Consumer Protection

  • December 18, 2024

    Acima Says CFPB's 'Baseless' Power-Grab Suit Must Go

    Rent-A-Center affiliate Acima has urged a Utah federal judge to throw out a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lawsuit accusing the lease-to-own fintech company of predatory lending practices, arguing that the agency has an unconstitutional funding mechanism and lacks the authority to regulate lease-to-own businesses, among other things.

  • December 18, 2024

    Schools Fighting Price-Fixing Suit Face $685M Damages Claim

    Students looking to hold a group of elite universities and colleges liable for an allegedly anticompetitive financial aid fixing scheme say they should be allowed to proceed as a class because they'll use common evidence to prove they suffered about $685 million in damages.

  • December 18, 2024

    Monsanto Protests DNA Damage Argument In PCB Closings

    An attorney in a toxic tort against Monsanto drew a sustained objection from the company's defense during closings Wednesday as he attempted to argue that some of the young girls allegedly exposed to PCBs "will give birth to children with altered DNA," as counsel sparred over whether the plaintiffs suffered "generational harm."

  • December 18, 2024

    Funding Bill Takes In Broadband, Ticketing, Privacy

    A congressional spending package that would fund the federal government through March is set to include a slew of bipartisan proposals aimed at digital security, online pricing transparency and rural broadband access.

  • December 18, 2024

    LA Dodgers Must Face Disabled Fan's ADA Suit

    A California federal judge has refused to end a Los Angeles Dodgers gamegoer's negligence suit alleging he fell and hurt himself after being denied permission to bring his cane into the stadium, finding Tuesday that the purported denial exposed the man, who had to use stairs without handrails, to an unreasonable risk of harm.

  • December 18, 2024

    State AGs, Generic Cos. Fight Over Price-Fixing Trial Order

    A contingent of state-level enforcers told a Connecticut federal court there is no need to reconsider prioritizing a sprawling generic drug price-fixing case that involves more than 100 medications over a narrower case the drugmakers are asking to have tried first.

  • December 18, 2024

    DOJ Wants Misconduct Allegations Hushed In Used Car Case

    The U.S. Department of Justice wants to bar defendants accused of violently controlling the cross-border transport of American used cars into Central America from raising accusations of misconduct by nonwitness law enforcement officers to the jury without prior approval from the Texas federal judge overseeing the case.

  • December 18, 2024

    11th Circ. Doubtful Of FCC's Marketing Consent Clampdown

    Eleventh Circuit judges appeared skeptical Wednesday of the Federal Communications Commission's legal justification for a marketing rule that requires selecting businesses on an individual basis through comparison shopping sites before the businesses can reach out to consumers.

  • December 18, 2024

    Judge Wants To Know If Colo. Kroger Merger Fight Is Moot

    A Colorado state judge wants to know whether two recent decisions blocking the proposed $24.6 billion merger of The Kroger Co. and Albertsons Cos. Inc. has mooted Attorney General Phillip J. Weiser's challenge to the transaction, according to a briefing plan approved Tuesday. 

  • December 18, 2024

    Family Dollar Sues Supplier Over Cable That Burned Buyer

    Family Dollar Services LLC is suing one of its suppliers, alleging that it sold the retail chain a faulty lightning charger cord that malfunctioned and burned a minor who was using it.

  • December 18, 2024

    CVS Fueled Opioid Epidemic In Rush For Profits, Feds Say

    The U.S. Department of Justice unveiled a suit Wednesday accusing CVS, the nation's largest pharmacy chain, of knowingly filling invalid prescriptions for powerful opioids and ignoring internal pleas from its pharmacists as it allegedly put profits over safety. 

  • December 18, 2024

    Conn. AG Can't Close Courtroom In Ghost Gun Hearing

    A Connecticut state judge won't close the courtroom for a damages hearing in a suit by the state against an online shop selling so-called ghost gun kits, saying the public's interest in the facts of the case outweighs the state's concerns about an undercover investigator's safety.

  • December 18, 2024

    FTC Wants Express Scripts' Defamation Suit Tossed

    The Federal Trade Commission told a Missouri federal court that Express Scripts Inc. has no basis to challenge an interim agency report that only offered "qualified conclusions" from an ongoing study about how pharmacy benefit managers affect prescription drug prices.

