Legion, an AI startup that builds tools for lawyers, sued the Trump administration on Tuesday in federal court in Washington over a government order that forced Anthropic to block access to its advanced AI models. The suit argues that the restriction threatens the company’s ability to survive.
Anthropic had only opened public access to its advanced models, Pable 5 and Mythos 5, a few days earlier, in a limited version designed to prevent use of their powerful cyber capabilities. About two weeks ago, the company shut off access after a national-security order from the administration.
Although the order formally required Anthropic to bar only non-U.S. users, the company said the way it operates meant it had to cut off access to everyone except employees who are U.S. citizens, including foreign citizens involved in developing the models. Legion says that block deprived it of “the most up-to-date tool at the center of its development efforts.”
The filing says the harm is “immediate, irreparable and existential.” It argues that AI development is moving so quickly and competitively that losing any lead while a model is unavailable cannot be recovered, and that every day the order remains in force hurts Legion’s product development and operations. Founder and CEO Arthur Rotherock told Bloomberg the case is meant to challenge a dangerous precedent, asking, “Who says next time they will not do this against another company, like OpenAI?”
