Consumer Protection

  • December 10, 2024

    AGs Urge FCC To Remove 'Pain' From Customer Service Calls

    A coalition of state attorneys general called Tuesday for the Federal Communications Commission to take some of the "pain" out of customer service calls in FCC-regulated industries from internet and voice calls to broadcast satellite.

  • December 10, 2024

    Crypto Groups Rally Against Reappointing SEC's Crenshaw

    Cryptocurrency industry groups are pushing back on a potential second term for U.S. Securities and Exchange Commissioner Caroline Crenshaw with an online ad campaign and letters to lawmakers ahead of a Senate Banking Committee vote Wednesday on the Democrat's confirmation.

  • December 10, 2024

    ESPN, Fox Blast DOJ 'Formalistic Distinction' In Fubo Case

    ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery pressed the Second Circuit to upend a lower court injunction against their sports-only streaming service, taking particular aim at U.S. Department of Justice arguments asserting the sports giants can't claim they have a right to refuse dealing with rivals after joining forces.

  • December 10, 2024

    Utah Man Gets 9 Mos. For $7M Fraud With 'Housewives' Star

    A Manhattan federal judge sentenced a Utah resident to nine months in prison Tuesday, after the man admitted he worked with onetime reality TV star Jen Shah to build a fraudulent telemarketing empire that preyed on the elderly over a decade.

  • December 10, 2024

    Keller Postman Seeks To DQ Jenner & Block In Tubi Fight

    Keller Postman LLC wants Jenner & Block LLP sanctioned and disqualified for a "shocking pattern of unethical conduct" — which allegedly includes hiring a private investigator to interrogate the firm's clients — in a lawsuit accusing Keller Postman of filing thousands of "fraudulent" arbitration claims against streaming service Tubi Inc.

  • December 10, 2024

    $24.6B Kroger-Albertsons Merger Blocked By 2 Judges

    Kroger's planned $24.6 billion purchase of Albertsons suffered double whammy blows Tuesday, first from an Oregon federal judge who temporarily blocked the deal in a Federal Trade Commission challenge, and then from a Washington state judge who sided with the state's attorney general and issued a permanent, national block.

  • December 10, 2024

    NY Appealing Judge's Dismissal Of Plastic Pollution Suit

    New York Attorney General Letitia James is appealing a harshly worded ruling that dismissed her suit against PepsiCo Inc. and its Frito-Lay subsidiary over plastic pollution on the Buffalo River.

  • December 10, 2024

    Ky. Rep. Guthrie To Chair House Energy And Commerce Panel

    Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., has won the race for chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a key congressional post that includes jurisdiction over telecom issues and oversight of the Federal Communications Commission.

  • December 10, 2024

    Eversource Charges 'Junk Fee' To Restore Service, Suit Says

    Utility company Eversource's $102 charge to restore service after a shutoff for nonpayment is a "junk fee" that exploits customers who can least afford it, a proposed class action filed in Massachusetts says.

  • December 09, 2024

    Calif. Floats Requiring Social Media Warning Labels

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday introduced a bill that would require a "black box warning" to be displayed on social media platforms to remind users of the risks of prolonged social media use, citing research linking children's and teens' use to health harms like depression.

  • December 09, 2024

    CFPB Eyes Credit Reporting Rule To Address 'Coerced Debt'

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Monday that it is looking into new credit reporting safeguards for consumers who have experienced domestic violence or other abuse, launching a rulemaking push that will carry into the next Trump administration.

  • December 09, 2024

    Boeing Supplier Wins Bid To Block Texas Biz Records Inquiry

     A Texas federal judge on Monday adopted a magistrate judge's recommendation granting Spirit AeroSystems Inc.'s bid to permanently enjoin a Texas statute requiring businesses to immediately comply with the state's demand to examine business records.

  • December 09, 2024

    Live Nation Denied Rehearing In 9th Circ. Arbitration Fight

    The full Ninth Circuit has refused to reconsider an appellate panel's recent decision invalidating Live Nation and Ticketmaster's choice of a digital arbitration startup for consumer antitrust claims over allegedly exorbitant ticket prices.