  • December 18, 2024

    Congress Passes $3B Funding For FCC's 'Rip And Replace'

    The U.S. Senate cleared legislation Wednesday to fully fund the Federal Communications Commission's "rip and replace" telecom security program to the tune of $3.08 billion as part of a sweeping defense spending authorization.

  • December 18, 2024

    Mobile Game Co. Can Arbitrate False Advertising Claims

    A Manhattan federal judge said mobile game maker Papaya Gaming can arbitrate claims it misleadingly represents that users can compete with other live people, ruling that the terms of use contained valid arbitration clauses.

  • December 18, 2024

    RJ Reynolds Asks Justices To Toss Forum Shopping Argument

    R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co. is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's argument that the vape company engaged in forum shopping when it challenged denial of one of its applications in the Fifth Circuit, saying its Texas- and Mississippi-based co-petitioners make the Fifth Circuit the proper venue.

  • December 18, 2024

    Connecticut AG Gets Remand Of 'Forever Chemicals' Suit

    A Connecticut federal judge has shipped one of the state's PFAS "forever chemicals" lawsuits back to state court, siding with the state attorney general's argument that the case targeted pollution from consumer products and civilian industrial sources that were not "inextricably commingled" with chemicals produced to military specifications.

  • December 18, 2024

    Hagens Berman Says Apple, Amazon Doc Demand Is Off Base

    Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP is firing back against Apple and Amazon's bid to force the turnover of texts and emails with a client who disappeared from a putative class action against the tech giants, calling the spat an opportunistic attack "based on a fiction."

  • December 18, 2024

    Yale Eyes Quick Win In $435M Conn. Hospital Purchase Suit

    Yale New Haven Health Services Corp. has asked a Connecticut state court judge for permission to file a summary judgment motion in a feud with Prospect Medical Holdings Inc. over the sale of several hospitals in the state, saying Prospect's "stunning" failure to fund pensions and pay taxes resulted in property liens that breached the $435 million deal.

  • December 18, 2024

    High Court To Review TikTok Sale-Or-Ban Law

    The U.S. Supreme Court announced Wednesday that it will fully review TikTok's First Amendment challenge to a federal law requiring the wildly popular social media platform to divest from its Chinese parent company or face a nationwide ban, scheduling expedited oral arguments one week before the law's effective date.

  • December 18, 2024

    CFPB Says Credit Card Point Devaluation May Break The Law

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau warned Wednesday that credit card companies risk violating federal law when they or their merchant partners devalue rewards points and miles banked by their cardholders, casting it as a potential "bait-and-switch."

  • December 17, 2024

    GOP Hill Leaders Pledge To Prioritize Crypto Bills Next Year

    Lawmakers told crypto industry participants Tuesday that they plan to keep digital assets top of mind in the coming legislative session by prioritizing bills on a regulatory structure for stablecoins and digital asset markets, as well as digging into allegations bank regulators have unfairly targeted crypto businesses.

  • December 17, 2024

    FTC Finalizes New Rule Cracking Down On 'Junk Fees'

    The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday announced it has finalized a bipartisan rule barring businesses in the event ticketing and lodging industries from using bait-and-switch pricing and other tactics to sneakily foist so-called junk fees on consumers.

  • December 17, 2024

    Monsanto Owes $690M In Latest Wash. PCB Trial, Jurors Told

    Fifteen people who say they were poisoned by Monsanto-made chemicals asked a Washington state jury to award them $690 million plus even more in punitive damages on Tuesday, rounding out a two-month trial as the company argued the request for "generational wealth" isn't backed by enough evidence to attribute their ailments to the toxins known as PCBs.

  • December 17, 2024

    Tubi Says Keller Postman Kept Its Clients In The Dark

    Most of the people named in now-dropped arbitration demands filed by Keller Postman LLC against streaming service Tubi didn't know what the claims were or even that the firm purported to represent them, Tubi has told a Washington, D.C., federal judge.

Expert Analysis

  • Opinion

    Rental Price-Fixing Suit Against RealPage Doesn't Add Up

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    Recent government antitrust litigation against RealPage, alleging that the software company's algorithm for setting rental prices amounts to price-fixing, has failed to allege an actual conspiracy, and is an example of regulatory overreach that should be reined in, says Andrew Ketterer at Ketterer & Ketterer.

