Consumer Protection

  • February 27, 2025

    Apple Falsely Touted Watches As 'Carbon Neutral,' Buyers Say

    Apple Watch purchasers on Wednesday lodged a proposed class action in California federal court, claiming that the tech giant marketed various smartwatch products as "carbon neutral" despite Apple not actually providing "genuine, additional carbon reductions."

  • February 27, 2025

    FTC Asks To Delay In-House PBM Insulin Case

    Arguing that pharmacy benefit managers accused of artificially inflating insulin prices have already "unreasonably delayed" discovery, the Federal Trade Commission is asking an in-house judge to push back an evidentiary trial in the case, saying it would allow the administrative court more time to accommodate up to 17 expert witnesses.

  • February 27, 2025

    Feds Can't Dodge Firefighting Foam Suits Yet, SC Judge Rules

    A South Carolina federal judge on Thursday denied the U.S. government's push to escape dozens of suits over contamination allegedly stemming from its use of forever chemical-containing firefighting foams, saying cases involving a military base in New Mexico showed its global motion to dismiss to be inappropriate.

  • February 27, 2025

    Safeway Peanut Butter Cookies Caused Death, Suit Says

    Albertsons and Safeway are facing a wrongful death lawsuit from the family of an elderly Washington woman who allegedly bought supermarket cookies mislabeled as oatmeal raisin that contained undeclared peanuts, which triggered a fatal allergic reaction.

  • February 27, 2025

    Black Homebuyers' Predatory Loan Settlement Gets Final OK

    A Michigan class of Black homebuyers have gotten final approval for their $750,000 deal to end claims against real estate companies and their investors who allegedly bought up run-down Detroit properties to sell with abusive lending terms.

  • February 27, 2025

    Trump's CFPB Pick Vows To 'Follow The Law' As Cases Pulled

    Trump nominee Jonathan McKernan told U.S. senators on Thursday that he'd be the one calling the shots at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau if confirmed as its director, but his message of independence was muddled by a wave of enforcement dismissals that hit federal courts in the middle of his confirmation hearing.

  • February 27, 2025

    CooperSurgical Says Unique IVF Claims Require Separate Trials

    Fertility company CooperSurgical Inc. is pushing back against the suggestion that four lawsuits accusing the company of negligently destroying embryos with its recalled culture media could be consolidated into one trial, saying the couples' varied location and unique IVF situations preclude joining them.

  • February 27, 2025

    US Vision Beats Suit Over 2021 Ransomware Attack

    A New Jersey federal judge has tossed a proposed class action alleging U.S. Vision failed to protect the personal information of more than 710,000 patients following a ransomware attack of its network servers in 2021.

  • February 27, 2025

    Alsup Halts 'Illegal' Firings Of Probationary Federal Workers

    U.S. District Judge William Alsup on Thursday temporarily blocked the mass firings of probationary federal employees ordered by President Donald Trump's administration, determining that the Office of Personnel Management illegally directed government agencies to terminate the probationary employees without authority to do so from Congress.

  • February 27, 2025

    FCC Looking At Making TV Commercials Pipe Down Again

    Television commercials might be getting too loud again, the Federal Communications Commission recognized Thursday when it voted to take a look at whether its rules about commercial volume are due for an update.

  • February 27, 2025

    CVS Freed From Hospital's Suit Over Drug Pricing Program

    A Pennsylvania hospital's antitrust lawsuit claiming CVS forced healthcare providers participating in a federal discount drug program to go through the pharmacy chain's administrator has been tossed, with a federal judge ruling the hospital fell short in its allegations of anticompetitive behavior.

  • February 27, 2025

    DOJ Tells DC Circ. To Keep Apple Out Of Google Case

    The U.S. Department of Justice is urging the D.C. Circuit to keep Apple out of its remedies case against Google, arguing that Apple "sat on its hands" for years despite knowing from the outset of the litigation that its default search agreement with Google was at stake.

  • February 27, 2025

    Calif. Data Broker Gets 3-Year Ban For Not Registering

    The California Privacy Protection Agency has notched another settlement in its investigative enforcement of data broker registration compliance, announcing Thursday it had secured a deal that requires a company touting its ability to unearth "scary" amounts of consumer information to cease operations for the next three years.

