AI Access Clash: Legal Tech Startup Sues Trump Administration Over Block on Anthropic’s Advanced Models

Legion LegalTech Corp, a San Jose‑based startup that builds AI‑powered tools for lawyers, relies on Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models. On June 12, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security ordered Anthropic to cut off access to those models for any foreign national; Anthropic complied the same day. Legion, whose Canada‑based developers lost access overnight, filed a lawsuit on June 23 in Washington, D.C. federal court, arguing the order is unlawful, overreaches existing export‑control rules, and causes immediate, irreparable, and existential harm. The suit seeks to vacate the directive and obtain a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement. The directive followed a Trump executive order promoting AI innovation and cited national‑security risks from potential jailbreaks that could let users prompt the models to scan code for weaknesses. Anthropic publicly complied while calling the response disproportionate, noting similar risks exist in competing models such as GPT‑5.5. The article also references Anthropic’s Project Glasswing initiative, its broader litigation with the administration over a supply‑chain risk blacklist, and the wider impact on international teams and innovation. The case tests the limits of executive power over cloud‑hosted AI and could shape future policy on AI access and security.

(Source：Webpronews)