Consumer Protection

  • February 21, 2025

    Veolia Ends One Of Few Remaining Flint Water Suits For $53M

    A water engineering firm on Friday said it will pay $53 million to settle claims from the state of Michigan and thousands of Flint residents who allege the company failed to properly identify corrosion control treatment issues or alert officials to the dangers of the city's water, prolonging the water crisis.

  • February 21, 2025

    Coinbase Says SEC Will Drop Suit Amid Crypto Policy Shift

    Coinbase said Friday the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has committed to dropping its enforcement action against the crypto exchange, a move that would see the regulator walk away from one of its flagship crypto suits amid a wider policy shift under the Trump administration.

  • February 21, 2025

    High Court Finds FCC's E-Rate Subject To False Claims Act

    The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Friday that telecoms participating in the federal E-Rate program supporting school and library connectivity can be sued for excess payouts under the False Claims Act because the subsidy's funds are provided through the U.S. Treasury.

  • February 20, 2025

    DOJ Says Job Protections For ALJs Are Unconstitutional

    The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday that it no longer backs long-standing job protections for administrative law judges, saying it has determined that the "multiple layers of removal restrictions" shielding ALJs are unconstitutional because they violate the separation of powers doctrine.

  • February 20, 2025

    Calif. Privacy Agency Takes Regulatory Aim At 6th Data Broker

    The California Privacy Protection Agency continued to keep the heat on data brokers Thursday, announcing that it's pursuing a monetary penalty against a Florida-based company that allegedly failed to comply with the registration requirements of a groundbreaking state data deletion law. 

  • February 20, 2025

    New SEC Enforcement Unit Shows Drift From Crypto Focus

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission continued its efforts to shift its approach to digital asset enforcement under the Trump administration when it announced Thursday that it replaced the unit responsible for many of its controversial crypto registration suits with a new fraud-focused iteration that will take a broader focus on "cyber and emerging technologies."

  • February 20, 2025

    FDIC Watchdog Will Review Agency Layoffs' Impact

    The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s inspector general has indicated that she will review how the agency and the larger banking industry will be impacted by the agency's acting Chairman Travis Hill's recent decision to rescind more than 200 job offers to bank examiners following a presidential executive order.

  • February 20, 2025

    Ex-CFPB Chief Chopra Raps 'Totally Weird' Trump Shutdown

    Former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra knocked the Trump administration's efforts to shut down the consumer agency as a bizarre and potentially self-owning policy choice, warning Thursday that it will only hurt businesses and consumers.

  • February 20, 2025

    Chinese App Temu Wants To Arbitrate Minors' Privacy Claims

    Chinese bargain-shopping app Temu has asked a New York federal judge to send to arbitration a proposed class action claiming it misuses users' data, saying an arbitrator must decide any challenges to the terms of a user agreement even though some named class members are minors.

  • February 20, 2025

    Warby Parker Hit With $1.5M Fine After HHS Breach Probe

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday that it has imposed a $1.5 million fine on Warby Parker Inc. following a cyberattack on the eyewear manufacturer's website that exposed the protected health information of nearly 200,000 customers.

  • February 20, 2025

    Judge Narrows Data Breach Suit Against Ga. Logistics Co.

    A group of employees and job applicants who sued a Georgia-based logistics and warehousing company over a 2023 data breach have had their suit trimmed by a Georgia federal judge, who said they failed to plausibly allege several of their claims.

  • February 20, 2025

    SafeMoon Exec Says He'll Cop To 2 Conspiracy Charges

    The chief technology officer behind the alleged SafeMoon LLC crypto fraud was a step closer to changing his not guilty plea Thursday on two of three counts of the indictment — a move that came after a Brooklyn federal judge declined to delay his co-defendant's trial last week.

  • February 20, 2025

    Fed's Barr Defends Long-Term Debt Mandate For Big Banks

    The Federal Reserve's chief bank regulator said Thursday that the country's financial system was "sound and resilient" but warned of increased risks if post-financial crisis reforms aren't maintained and finished, specifically arguing for the implementation of Basel III Endgame rules on liquidity standards and debt requirements.

