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Consumer Protection
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July 18, 2024
Chase Can't Arbitrate Returned-Check Suit, Customers Say
Chase Bank customers have urged a federal judge not to let the bank force them to arbitrate a complaint over fees charged on deposited checks that were returned, arguing that they never agreed to an arbitration clause and that the bank failed to prove their consent to arbitration.
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July 18, 2024
State PUCs Urged To Keep Eye On Broadband Projects
States need to step up and do more to ensure that telecommunication companies working on Rural Digital Opportunity Fund projects within their borders do the work they committed to doing on time, according to a former Federal Communications Commission official.
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July 18, 2024
Live Nation Previews Part Of Case Against DOJ Suit
Live Nation and Ticketmaster teed up part of their arguments against an antitrust lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys general, arguing all the state law claims from the attorneys general are too threadbare and that a chunk of the DOJ case amounts to trying to force them to deal with competitors.
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July 18, 2024
FCC Votes On Party Lines To Subsidize Wi-Fi For Students
The Federal Communications Commission voted along a partisan divide Thursday to expand a federal school and library subsidy to cover Wi-Fi services for students to remedy gaps in broadband access.
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July 18, 2024
LegitScript Asks 9th Circ. To Ax Price-Checker Antitrust Suit
LegitScript told the Ninth Circuit that PharmacyChecker cannot bring antitrust claims for allegedly having its price-checking website blacklisted because the bulk of its business is geared towards helping people illegally import prescription drugs.
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July 18, 2024
FDA Sends More Warnings Over THC 'Copycat' Snacks
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned six companies to stop selling delta-8 edibles that resemble brand-name snacks such as Skittles, Chips Ahoy, Cheetos and Oreos, saying the lookalikes can fool "children or unsuspecting adults" and pose a real health hazard.
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July 18, 2024
GSK, Boehringer Face Jurors Again On Zantac Cancer Claims
GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim returned to Illinois state court Thursday, where they face separate juries to defend against Zantac users' claims that the drug caused them to develop cancer.
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July 18, 2024
Urban Outfitters Freed From Class Claims Over 'Spy Pixels'
A Pennsylvania federal judge said an Arizona woman lacked standing to bring a class action against clothing retailer Urban Outfitters over its alleged use of "spy pixels" to track customer activity because she failed to show a violation of that state's recording laws.
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July 18, 2024
Avatar Maker Draws Facial-Scan BIPA Suit
Avatar company Ready Player Me Inc. has been hit with proposed class claims that it creates Illinois users' digital characters by scanning, storing and using their facial data without first obtaining informed consent.
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July 18, 2024
Court Denies Bid To Halt NYC Crackdown On Illicit Pot Shops
A New York federal judge on Thursday rejected a bid from 27 retailers to halt city officials' enforcement efforts aimed at closing stores that sell cannabis without a license, saying the shops were unlikely to prevail on claims their due process rights were violated.
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July 18, 2024
FCC Caps Prison Phone Rates To Be 'Just And Reasonable'
The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday placed new caps on prison phone rates under the Martha Wright-Reed Act, enacted to make sure that rates for incarcerated people and their families are "just and reasonable."
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July 18, 2024
American Airlines Hit With Class Action Over Sales Strategy
An investor launched a proposed class action against American Airlines over the company's botched sales and distribution strategy, saying that American touted its strategy as driving revenue while hiding the fact that the strategy was "driving customers away" in a Texas federal court on Thursday.
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July 18, 2024
Consumers Hit CenterPoint With 2nd Class Action Over Beryl
CenterPoint Energy Inc. has been hit with a second proposed class action over widespread power outages in the Houston area following Hurricane Beryl, this time from consumers in the Houston-Galveston area who were impacted by the storm.
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July 18, 2024
Meta And FTC Want DC Circ. Privacy Fight Kept Paused
Meta's D.C. Circuit bid to stop the Federal Trade Commission from modifying the parties' $5 billion privacy settlement should be kept on ice, both sides said Thursday, as the commission vies to toss Meta's trial court suit following a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
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July 18, 2024
Ticketholders Shut Out Of Copa Final Sue Miami Stadium
Ticketholders who were shut out of Sunday night's Copa America final in Miami between Argentina and Colombia have filed two suits against Hard Rock Stadium and Conmebol, claiming the venue and the soccer confederation's failure to ensure adequate security left ticketholders locked outside after thousands of fans rushed the gates.
