On October 25, 2021, a unanimous panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a district court order denying database vendors’ (“Plaintiff-Appellants”) motion for a preliminary injunction against enforcement of Arizona’s 2019 “Dealer Data Security Law.”  CDK Global LLC v. Brnovich, No. 20-16469 (9th Cir. 2021).  The Arizona law restricts car dealership database vendors from engaging in certain practices believed to be anticompetitive and provides consumers with certain additional privacy rights over the information that is collected for such databases.  The database vendors argued that the law was preempted by the federal Copyright Act and violated their federal constitutional rights.

On May 21, 2021, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit vacated a decision by the Federal Aviation Administration (“FAA”) to retire takeoff and landing “slots” forfeited by Southwest Airlines (“Southwest”) at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty Airport (“EWR”), finding that, by failing to consider what impact the move would have on airline competition at the airport, the FAA had acted arbitrary and capricious and without substantial evidence, in violation of the federal Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”).  Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg wrote the opinion, which was joined by Judges Karen L. Henderson and Justin R. Walker.  The case is Spirit Airlines, Inc. v. United States Department of Transportation, 19-1248 (D.C. Cir., May 21, 2021).