  • February 20, 2025

    DOJ Keeps Focus In Agri Stats Case Off Specific Data

    A Minnesota federal magistrate judge refused Wednesday to force the U.S. Department of Justice to provide Agri Stats a line-by-line recitation of particular problematic data fields in the company's protein industry reports, finding the agency's explanations about how those reports can facilitate price-fixing are "adequately responsive."

  • February 20, 2025

    Trump Admin Says CFPB Defunding Suit Guesses At Harms

    The Trump administration on Thursday pushed back on a lawsuit alleging it seeks to "defund" the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, arguing that concerns about access to a consumer complaint database and other information are "baseless speculation" about the agency's future financial decisions that don't justify an injunction.

  • February 20, 2025

    Amazon Says FTC 'Stonewalled' Discovery In Antitrust Case

    The Federal Trade Commission is relying on "boilerplate objections and untenable hyper-technicalities" to delay discovery in its antitrust suit against Amazon, the e-commerce giant said in a new motion in Seattle federal court, seeking to force the agency to hand over information about its case.

  • February 20, 2025

    Green Groups Ask 9th Circ. To Press EPA Again On Atrazine

    Environmental groups are urging the Ninth Circuit to reopen a long-running case against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its regulation around the pesticide atrazine, arguing that the agency's yearslong delay in completing a court-ordered review of the chemical has allowed "serious harm to people, plants and wildlife."

  • February 20, 2025

    Publix Accused Of Overcharging Discounted Items In Fla. Suit

    A customer has brought a proposed federal class-action lawsuit in Florida federal court against Publix Super Markets Inc. over alleged deceptive trade practices, saying the grocery store's point-of-sale system intentionally charged more for discounted items sold by weight.

  • February 20, 2025

    Texas Claims NCAA Flouting Order On Trans Athletes

    Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton alleged Thursday that the NCAA's new policy for transgender athletes does not comport with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump designed to keep student athletes from participating in sports other than those designated for their sex assigned at birth.

  • February 20, 2025

    Wells Fargo, AAA Look To Nix Fraudulent Inducement Suit

    Wells Fargo and the American Arbitration Association are urging a California federal judge to nix a proposed class action accusing them of colluding to fraudulently induce consumers into accepting a fundamentally unfair arbitration process, with the bank arguing that the claims must be arbitrated.

  • February 20, 2025

    FCC Dem Decries 'Partisan Investigations' Of Broadcast TV

    A Democratic member of the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday assailed "partisan investigations" of editorial decisions at major broadcast companies launched when the Trump administration took over.

  • February 20, 2025

    Kim Kardashian's Skims Hit With ADA Lawsuit

    A proposed class action filed Thursday in Illinois federal court accuses Skims.com, a shapewear retailer founded by reality star Kim Kardashian, of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act with "significant access barriers" that make it "difficult if not impossible" for visually impaired customers to navigate the website. 

  • February 20, 2025

    11th Circ. Asked To Reinstate FCC's One-To-One Consent Rule

    A pro-consumer group urged the Eleventh Circuit to revisit a ruling last month that overturned the Federal Communications Commission's requirement that individual businesses obtain each consumer's consent to contact them through comparison shopping sites.

  • February 20, 2025

    Schwab Antitrust Settlement With Investors Gets Initial OK

    A Texas federal judge has granted the first green light to a settlement calling for Charles Schwab Corp. to implement an antitrust compliance program designed by an independent consultant, resolving a class of retail investors' claims they had to pay increased transaction costs for trades following the Schwab-TD Ameritrade merger in 2020.

  • February 20, 2025

    Education Tech Firm Faces Class Action In NC Over Data Hack

    A nationwide education technology platform got hit with a proposed class action in North Carolina on Thursday over a "massive and preventable cyberattack" which allegedly exposed personal information including health data for up to 18,000 of its users.

Expert Analysis

  • AI Monitoring And FCRA: Employer Compliance Essentials

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    As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission signal determination to treat AI-based workplace surveillance as a potential Fair Credit Reporting Act issue, employers must commit to educating HR and compliance staff on these quickly evolving regulatory expectations, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.

  • Series

    Circus Arts Make Me A Better Lawyer

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    Performing circus arts has strengthened my ability to be more thoughtful, confident and grounded, all of which has enhanced my legal practice and allowed me to serve clients in a more meaningful way, says Bailey McGowan at Stinson.

