The same lawyer who filed the securities fraud class action Friday against AT&T over the carrier’s alleged failure to disclose that its telecom cables were covered with toxic lead (see 2307300002) took aim with a similar complaint Tuesday against Verizon, its CEO Hans Vestberg and Matt Ellis, who left his chief financial officer role May 1.

Here are Communications Litigation Today's top stories from last week, in case you missed them. Each can be found by searching on its title or by clicking on the hyperlinked reference number.

Plaintiff Tracy McCarthy’s fraud claims against Amazon and its Audible subsidiary for deceptive practices under New York General Business Law (GBL) are time-barred and “duplicative,” said Amazon’s motion to dismiss (docket 2:23-cv-01019) the first amended complaint (FAC) Monday in U.S. District Court for Washington in Seattle.

Rochester, New York, enacted a new telecommunications code three years ago that imposes “excessively high fees” on telecom providers in violation of federal law, said plaintiffs Verizon, Extenet and Crown Castle in a joint memorandum of law Monday (docket 6:19-cv-06583) in U.S. District Court for Western New York in Rochester. Their opening brief in support of their motion for judgment in their favor followed a two-day consolidated bench trial in early June (see 2212200065).

CEO Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) spared few punches Tuesday in attacking Elon Musk, owner of the X platform, formerly Twitter, a day after the platform sued his group for allegedly running a "scare campaign" to drive away advertisers. Musk’s "latest legal threat is straight out of the authoritarian playbook," emailed Ahmed.

DOJ and the FCC on Monday defended the commission’s order last year further clamping down on gear from Chinese companies, preventing the sale of yet-to-be authorized equipment in the U.S. (see 2211230065). Dahua USA and Hikvision USA challenged the order, which implements the 2021 Secure Equipment Act, questioning whether the FCC exceeded its legal authority (docket 23-1032). The case is in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Oral argument isn't scheduled.

Communications Litigation Today is tracking the following lawsuits involving appeals of FCC actions:

GlobalguruTech’s (GGT) July 14 motion to quash Xfinity Mobile’s subpoenas to payment service companies is improper because defendants don’t have standing to object to the wireless carrier’s subpoenas since they're directed to third parties, not to the defendants, said Xfinity’s Thursday response (docket 2:22-cv-01950) in U.S. District Court for Arizona in Phoenix. Also, a motion to quash must be filed in the place where compliance is required, which is the Northern District of Georgia, not the district of Arizona, it said.

AT&T’s March 2020 update to its environmental policy attesting to its commitment to employee safety contained “materially false and misleading statements” because the company “owned cables covered in toxic lead” that caused harm to “everyday people,” employees and the environment, alleged shareholder John Brazinsky in a securities fraud class action Friday (docket 2:23-cv-04064) in U.S. District Court for New Jersey in Newark.

ByteDance's CapCut videoediting app, launched three years ago in the U.S. and fast approaching 250 million monthly active users, “facilitates” the unlawful collection “of a wide range of private information from users, including their biometric information,” alleged a privacy class action Friday (docket 1:23-cv-04953) against ByteDance and TikTok, for heavily promoting the app, in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago.