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Consumer Protection
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August 14, 2024
4th Circ. Says T-Mobile Must Face 'Simply Prepaid' TM Fight
The Fourth Circuit revived a Virginia-based telecommunications company's infringement suit against T-Mobile, ruling that Simply Wireless had done enough to show it was planning to revamp its "Simply Prepaid" branding and hadn't abandoned the trademark when T-Mobile began using it.
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August 14, 2024
Mobile Carriers Worry Anti-Robotext Rules Could Go Too Far
Content-neutral text blocking standards are not the way to go, a key wireless trade group has told the Federal Communications Commission, saying that stripping away the current industry standards in favor of nondiscriminatory ones would "open the floodgates to messages that consumers do not want."
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August 14, 2024
Suit Claims Giant Uses Banned, Toxic Oil In Orange Soda
A proposed class of soda drinkers is suing The Giant Co. LLC in Pennsylvania federal court, alleging that it makes and sells orange soda made with a kind of vegetable oil that federal regulators banned for its negative effects on the thyroid gland.
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August 14, 2024
Insurer Off Hook For Jury Award In Construction Dispute
A commercial insurer does not have to indemnify a contractor found liable for multiple structural and other problems in a home he built, a Massachusetts intermediate appellate court concluded Wednesday in a case of first impression involving what is considered "property damage" in a construction dispute.
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August 14, 2024
$24M Hidden Fee Deal With AIG Opposed By Class Member
A member of a class of travel insurance buyers who accused AIG insurers of stacking hidden fees on top of insurance travel premiums urged a California federal court to reject a nearly $24 million proposed settlement, saying it inappropriately combines distinct California and Washington claims.
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August 14, 2024
Ex-Binance GC Joins Crypto Co. Bitget As Legal Chief
Seychelles-based crypto exchange Bitget on Wednesday announced it has hired a new chief legal officer who, among other roles, served as general counsel at Binance prior to its high-profile settlement with U.S. authorities last year.
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August 14, 2024
SEC Says Ga. Firm's Ponzi Scheme Fueled 'Lavish' Lifestyle
An Atlanta-area firm that promised investors lucrative returns on real estate deals was in reality running a "classic Ponzi scheme" by funneling portions of the $300 million it received into buying a yacht and a luxury condo for its founder, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Wednesday.
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August 13, 2024
Anesthesia Co. Says FTC Lacks Authority To Bring 'Rollup' Suit
U.S. Anesthesia Partners has told the Fifth Circuit the Federal Trade Commission lacks authority to bring its case directly in federal court without also filing an administrative case accusing the group of monopolizing the Texas anesthesiology market.
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August 13, 2024
TMX Affiliate Sues Pa. Regulator To Block Potential $52M Fine
A Texas and Georgia-based affiliate of consumer lending company TMX Finance has sued the secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities, challenging an order from the department that the company says seeks over $52 million in civil penalties over claims tied to loan agreements that allegedly carry interest rates as high as 720%.
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August 13, 2024
Jury Awards $51M To Family In Carbon Monoxide Leak
A Texas jury awarded a woman and her two children $51 million after they suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning in their apartment in 2015, finding in a Tuesday verdict that their apartment complex was responsible for the leak that allegedly left the children with serious brain injuries.
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August 13, 2024
Chamber Defends Texas Home For CFPB Late-Fee Rule Suit
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other trade associations battling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's $8 credit card late-fee rule told a Texas federal judge on Monday that the agency's latest bid to send the case to Washington, D.C., risks creating new rule challenge obstacles for local-level business groups and should be rejected.
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August 13, 2024
CFPB Says Predatory Lenders Targeting Muslim Homebuyers
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Tuesday it found that an often predatory form of home financing, known as contracts for deed, has become increasingly prevalent in Muslim communities.
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August 13, 2024
Campbell Soup Co. Defends V8 Splash Labeling As Accurate
Campbell Soup Co. has urged a New Jersey federal judge to toss a putative class action alleging it duped consumers into thinking its V8 Splash beverages are naturally flavored and healthy, saying the drinks' labels never claimed the drinks were free of artificial flavors.