  • February 27, 2025

    Lead Testing Co. Director To Admit False Statements

    A former quality assurance director for Magellan Diagnostics will plead guilty to making misleading statements to the government about a malfunction in a device that measures lead levels in blood, according to filings in Massachusetts federal court Thursday.

  • February 27, 2025

    Consensys Says SEC Will Drop Its Crypto Case, Too

    The founder of blockchain firm Consensys said on Thursday that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has agreed to drop its enforcement suit over the firm's MetaMask software, marking the second cryptocurrency firm this month to announce a coming dismissal from the agency as it overhauls its approach to the industry.

  • February 27, 2025

    Abbott Beats Ill. Customers' Similac Metals Suit

    Similac customers who say Abbott Laboratories illegally failed to warn the public about heavy metals in its infant formula cannot take those claims to trial because they haven't established damages, an Illinois federal judge said Wednesday.

  • February 27, 2025

    Conn. Supreme Court Snapshot: Water Rates, Judicial Attacks

    An Eversource unit's request to offset inflation and $42 million in new infrastructure projects through rate hikes will top the Connecticut Supreme Court's March docket, with the justices examining another in a list of challenges to state regulators' attempts to keep a lid on customer costs.

  • February 27, 2025

    Defunct School's $5M Deal For Students Gets Final OK

    A Connecticut judge on Thursday approved a $5 million class action settlement between a shuttered nursing school and students affected by its sudden shutdown, also awarding at least $1.25 million to the Milford firm that spearheaded the litigation.

  • February 27, 2025

    Winklevoss Twins Say SEC Crypto Probe Over, Attys Must Go

    The founders of crypto exchange Gemini are calling on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to fire and publicly call out staff members who worked on crypto enforcement cases under the Biden administration as they announced that the agency has dropped its investigation into the company.

  • February 27, 2025

    More CFPB Attys Departing Amid Agency Uncertainty

    Two more Consumer Financial Protection Bureau litigators are leaving the agency as it faces uncertainty due to the new presidential administration, including an attorney who has been with the agency since its creation in 2011.

  • February 27, 2025

    CFPB Pulls Plug On Rocket Homes Kickback Suit

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has abandoned a lawsuit accusing Rocket Homes of offering kickbacks to brokers and agents who referred homebuyers to Rocket Mortgage, one of several enforcement actions the agency abruptly dismissed on Thursday.

  • February 27, 2025

    Deputy AG And Antitrust Nominations Head To Full Senate

    The Senate Judiciary Committee sent the nominations of Todd Blanche, for deputy attorney general, and Gail Slater, for assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, to the full Senate on Thursday, the latter of whom received bipartisan support.

  • February 27, 2025

    Carolinas Law Firm Hit With Suit Over 2024 Data Breach

    Riley Pope & Laney LLC, a law firm with offices in North and South Carolina, was hit with a proposed class action in South Carolina federal court alleging that consumers' personally identifiable information was exposed in a 2024 data breach.

  • February 27, 2025

    CFPB Drops Suits Against Capital One, Rocket Homes, More

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Thursday permanently dropped several lawsuits, including ones against Capital One, a Rocket Mortgage affiliate, a major student loan servicer and the finance arm of a Berkshire Hathaway-owned mobile home builder.

  • February 27, 2025

    Harvard Pilgrim To Pay $16M To Settle Data Breach Claims

    Healthcare company Harvard Pilgrim and its parent company Point32Health Inc. have agreed to pay $16 million to settle a class action over a 2023 data breach that affected nearly 3 million individuals and providers, according to a filing late Wednesday.

Expert Analysis

  • Predicting The Lasting Changes CFPB May Face In 2025

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    President-elect Donald Trump and the incoming Republican-controlled Congress' likely attempts to reshape the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could significantly alter its rulemaking, supervisory and enforcement abilities for years to come, says Jim Sandy at McGlinchey Stafford.

  • The Justices' Securities Rulings, Dismissals That Defined '24

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's 2024 securities rulings led to increased success for defendants' price impact arguments, but the justices' decisions not to weigh in on important issues relating to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act's pleading requirements may be just as significant, say attorneys at Skadden.

