Recently implemented federal restrictions on transferring sensitive US personal data to hostile foreign regimes pose a new challenge for companies that advertise online: lawsuits from private parties.

The Bulk Sensitive Data Rule prohibits or restricts the transmission of bulk data to China and five other countries that pose a national security risk. While the US government and states have previously taken actions to stop China-based companies from collecting American data, the rule ushered in a new private litigation front for companies.

The first two private lawsuits for alleged illegal transfers were brought in September against a Microsoft subsidiary and a digital advertiser. The pace has picked up this year with eight more complaints being filed, including against Google and Lenovo.

Government enforcement could ramp up later this year, too, now that the March 1 deadline for some companies to file annual reports describing some of their data transactions has passed, said Elizabeth J. McEvoy of Epstein Becker & Green.

The private suits raise the risk profile for any company that uses trackers for advertising and sends—or is perceived to send—the data collected to China, said Sam Castic of Hintze Law. Read More from Ufonobong Umanah

AI tools like ChatGPT are driving a surge of laypeople litigators, costing Big Law attorneys time and money, Roy Strom writes in his latest Big Law Business column.

Fisher Phillips found that pro se employment lawsuits increased 49% last year, while pro se cases filed under the Fair Housing Act climbed 69% through the first nine months of 2025 compared to the prior year, according to Seyfarth Shaw.

AI-powered cases are far more expensive than typical claims because the litigants don’t worry about the cost or the time it takes to wage the fight, said Seyfarth Shaw partner Minh Vu, who defends clients against ADA claims.

• “These were all-out, scorched-earth litigations,” Vu told Roy. “We were getting responses to our filings within an hour.”

AI tools can help pro se litigators overcome the high cost of pursuing a lawsuit, but the technology alone is not inherently an access-to-justice victory. In some cases, plaintiffs are getting in trouble with courts—primarily because of chatbots’ proclivity to generate fake legal cases.

What do Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and Meta all have in common? They’re all in multibillion-dollar tax bill disputes over cross-border transfer pricing.

“The dollar amounts that are at play in these tax disputes have gotten ginormous,” says tax reporter Caleb Harshberger in this video from Bloomberg Law explaining Coca-Cola’s $6 billion tax bill.

Caleb explains that transfer pricing refers to how multinational companies set prices for transactions between related entities in different countries. Governments use transfer pricing rules to prevent improper profit shifting from high-tax to low-tax jurisdictions. As governments seek more tax revenue to fund public priorities, tax authorities are increasingly scrutinizing this complex and potentially lucrative area of tax enforcement. Watch here.