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August 13, 2024
Texas AG Targets General Motors Over Unlawful Data Sales
Texas' attorney general has escalated his probe into data privacy practices at connected car manufacturers, hitting General Motors with a lawsuit in state court Tuesday accusing the automaker of unlawfully gathering and selling drivers' private data — which would then be resold to insurance companies — without permission.
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August 13, 2024
Google Says Search Ruling Irrelevant To Common Carrier Suit
A recent ruling from a D.C. federal judge that declared Google a monopolist in the general search market has nothing to do with the Ohio attorney general's bid to designate the search engine as a common carrier, Google told an Ohio state court judge.
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August 13, 2024
FINRA Flags Potential Pitfalls As Members Wade Into Crypto
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority on Tuesday raised potential problem areas it has noticed related to members' dealings in crypto assets as part of a broader update on how the firms it oversees are wading into digital assets.
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August 13, 2024
Miss. Stations Could Lose FCC Licenses For Unpaid Fees
The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday warned the licensee of two radio stations in Mississippi that they could lose their licenses if thousands of dollars in regulatory fees stretching back more than a decade remain unpaid.
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August 13, 2024
New Realtor Complaint Challenges NAR's Membership Rule
The National Association of Realtors is facing a new proposed class action, this time from Michigan real estate brokers and agents challenging state and local requirements that they be members of local and national Realtor organizations to use the association's multiple listing services.
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August 13, 2024
Kroger Blasts FTC's 'Head-To-Head' Competition Claims
Kroger and Albertsons have assailed the Federal Trade Commission's challenge to their merger, telling an Oregon federal judge that there's no need to preliminarily block the deal because the agency is pushing a "never before applied" theory that reducing head-to-head competition is illegal, which the grocery stores said is undone by the law and the companies' planned divestiture of 579 stores.
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August 13, 2024
DOJ Gets Crash Course In AI As Attys Brace For Crackdown
The U.S. Department of Justice is working to keep pace with the swift rise of the tools known as artificial intelligence, investigating potential fraud as its Criminal Division learns the nuances of the technology — an unsettling dynamic for some defense lawyers.
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August 13, 2024
3rd Circ. Nixes Debt Collection Suit, Leaves Award In Question
The Third Circuit ruled Tuesday that a plaintiff fighting an arbitration loss in a proposed debt-collection class action never had standing to sue, but the appellate panel left it for an arbiter or state court to decide whether to erase the actual award in favor of the debt collector.
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August 13, 2024
Capital One Blames Customers For 'Refer A Friend' Texts
Capital One urged a Washington federal judge on Monday to throw out a proposed class action accusing it of violating a state law banning ads in unsolicited texts, contending its customers are ultimately responsible for hitting send on "refer a friend" messages providing others credit card sign-up links.
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August 13, 2024
HP Inks Deal To End Claims Printer Update Locked Out Rivals
HP Inc. and a certified class of consumers told a California magistrate judge Monday that they have reached a settlement in principle to resolve a class action alleging the printer maker illegally forced customers to purchase overpriced HP-branded ink and toner supply cartridges by making alternative products incompatible with their printers.
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August 13, 2024
Congress Didn't Want Utility-Style Internet Regs, 6th Circ. Told
Internet service providers urged the Sixth Circuit to deep-six the Federal Communications Commission's recent decision to reclassify broadband as a telecommunications service and impose net neutrality rules, saying Congress never intended that change even under the broadest reading of federal law.
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August 13, 2024
Telecoms Fret Over FCC's Pole Attachment Deadlines
Negotiating big pole attachment orders can take longer than the Federal Communications Commission might sometimes like, a telecom industry trade group says, warning the agency that a regulation requiring the first of 3,000 such attachments to be ready in 45 days isn't realistic.
Expert Analysis
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Classwide Calculations May Get Price Premium Damages Wrong
In many consumer class actions, plaintiffs assert that they overpaid for a product because of a misrepresented or defective product feature, and that a single price premium estimate can be applied classwide — but failure to account for differences in price premiums across a putative class may lead to improper damage awards, say economists at Ankura Consulting.