  • December 09, 2024

    Apple Faces Another Suit Over Child Porn Detection Failures

    Apple has been hit with another proposed class action by child abuse victims in California federal court alleging that the tech giant misled users about its efforts to combat the dissemination of child pornography and defectively designed its products, thereby allowing explicit imagery to run rampant on its iCloud and Apple devices.

  • December 09, 2024

    RealPage Says DOJ's Ended Multifamily Rental Criminal Probe

    RealPage said the U.S. Department of Justice had ended a criminal probe into the multifamily rental housing industry's pricing practices, adding that the algorithmic pricing company was never identified as an investigation target.

  • December 09, 2024

    What's Next After Boeing 737 Max Deal Snags On DEI Clause

    A Texas federal judge's recent rejection of Boeing's plea agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice underscores the increasing vulnerability of corporate and government diversity, equity and inclusion policies, experts say, spelling fresh complications for the embattled American aerospace titan and the legal saga over its 737 Max jets.

  • December 09, 2024

    Facebook Execs Deny Email Breach Harm In Del. Hearing

    Two former Facebook directors turned to "chutzpah" in answering a stockholder class call for sanctions against them for deleting uncounted emails regarding privacy violations and the Cambridge Analytica scandal, a stockholder attorney told a Delaware vice chancellor on Monday.

  • December 09, 2024

    NHL Dropped From Antitrust Suit By Junior League Players

    The junior-league hockey players who accused the North American developmental system of exploitation and abuse in a proposed antitrust class action voluntarily dismissed the NHL from the suit on Monday, less than two weeks after the Canadian Hockey League was dismissed by a New York federal judge.

  • December 09, 2024

    Judge Eyes Far Less Trial Time In Meta Case Than FTC Wants

    The Federal Trade Commission likely has to cram much more trial in much less time than it had planned after a D.C. federal judge suggested Monday that the agency's social media monopolization case against Meta Platforms Inc. can't go much past the first week of June 2025.

  • December 09, 2024

    LendingTree Pushes FCC Again To Rework Lead Consent Rule

    Loan marketer LendingTree is making one more effort to persuade the Federal Communications Commission to trim the scope of its lead generation consent rule in hopes of seeing changes before the regulations take effect in January.

  • December 09, 2024

    Amazon Says FTC Lacks Authority To Bring Antitrust Case

    Amazon has told a Washington federal court that the Federal Trade Commission is overstepping its authority by bringing its antitrust case directly in court without pursuing an in-house case targeting the e-commerce giant's treatment of sellers on its platform.

  • December 09, 2024

    Congress Set To Let FCC Borrow $3B For 'Rip And Replace'

    Lawmakers are considering funding a $3.08 billion shortfall in the program to rid U.S. networks of Chinese-made equipment by letting the Federal Communications Commission borrow the money from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, repaid with spectrum auctions.

  • December 09, 2024

    CFPB Gets Final OK For $950K Student Lender Settlement

    A New York federal judge has granted final approval to a $950,000 settlement reached between the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and an online private student lender and its venture capital backer over claims that they duped borrowers into taking out loans for coding school and other vocational programs with false claims about their educational "return-on-investment."

  • December 09, 2024

    EPA Finalizes Bans On Two Carcinogenic Chemicals

    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a pair of final rules on Monday banning all uses of trichloroethylene and all consumer uses of perchloroethylene, which are cancer-causing chemical solvents used in brake cleaner and adhesive products.

  • December 09, 2024

    Prevagen Maker Ordered To Cease Memory Claims

    A New York federal judge on Friday upheld an injunction blocking Quincy Bioscience Holding Co. Inc. nationally from making claims that its supplement Prevagen can treat memory problems.

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    3rd. Circ. Got It Right On Cancer Warning Claims Preemption

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    The Third Circuit's recent, eminently sensible ruling in a failure-to-warn case against Roundup manufacturer Monsanto, holding that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act preempts state law claims, provides a road map that other courts should adopt, says Lawrence Ebner at the Atlantic Legal Foundation.

  • How Methods Are Evolving In Textualist Interpretations

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    Textualists at the U.S. Supreme Court are increasingly considering new methods such as corpus linguistics and surveys to evaluate what a statute's text communicates to an ordinary reader, while lower courts even mull large language models like ChatGPT as supplements, says Kevin Tobia at Georgetown Law.