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July 18, 2024
Pool Co. Wants To Dig Into Rival's Alter Egos For $16M Verdict
Pool supply company Hayward Industries Inc. is looking to force responses from the alter egos of bankrupt rival Blueworks Corp. regarding their assets, bank accounts and property so that Hayward can collect on its $16 million false advertising and unfair business practices judgment.
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July 18, 2024
CFPB Eyes Loan Treatment For 'Earned Wage' Cash Advances
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau moved Thursday to apply federal truth-in-lending requirements to the growing market for fintech cash advances, issuing a proposed rule that would classify many "earned wage access" products as consumer loans needing clear pricing disclosures.
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July 17, 2024
Immigrant Bond Cos. Appeal Injunction After $811M Loss
Immigrant bond companies subject to an $811 million judgment for abusive bonding practices told the Fourth Circuit that a lower court's injunction against them is vague and far broader than federal law allows.
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July 17, 2024
Fla. Co. Says NY Lender Charges Usurious 950% Interest Rate
A Florida-based startup has sued a New York small business lender, alleging the lender saddled it with "a high interest usurious loan" when it thought it was entering into a future receivables agreement.
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July 17, 2024
Ex-SEC Lawyer's Fellow Penny Stock Fraudster To Pay $1M
A Texas federal judge handed down final judgment Tuesday to a co-defendant of an ex-SEC lawyer turned fraudster in a civil case involving a penny stock scheme, barring Justin Herman from ever dealing penny stocks again and ordering him to pay over $1 million.
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July 17, 2024
AT&T Sued Over Breach Of 'Nearly All' Cell Users' Records
AT&T Inc. is facing separate class actions in Texas, Montana and New Jersey federal courts after the company disclosed Friday that hackers had downloaded phone call and text message records belonging to "nearly all" the telecom giant's wireless customers between May 2022 and early last year.
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July 17, 2024
Calif. Asks 9th Circ. To Lift Injunction On Kids' Privacy Law
California urged the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday to remove an injunction blocking a groundbreaking new law requiring social media platforms to bolster privacy protections for children, defending the protections and arguing that any unconstitutional provision should be severed following the U.S. Supreme Court's Moody v. NetChoice decision.
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July 17, 2024
9th Circ. Open To X's Challenge To Content Disclosure Law
A three-judge Ninth Circuit panel appeared open Wednesday to granting X Corp.'s request to block at least some of a new California law requiring social media companies to provide semiannual disclosures regarding their content moderation policies, with each judge saying one particular provision appears to infringe free speech rights.
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July 17, 2024
FTC Cites 3rd Circ. In Defending Noncompete Ban
The Federal Trade Commission has continued to argue against a preliminary injunction a tree services company wants against its noncompete ban, directing a Pennsylvania federal judge to look at a Third Circuit decision from the day before calling for a high bar on initial court blocks absent immediate and permanent harm.
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July 17, 2024
FCC To Vote On Smart Car Technology's Use Of 5.9 GHz
The Federal Communications Commission is ready to vote on rules that would bring advanced vehicle communications technology to the 5.9 GHz band, setting standards for the technology's use in the slice of spectrum and greenlighting the use of in-vehicle and roadside units running on the technology.
Expert Analysis
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Takeaways From EU's Initial Findings On Apple's App Store
A deep dive into the European Commission's recent preliminary findings that Apple's App Store rules are in breach of the Digital Markets Act reveal that enforcement of the EU's Big Tech law might go beyond the literal text of the regulation and more toward the spirit of compliance, say William Dolan and Pratik Agarwal at Rule Garza.
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2 Rulings Serve As Conversion Fee Warnings For Banks
A comparison of the different outcomes in Wright v. Capital One in a Virginia federal court, and in Guerrero v. Bank of America in a North Carolina federal court, highlights how banks must be careful in describing how currency exchange fees and charges are determined in their customer agreements, say attorneys at Weiner Brodsky.