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Opinion
Texas Judges Ignored ERISA's Core To Stall Fiduciary Rule
Two recent rulings from Texas federal courts, which rely on a plainly wrong reading of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to effectively strike a forthcoming rule that would impose functional fiduciary duties onto sellers of investment services, may expose financially unsophisticated 401(k) participants to peddlers of misleading advice, says Mark DeBofsky at DeBofsky Law.
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Inside OCC's Retail Nondeposit Investment Products Refresh
In addition to clarifying safe and sound risk management practices generally, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's revised booklet on retail nondeposit investment products updates its guidance around certain sales practices in light of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's adoption of Regulation Best Interest, say attorneys at Debevoise.
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Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Is My Counterclaim Bound To Fall?
A Pennsylvania federal court’s recent dismissal of the defendants’ counterclaims in Morgan v. Noss should remind attorneys to avoid the temptation to repackage a claim’s facts and law into a mirror-image counterclaim, as this approach will often result in a waste of time and resources, says Matthew Selmasska at Kaufman Dolowich.
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Loper Fuels Debate Over Merchant Cash Advances As Credit
The U.S. Supreme Court's recent rejection of the Chevron doctrine in Loper Bright may escalate a Florida federal court dispute between the Revenue Based Finance Coalition and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over whether merchant cash advances should be considered credit under the Dodd-Frank Act, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.
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FTC's Drug Middlemen Probe Highlights Ongoing Scrutiny
The Federal Trade Commission's interim staff report on its inquiry into pharmacy benefit managers suggests that the industry will remain under an enforcement microscope for the foreseeable future due to concerns about how PBMs affect drug costs and accessibility, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.
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6 Factors That Can Make For A 'Nuclear' Juror
Drawing from recent research that examines the rise in nuclear verdicts, Ken Broda-Bahm at Persuasion Strategies identifies a few juror characteristics most likely to matter in assessing case risk and preparing for jury selection — some of which are long-known, and others that are emerging post-pandemic.
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Series
Playing Dungeons & Dragons Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Playing Dungeons & Dragons – a tabletop role-playing game – helped pave the way for my legal career by providing me with foundational skills such as persuasion and team building, says Derrick Carman at Robins Kaplan.
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A Look At The Regulatory Scrutiny Facing Liquid Restaking
Recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions highlight the regulatory challenges facing emerging financial instruments like liquid restaking tokens and services, say Daniel Davis and Alexander Kim at Katten.
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Considerations When Using Publicly Available Data To Train AI
To maximize the benefits and mitigate the risks of using publicly available data to train artificial intelligence models, companies should maintain a balance between openness and protection, and consider certain best practices, says Michael Cole at Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America.
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Del. Dispatch: Director Caremark Claims Need Extreme Facts
The Delaware Court of Chancery recently dismissed Caremark claims against the directors of Centene in Bricklayers Pension Fund of Western Pennsylvania v. Brinkley, indicating a high bar for a finding of the required element of bad faith for Caremark liability, and stressing the need to resist hindsight bias, say attorneys at Fried Frank.
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Illinois BIPA Reform Offers Welcome Relief To Businesses
Illinois' recent amendment to its Biometric Information Privacy Act limits the number of violations and damages a plaintiff can claim — a crucial step in shielding businesses from unintended legal consequences, including litigation risk and compliance costs, say attorneys at Taft.
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Gilead Drug Ruling Creates Corporate Governance Dilemma
If upheld, a California state appellate court's decision — finding that Gilead is liable for delaying commercialization of a safer HIV drug to maximize profits on another drug — threatens to undermine long-standing rules of corporate law and exposes companies to liability for decisions based on sound business judgment, says Shireen Barday at Pallas.
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Class Action Law Makes An LLC A 'Jurisdictional Platypus'
The applicability of Section 1332(d)(10) of the Class Action Fairness Act is still widely misunderstood — and given the ambiguous nature of limited liability companies, the law will likely continue to confound courts and litigants — so parties should be prepared for a range of outcomes, says Andrew Gunem at Strauss Borrelli.
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Unpacking The Latest FTC Guidance On Multilevel Marketing
Branko Jovanovic and Monica Zhong at Edgeworth Economics discuss the Federal Trade Commission's recent advice for multilevel marketers on how MLMs should approach their income and earnings reports, including participants costs, typical proceeds and distributor gains.