  • Compliance Pointers For Amended Pa. Data Breach Law

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    Recent updates to the Pennsylvania Breach of Personal Information Notification Act include a requirement that organizations alert the state's attorney general of certain consumer data breach notifications, and several incident response and cybersecurity considerations will be necessary to ensure compliance, say Matthew Meade and Laura Decker at Eckert Seamans.

  • Opinion

    FDIC's Foray Into Index Fund Rules Risks Regulatory Chaos

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    A proposed Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. rule concerning control over passive index fund investments in banks is outside the agency's remit, clashes with an existing Federal Reserve process and would inhibit competition in the index fund sector, says J.W. Verret at George Mason University.

  • Use The Right Kind Of Feedback To Help Gen Z Attorneys

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    Generation Z associates bring unique perspectives and expectations to the workplace, so it’s imperative that supervising attorneys adapt their feedback approach in order to help young lawyers learn and grow — which is good for law firms, too, says Rachael Bosch at Fringe Professional Development.

  • Ga. Fintech Bank Charter Could Reshape Payments Industry

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    Georgia’s recent granting of a special banking charter to transaction processor Fiserv, allowing the fintech company to access major card payment networks without a traditional bank as intermediary, could spark a restructuring of the national payments infrastructure and open new possibilities for businesses and consumers, says Jessica Cino at Krevolin & Horst.

  • Opinion

    Congress Can And Must Enact A Supreme Court Ethics Code

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    As public confidence in the U.S. Supreme Court dips to historic lows following reports raising conflict of interest concerns, Congress must exercise its constitutional power to enact a mandatory and enforceable code of ethics for the high court, says Muhammad Faridi, president of the New York City Bar Association.

  • Series

    The Pop Culture Docket: Justice Lebovits On Gilbert And Sullivan

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    Characters in the 19th century comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan break the rules of good lawyering by shamelessly throwing responsible critical thought to the wind, providing hilarious lessons for lawyers and judges on how to avoid a surfeit of traps and tribulations, say acting New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits and law student Tara Scown.

  • California's AI Safety Bill Veto: The Path Forward

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    California Gov. Gavin Newsom's veto of a bill that sought to impose stringent regulations on advanced artificial intelligence model development has sparked a renewed debate on how best to balance innovation with safety in the rapidly evolving AI landscape, say Bobby Malhotra and Carson Swope at Winston & Strawn.

  • Staying Off The CFPB's Financial Services Offender Registry

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    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's soon-to-launch registry of financial services companies that have faced public enforcement orders is designed to ratchet up long-term scrutiny of entities that could become repeat offenders, so companies should take their new compliance and filing requirements seriously, say Andrea Mitchell and Chris Napier at Mitchell Sandler.

  • New TCPA Rule Faces Uncertain Future Post-Loper Bright

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    The Federal Communications Commission's new rule aiming to eliminate lead generators' use of unlawful robocalls is now in doubt with the U.S. Supreme Court's Loper Bright decision, and the Eleventh Circuit's Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC is poised to be a test case of the agency's ability to enforce the Telephone Consumer Protection Act post-Chevron, say attorneys at Baker McKenzie.

  • To Report Or Not To Report Others' Export Control Violations

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    A recent Bureau of Industry and Security enforcement policy change grants cooperation credit to those that report violations of the Export Administration Regulations committed by others, but the benefits of doing so must be weighed against significant drawbacks, including the costs of preparing and submitting a report, says Megan Lew at Cravath.

  • Earned Wage Access Laws Form A Prickly Policy Patchwork

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    Conflicting earned wage access laws across the country, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recently issued rule, mean providers must adopt a proactive compliance approach and adjust business models where needed, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.

  • What FDIC Expansion Of Change In Bank Control Could Mean

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    A recent Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. proposal pertaining to the Change in Bank Control Act has the potential to create uncertainty around investments by mutual fund complexes in banking organizations, which represent a stable source of capital for the banking industry, say attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.

  • HSR Amendments Intensify Merger Filing Burdens, Data Risk

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    The antitrust agencies' long-awaited changes to premerger notification rules under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act stand to significantly increase the time and cost involved in preparing an initial HSR notification, and will require more proactive attention to data issues, says Andrew Szwez at FTI Technology.

  • Deadline Extension Highlights PFAS Reporting Complexities

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    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's recent extension of reporting and recordkeeping timelines for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances under the Toxic Substances Control Act offers relief to the regulated community, but the unprecedented volume of data required means that businesses must remain diligent in their data collection efforts, say attorneys at Alston & Bird.

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