  • Crypto Cos. Add New Play In Their Offense Against SEC

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    Consensys and Crypto.com have adopted a novel strategy of preempting U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enforcement actions by moving to crypto-friendly Texas and filing declaratory lawsuits challenging the SEC's jurisdiction to regulate crypto-assets — an aggressive approach that may pay off, say attorneys at Herrick Feinstein.

  • Recent Listeria Outbreaks Hold Key Compliance Lessons

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    Listeria outbreaks in ready-to-eat foods from Boar's Head and other companies, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Food and Drug Administration responses to these outbreaks, should be closely evaluated from an overall compliance and risk management perspective by food manufacturers, retailers and industry investors, say attorneys at Kirkland.

  • 3 Ways To Train Junior Lawyers In 30 Minutes Or Less

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    Today’s junior lawyers are experiencing a skills gap due to pandemic-era disruptions, but firms can help bring them up to speed by offering high-impact skill building content in bite-sized, interactive training sessions, say Stacey Schwartz at Katten, Diane Costigan at Winston & Strawn and Lauren Tierney at Freshfields.

  • 8 Tech Tips For Stress-Free Remote Depositions

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    Court reporter Kelly D’Amico shares practical strategies for attorneys to conduct remote depositions with ease and troubleshoot any issues that arise, as it seems deposition-by-Zoom is here to stay after the pandemic.

  • How To Safely Leverage AI In The Digital Assets Industry

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    Digital asset businesses that use or plan to implement artificial intelligence should assess their risk management frameworks to ensure that AI-related business areas, including customer support and fraud detection, are in compliance with applicable laws and regulatory guidance from the last year, say attorneys at Winston & Strawn.

  • What Cos. Can Learn from Water Microplastics Class Actions

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    Class actions against companies whose bottled spring water allegedly contains microplastics, challenging claims such as "natural" and "100% spring water," seem to be drying up — but these cases serve as a good reminder to other businesses to review regulatory standards, and carefully vet plaintiff allegations at the outset, say attorneys at Keller and Heckman.

  • $3B TD Bank AML Settlement Is A Wake-Up Call For All Banks

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    TD Bank’s historic settlement over anti-money laundering violations, resulting in over $3 billion in penalties, reminds banks of all shapes and sizes why they need to take financial crime compliance seriously, and highlights three areas that may be especially vulnerable to enforcement, says Jack Harrington at Bradley Arant.

  • Opinion

    The Right Kind Of Deregulation In Commercial Airline Industry

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    Similar to the economic deregulation that occurred more than four decades ago during the Carter administration, the incoming Trump administration should restore the very limited federal regulatory role in the economics of the airline industry, says former U.S. transportation secretary James Burnley at Venable.

  • Unpacking The CFPB's Personal Financial Data Final Rule

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    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's personal financial data rights rule includes several important changes from the proposed rule, and hundreds of pages of supplementary information that provide important insights into the manner in which the bureau will enforce the final rule, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • Opinion

    Feds May Have Overstepped In Suit Against Mortgage Lender

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    The U.S. Department of Justice's lawsuit against Rocket Mortgage goes too far in attempting to combat racial bias and appears to fail on the fatal flaw that mortgage lenders should be at arm's length from appraisers, says Drew Ketterer at Ketterer & Ketterer.

  • 4 Ways Attorneys Can Emotionally Prepare For Trial

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    In the course of litigation, trial lawyers face a number of scenarios that can incite an emotional response, but formulating a mental game plan in advance of trial can help attorneys stay cool, calm and collected in the moment, says Rachel Lary at Lightfoot Franklin.

  • The Bar Needs More Clarity On The Discovery Objection Rule

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    Almost 10 years after Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 34 was amended, attorneys still seem confused about what they should include in objections to discovery requests, and until the rules committee provides additional clarity, practitioners must beware the steep costs of noncompliance, says Tristan Ellis at Shanies Law Office.

  • The AI Consumer Class Action Threat Is Not A Hallucination

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    As regulators scrutinize whether businesses can deliver on claims about their artificial intelligence products and services, the industry faces a wave of consumer fraud class actions — but AI companies can protect themselves by prioritizing fundamental best practices that are often overlooked, say Ronald Levine at Herrick Feinstein and Richard Torrenzano at the Torrenzano Group.

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