  • Finding Coverage For Online Retail Privacy Class Actions

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    Following recent court rulings interpreting state invasion of privacy and electronic surveillance statutes triggering a surge in the filing of privacy class actions against online retailers, companies should examine their various insurance policies, including E&O and D&O, for defense coverage of these claims, says Alison Gaske at Gilbert LLP.

  • 5 Ways To Confront Courtroom Technology Challenges

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    Recent cybersecurity incidents highlight the vulnerabilities of our reliance on digital infrastructure, meaning attorneys must be prepared to navigate technological obstacles inside the courtroom, including those related to data security, presentation hardware, video playback and more, says Adam Bloomberg at IMS Legal Strategies.

  • The State Law Landscape After Justices' Social Media Ruling

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    Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent NetChoice ruling on social media platforms’ First Amendment rights, it’s still unclear if state content moderation laws are constitutional, leaving online operators to face a patchwork of regulation, and the potential for the issue to return to the high court, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

  • Navigating New Enforcement Scrutiny Of 'AI Washing'

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent lawsuit against Joonko Diversity, its first public AI-focused enforcement action against a private company, underscores the importance of applying the same internal legal and compliance rigor to AI-related claims as other market-facing statements, say attorneys at Fried Frank.

  • What's Next For Federal Preemption In Financial Services

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    The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's review of its preemption interpretations and growing pressure from state regulators signal potential changes ahead for preemption in U.S. financial services, and the path forward will likely involve a reevaluation of the entire framework, say attorneys at Clark Hill.

  • Employer Arbitration Lessons From Calif. Consumer Ruling

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    Although a California state appeals court’s recent arbitration ruling in Mahram v. Kroger involved a consumer transaction, the finding that the arbitration agreement at issue did not apply to a third-party beneficiary could influence how employment arbitration agreements are interpreted, says Sander van der Heide at CDF Labor Law.

  • Unpacking Jurisdiction Issues In 3rd Circ. Arbitration Ruling

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    The Third Circuit's recent ruling in George v. Rushmore Service Center could be interpreted to establish three principles regarding district courts' jurisdiction to enter arbitration-related orders under the Federal Arbitration Act, two of which may lead to confusion, says David Cinotti at Pashman Stein.

  • Why Attorneys Should Consider Community Leadership Roles

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    Volunteering and nonprofit board service are complementary to, but distinct from, traditional pro bono work, and taking on these community leadership roles can produce dividends for lawyers, their firms and the nonprofit causes they support, says Katie Beacham at Kilpatrick.

  • 'Pig Butchering': The Scam That Exploits Crypto Confusion

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    Certain red flags can tip off banks to possible "pig-butchering," and with the scam's increasing popularity, financial institutions need to take action to monitor entry points into the crypto space, detect suspicious activity and provide a necessary backstop to protect customers, say Brandon Essig and Mary Parrish McCracken at Lightfoot Franklin.

  • Opinion

    Agencies Should Reward Corporate Cyber Victim Cooperation

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    The increased regulatory scrutiny on corporate victims of cyberattacks — exemplified by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's case against SolarWinds — should be replaced with a new model that provides adequate incentives for companies to come forward proactively and collaborate with law enforcement, say attorneys at McDermott.

  • How Transaction Lookbacks Can Guide Fintech Companies

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    As transaction lookbacks continue to be a key focus of enforcement actions, newer financial institutions like fintech companies should know they can benefit from proactively investigating their potential failure to identify suspicious activity, creating a compliance road map and building trust with regulators in the process, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.

  • Firms Must Offer A Trifecta Of Services In Post-Chevron World

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    After the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo decision overturning Chevron deference, law firms will need to integrate litigation, lobbying and communications functions to keep up with the ramifications of the ruling and provide adequate counsel quickly, says Neil Hare at Dentons.

  • Opinion

    CFPB's AI Stance Backslides On Innovation Issues

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    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent response to a Treasury Department's request for information about artificial intelligence in the financial services sector uses alarmist rhetoric about the technology's risks, ceding an opportunity to help shape this important discussion, says Mike Silver at Husch Blackwell.

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