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Stephanie Noble will be presenting at the 76th Annual Energy Law Conference in Houston, Texas, on February 13 at 2:15 p.m. CT. Her presentation will cover "What’s Next in Energy Litigation."

Join us as Darren Tucker and Jason Powers discuss recent antitrust developments in the energy sector and what lies ahead for companies in 2025.

National negotiation expert Marty Latz will present a series of ethically challenging negotiation scenarios from a variety of legal negotiations.

Vinson & Elkins partners Jason Halper, Kaam Sahely, and Francisco J. Morales Barrón — adjunct professors at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School — sit down for conversation on why they teach and how they approach it.

After little more than a week in office, there is still plenty of speculation, but priorities of the Trump 2.0 Administration are becoming more concrete.

On January 23, 2025, the Supreme Court granted the government’s motion to stay a nationwide injunction that was issued by a Texas federal judge in the case Texas Top Cop Shop, Inc. v. McHenry.

The shareholder activism landscape promises to stay busy in 2025, with underperforming companies likely facing heightened pressure, particularly in M&A-focused campaigns. Lower financing costs, looser capital requirements, and lighter merger scrutiny are expected to drive a resurgence in dealmaking, creating opportunities for activists to push for breakups, divestitures, or outright sales.

On January 10, 2025, the Treasury Department (the “Treasury”) and the Internal Revenue Service (the “Service”) continued their flurry of new guidance by releasing IRS Notice 2025-10 (the “Notice”) concerning the clean fuel production credit available under section 45Z of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended (the “Code,” and such credit, the “Clean Fuel Production Credit”),¹ for certain clean fuels produced and sold between January 1, 2025 and December 31, 2027.²

On January 21, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” (the “Executive Order”), which significantly impacts not only requirements applicable to federal government contractors and subcontractors, but also could lead to private sector investigations or enforcement actions concerning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (“DEI”) initiatives — particularly those maintained by larger companies (whether privately held or publicly listed), regardless of whether they contract or subcontract with the government.

On January 13, 2025, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (“BIS”) issued its Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, an Interim Final Rule revising the Export Administration Regulations (“EAR”) to expand controls on advanced computing integrated circuits, commonly called microchips (“ICs”) and impose new licensing requirements for artificial intelligence (“AI”) model weights (the “AI Diffusion Rule”).

Vinson & Elkins’ Shareholder Activism practice co-head Lawrence Elbaum will discuss how companies need to prepare against the year-round attacks by shareholder activists.

The Trump Administration’s antitrust enforcement priorities are beginning to take shape. On January 20, 2025, President Trump designated former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) commissioner Andrew Ferguson as the agency’s next Chair and formally nominated Mark Meador, an FTC veteran, to be a Commissioner. In addition, Trump nominated Gail Slater to be the next head of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.