Legion LegalTech sues US over Anthropic Fable 5 and Mythos 5 shutdown

US legal-technology company Legion LegalTech has filed a lawsuit in Washington, DC, challenging a directive from the Commerce Department that forced Anthropic to disable its Fable 5 and Mythos 5 AI models for all foreign nationals. The order, issued on June 12 citing national security concerns, required Anthropic to block access to the models for anyone outside the United States, including the company's own foreign-national staff. Because real-time nationality verification was not feasible, Anthropic was forced to shut down the models for all customers, a move the company described as disproportionate. Legion LegalTech, which relies on Anthropic's models for its attorney tools, argues that the directive caused 'immediate, irreparable, and existential' harm to its business, particularly affecting its Canadian software-development team. The lawsuit seeks to vacate the order and obtain an injunction to prevent its enforcement. This case marks the first time Washington has used export controls to pull a commercial AI product off the market. It also intersects with ongoing litigation between Anthropic and the US government over the Pentagon's designation of the company as a national security supply-chain risk. The directive also cut off access for allied users, including the UK's AI Security Institute, raising questions about whether a security order aimed at foreign nationals can be applied to a model deployed to hundreds of millions of people.

(Source：TNW)