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Expect CFPB To Enforce Warning Against 'Coercive' Fine Print
The recent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warning against unenforceable terms "deceptively" slipped into the fine print of contracts will likely be challenged in court, but until then, companies should expect the agency to treat its guidance as law and must carefully scrutinize their consumer contracts, say attorneys at Ballard Spahr.
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Loss Causation Ruling Departs From Usual Securities Cases
A California federal court recently dismissed Ramos v. Comerica, finding that the allegations failed to establish loss causation, but the reasoning is in tension with the pleading-stage approaches generally followed by both courts and economists in securities fraud litigation, say Jesse Jensen and Aasiya Glover at Bernstein Litowitz.
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Opinion
Now More Than Ever, Lawyers Must Exhibit Professionalism
As society becomes increasingly fractured and workplace incivility is on the rise, attorneys must champion professionalism and lead by example, demonstrating how lawyers can respectfully disagree without being disagreeable, says Edward Casmere at Norton Rose.
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'Outsourcing' Ruling, 5 Years On: A Warning, Not A Watershed
A New York federal court’s 2019 ruling in U.S. v. Connolly, holding that the government improperly outsourced an investigation to Deutsche Bank, has not undercut corporate cooperation incentives as feared — but companies should not completely ignore the lessons of the case, say Temidayo Aganga-Williams and Anna Nabutovsky at Selendy Gay.
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Series
Serving In The National Guard Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My ongoing military experience as a judge advocate general in the National Guard has shaped me as a person and a lawyer, teaching me the importance of embracing confidence, balance and teamwork in both my Army and civilian roles, says Danielle Aymond at Baker Donelson.
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Big Business May Come To Rue The Post-Administrative State
Many have framed the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions overturning Chevron deference and extending the window to challenge regulations as big wins for big business, but sand in the gears of agency rulemaking may be a double-edged sword, creating prolonged uncertainty that impedes businesses’ ability to plan for the future, says Todd Baker at Columbia University.
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Series
After Chevron: Impact On CFPB May Be Limited
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo is likely to have a limited impact on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's regulatory activities, and for those who value due process, consistency and predictability in consumer financial services regulation, this may be a good thing, says John Coleman at Orrick.
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A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates
Hourly rates for partners, associates and support staff continued to rise in the first half of this year, and this growth shows no signs of slowing for the rest of 2024 and into next year, driven in part by the return of mergers and acquisitions and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, says Chuck Chandler at Valeo Partners.
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Synapse Bankruptcy Has Ripple Effects For Fintech Industry
Synapse Financial Technologies’ recent bankruptcy filing marks a significant moment in the fintech industry's evolution, highlighting that stringent compliance and risk management in fintech partnerships are essential to mitigate risk and protect consumers, say Joann Needleman and Ryan Blumberg at Clark Hill.
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Opinion
Discount Window Reform Needed To Curb Modern Bank Runs
We learned during the spring 2023 failures that bank runs can happen extraordinarily fast in light of modern technology, especially when banks have a greater concentration of large deposits, demonstrating that the antiquated but effective discount window needs to be overhauled before the next crisis, says Cris Cicala at Stinson.
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Mitigating Risks Amid 10-Year Sanctions Enforcement Window
In response to recent legislation, which doubles the statute of limitations for actions related to certain U.S. sanctions and provides regulators greater opportunity to investigate possible violations, companies should take specific steps to account for the increased civil and criminal enforcement risk, say attorneys at Freshfields.
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Series
In The CFPB Playbook: Making Good On Bold Promises
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding structure in the second quarter cleared the way for the bureau to resume a number of high-priority initiatives, and it appears poised to charge ahead in working toward its aggressive preelection agenda, say Andrew Arculin and Paula Vigo Marqués at Blank Rome.
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Series
After Chevron: Creating New Hurdles For ESG Rulemaking
The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision, limiting court deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, could have significant impacts on the future of ESG regulation, creating new hurdles for agency rulemaking around these emerging issues, and calling into question current administrative actions, says Leah Malone at Simpson Thacher.