  • 10 Noteworthy CFPB Developments From 2024

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    In a banner year for consumer finance regulation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau made significant strides in its efforts to rein in Big Tech and nonbank financial firms, including via rules regarding open banking, credit card late fees, and buy now, pay later products, say attorneys at Wiley.

  • Series

    Fixing Up Cars Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    From problem-solving to patience and adaptability to organization, the skills developed working under the hood of a car directly translate to being a more effective lawyer, says Christopher Mdeway at Kaufman Dolowich.

  • 2024 Has Been A Momentous Year For ESG

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    Significant developments in the environmental, social and governance landscape this year include new legislation, evolving global frameworks, continued litigation and enforcement actions, and a U.S. Supreme Court decision that has already affected how lower courts have viewed some ESG challenges, say attorneys at Katten.

  • 2024's Most Notable FTC Actions Against Dark Patterns And AI

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    In 2024 the Federal Trade Commission ramped up enforcement actions related to dark patterns, loudly signaling its concern that advertisers will use AI to manipulate consumer habits and its intention to curb businesses' use and marketing of AI to prevent alleged consumer deception, say attorneys at Goodwin.

  • Making The Pitch To Grow Your Company's Legal Team

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    In a compressed economy, convincing the C-suite to invest in additional legal talent can be a herculean task, but a convincing pitch — supported by metrics and cost analyses — may help in-house counsel justify the growth of their team, say Elizabeth Smith and Roger Garceau at Major Lindsey.

  • The Story Of 2024's Biggest Bank Regs, And Their Fate In 2025

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    U.S. federal bank regulators were very active in 2024 with initiatives ranging from antitrust and capital to proposals regarding controlling shareholders and incentive-based compensation, but many regulations face an uncertain future under the new administration, say attorneys at Latham.

  • Data Privacy Landscape After Mass. Justices' Wiretap Ruling

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    In Vita v. New England Baptist Hospital, Massachusetts’ highest court recently ruled that the state’s wiretap law doesn’t prohibit all tracking of website user activity, but major financial and reputational risks remain for businesses that aren't transparent about customer’s web data, says Seth Berman at Nutter.

  • Opinion

    1 Year After Rule 702 Changes, Courts Have Made Progress

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    In the year since amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence went into effect, many federal judges have applied the new expert witness standard correctly, excluding unreliable testimony from their courts — but now state courts need to update their own rules accordingly, says Lee Mickus at Evans Fears.

  • Conducting A 'Reasonably Expected Market Area' Analysis

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    Regardless of whether the incoming administration scales back on redlining examinations and investigations, lenders should take steps to understand how regulators define "reasonably expected market areas," and how to conduct analyses of such areas, say attorneys at Mitchell Sandler.

  • Opinion

    Justices Rightly Corrected Course In Nvidia And Facebook

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    By dismissing both the Nvidia and Facebook class actions, over investors' ability to hold corporations accountable for fraud, the U.S. Supreme Court was right in refusing to favor corporations over transparency, and reaffirmed its commitment to corporate accountability, investor protection and the rule of law, says Laura Posner at Cohen Milstein.

  • Gov't Scrutiny Of Workplace Chat Apps Set To Keep Growing

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    The incoming Trump administration and Republican majorities in Congress are poised to open numerous investigations that include increasing demands for entities to produce communications from workplace chat apps, so companies must evaluate their usage and retention policies, say attorneys at Orrick.

  • 2024 Regulatory Developments For Bank-Fintech Partnerships

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    Joseph Silvia at Duane Morris reviews a handful of particularly noteworthy 2024 updates regarding bank-fintech partnerships, including federal banking agencies issuing a number of important pieces of guidance that reiterate and update previous guidance in the area of third-party risk management.

  • An Underutilized Tool To Dismiss Meritless Claims In Texas

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    In Texas, special appearances provide a useful but often overlooked tool for out-of-state defendants to escape meritless claims early in litigation, thus limiting discovery and creating a pathway for immediate appellate review, say attorneys at Winston & Strawn.

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