 of 1,147 VOA employees on paid administrative leave, citing an executive order directing the agency to reduce to minimum statutory staffing. Judge Lamberth found the agency violated the APA by failing to engage in reasoned decision-making and violated federal broadcasting statutes that impose mandatory — not discretionary — obligations to maintain international broadcasting operations.
The government filed a notice of appeal. The restoration plan deadline was March 23–24, 2026, as the case was pending before the D.C. Circuit. The ruling is the latest in a series of APA challenges where courts have found executive agency actions lack adequate reasoning under the arbitrary-and-capricious standard of 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A).
Source: AP News · Federal News Network
A three-judge 1st Circuit panel affirmed that the OMB's categorical spending freeze violated the APA's requirement of reasoned, case-by-case decision-making
In January 2025, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum directing federal agencies to pause grants and loans pending a review of alignment with the administration's executive orders — including orders ending DEI programs and pausing climate-related spending. The freeze affected up to $3 trillion in obligated federal financial assistance.
Chief Judge Barron wrote that the OMB "directed the agency defendants to freeze such funds without considering an obvious aspect of the problem — namely, the reliance interests of the recipients of the obligated federal funds that were to be frozen." The court found the categorical approach — treating all covered funds identically, without case-by-case assessment — failed the APA's reasoned-decision-making requirement under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A).
Source: Bloomberg Law · Reuters
A federal judge stayed the appointments of 13 ACIP members installed by RFK Jr., reversed the new vaccine schedule, and found the wholesale removal of the original committee likely violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act
Source: NPR · Reuters · PR Newswire
FinCEN's real estate reporting regulation — requiring disclosure of beneficial ownership in all non-financed residential transactions — was vacated as exceeding the agency's authority under the Bank Secrecy Act
FinCEN's "Anti-Money Laundering Regulations for Residential Real Estate Transfers" required title companies, settlement agents, and closing attorneys to report beneficial ownership information for non-financed residential sales by entities or trusts — with no geographic limitation or price floor.
"The fact that some bad actors have conducted non-financed real estate transactions does not make such transactions categorically 'suspicious.'" — Judge Jeremy Kernodle
Two independent grounds for vacatur: (1) the Bank Secrecy Act limits FinCEN to regulating suspicious transactions — not all transactions of a category; (2) the statute only authorizes FinCEN to regulate financial institutions, not private closing agents and title companies.
Source: Davis Graham & Stubbs · ALTA · HousingWire
Xponential Fitness — the franchisor behind Club Pilates, CycleBar, StretchLab, AKT, and other studio brands — agreed to pay $17 million to settle FTC charges that it systematically misrepresented material facts to prospective franchisees in its Franchise Disclosure Documents.
The violations: claiming studios could open in six months when the actual average exceeded a year; failing to disclose litigation histories and bankruptcy filings of key executives; omitting contact information of franchisees whose locations had closed — information that 16 C.F.R. § 436.5 specifically requires to be included in every FDD so prospects can conduct due diligence.
The FTC Franchise Rule requires franchisors to provide a verified Franchise Disclosure Document before any sale. Xponential's FDDs allegedly failed across multiple material categories — exposing franchisees to billions in investment decisions based on false information.
The First Circuit stayed a district court order blocking Trump's policy of rapidly deporting migrants to third countries — nations with which they have no connection and which may not have consented to receive them
The district court had ruled that rapidly deporting migrants to third countries — nations with which they have no connection — violated the Immigration and Nationality Act and due process. The First Circuit's two-judge majority granted a stay while the government pursues its appeal. Full oral arguments are scheduled for mid-April 2026.
The dissenting judge would have refused the stay, finding that migrants facing removal to unknown third countries face immediate irreparable harm with no adequate remedy. The underlying dispute centers on the procedural rights guaranteed to persons in removal proceedings under 8 U.S.C. § 1229a — and whether the executive's discretion in immigration enforcement can override those statutory protections.
The Ninth Circuit separately allowed Trump's indefinite suspension of refugee admissions — first imposed in January 2025 — to proceed, overturning a lower court injunction that had blocked the policy as violating statutory minimum refugee admission floors under 8 U.S.C. § 1157.
Judge Chutkan ordered DOGE and Elon Musk to comply with evidence demands from Democratic attorneys general — while the administration characterized the discovery order as raising "grievous separation-of-powers concerns"
Twenty-two Democratic state attorneys general filed suit arguing DOGE — the informal advisory body led by Elon Musk — has exercised sweeping executive authority over federal agencies and their personnel without statutory authorization, in potential violation of the Appointments Clause (U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 2) and the APA. Their investigation seeks records of DOGE's data access, its role in directing agency spending, and its communications with agency leadership.
In a parallel case before Judge Christopher R. Cooper, federal employees were allowed to proceed with Privacy Act claims after the government admitted DOGE staffers had "mishandled" agency data containing personal information. The Trump administration characterized both discovery orders as constitutionally problematic and appealed.
Source: Bloomberg Law (Records Order) · Bloomberg Law (Privacy Act)
NetChoice was "unlikely to prove" that California's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act is unconstitutional on its face as a First Amendment violation. The law's age-estimation and privacy-configuration requirements are reasonable and applied evenhandedly.
— 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals · NetChoice, LLC v. Bonta · March 12, 2026
The 9th Circuit largely lifted an injunction that had blocked California's Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, a law requiring tech platforms to estimate users' ages and configure privacy settings appropriately for minors. NetChoice — representing Amazon, Google, Meta, Netflix, and X — argued the law turned its members into "state-deputized censors" violating the First Amendment.
The court rejected that framing. The age-estimation and privacy-configuration requirements were found to regulate data handling, not speech — applying "evenhandedly" to all platforms regardless of content viewpoint. However, the court struck provisions governing "dark patterns" and restricting data use harmful to children's physical or mental health, finding those provisions unconstitutionally vague.
Source: Reuters · The Recorder
The Justice Department seized internet domains operated by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security — used for psychological operations, cyberattacks, and incitement against Americans and Iranian dissidents
The operation targeted Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), the principal Iranian intelligence agency responsible for foreign operations. The seized domains were used to spread disinformation, coordinate cyberattacks on U.S. and allied infrastructure, and incite violence against American government officials and activists critical of the Iranian government.
The action comes one week after the conviction of Iranian IRGC operative Asif Merchant for murder-for-hire targeting U.S. officials — evidence of a sustained pattern of federal prosecution targeting Iranian state-sponsored activities conducted against Americans at home and abroad.
Source: DOJ Office of Public Affairs
Three Supreme Court arguments and one circuit court hearing will shape election law, asylum rights, birthright citizenship, and immigration enforcement
Does federal law at 2 U.S.C. §§ 1, 7 require mail ballots to be received by Election Day or only cast by it? The answer directly determines whether 15 states' post-Election-Day receipt windows are preempted by federal statute. The first Supreme Court definition of "Election Day" in the mail-ballot context.
Does a person physically prevented from crossing a port of entry by federal officers legally "arrive in the United States" for asylum eligibility purposes under the Immigration and Nationality Act? The ruling determines whether the government can use physical obstruction to extinguish statutory asylum rights guaranteed at the border.
The most constitutionally consequential case of the term. The Court hears argument on whether the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause covers children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents — and whether district courts may issue nationwide injunctions blocking presidential executive orders. Both questions have profound structural implications.
The full merits argument on whether the administration can rapidly deport migrants to third countries without the procedural protections guaranteed by 8 U.S.C. § 1229a. The 2-1 emergency stay decision suggests a genuinely contested outcome on the merits.