Consumer Protection

  • December 23, 2024

    Altria Unit Convinces Calif. Court To Ban Retail Elf Bar Sales

    The e-cigarette unit of tobacco giant Altria Group scored a legal victory against the highly popular flavored vape brand Elf Bar after it convinced a California federal judge to block a number of smoke shops from selling the Chinese made products.

  • December 23, 2024

    Google Counters DOJ's Proposed Chrome Sale

    Google has countered the Justice Department's proposed divestiture of the Chrome browser in a brief filed in D.C. federal court arguing the proper fix for its illegal search monopoly would be to allow Android phone makers and browser companies the ability to more readily pick rival engines.

  • December 23, 2024

    Thompson Coburn Data Breach Plaintiffs Aim To Consolidate

    Plaintiffs seeking restitution from Thompson Coburn LLP over a data breach filled a motion Friday to consolidate the group's eight proposed class actions, as well as appoint three attorneys to interim class counsel over the potential master case.

  • December 23, 2024

    Attys Get A Third Of $1.3M Settlement With Legal Data Co.

    A Kansas federal judge has awarded counsel one-third of a $1.3 million settlement in a class action against data and professional services company UnitedLex Corp. that allegedly exposed 200 gigabytes of sensitive information during a March 2023 data breach.

  • December 23, 2024

    House Report Says Gaetz Paid For Sex, Accepted Gifts

    Former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz regularly paid women for sex, including with one 17-year-old girl, used illicit drugs and accepted a trip to the Bahamas in excess of permissible gift amounts, according to a report released Monday morning by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ethics.

  • December 20, 2024

    Banks, Not Credit Cos., Can Duck New Ill. Fee Law For Now

    An Illinois federal judge ruled Friday that credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard must comply with Illinois' landmark law restricting certain credit card fees; however, she also held that national banks and federal savings associations aren't subject to the law, at least for now.

  • December 20, 2024

    SEC's Dealer Rule Loss Is A Lesson To Regulators, Atty Says

    A Sullivan & Cromwell LLP attorney who successfully litigated a crypto industry challenge to vacate a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule expanding the definition of dealer said the Texas federal judge's decision is another block in the recent chain of court decisions warning federal agencies to refrain from stretching old statutory terms to reach new contexts that aren't clearly within their authority.

  • December 20, 2024

    RealPage Can't Transfer Enforcers' Rent-Fix Case Out Of NC

    RealPage cannot get the government's antitrust case against it moved either to the Tennessee court overseeing similar civil litigation or to Texas, where the rental software maker is headquartered, a North Carolina federal judge ruled Friday.

  • December 20, 2024

    Cable Org. Warns Members About FCC Robocall Enforcement

    Voice service providers need to make sure their Robocall Mitigation Database filings meet existing requirements, because if they aren't, the Federal Communications Commission is ready to start delisting companies and blocking them from providing voice service.

  • December 20, 2024

    Binance Investors Seek To Update Suit After Federal Charges

    A proposed class of Binance investors has asked a Florida federal judge to allow them to file a new complaint that drops some defendants and hones in on the crypto exchange and its former CEO in the wake of their historic settlement with U.S. authorities over alleged compliance failures.

  • December 20, 2024

    TikTok Divestment Deadline Must Be Extended, Senators Say

    TikTok is set to be removed from app stores in the United States in less than a month, but two senators have urged President Joe Biden to kick the can down the road with an extension that would prevent "serious hardship" to both creators and users.

  • December 20, 2024

    Suit Slams SEC's Use Of 'Career Death Penalty'

    A father and son who settled allegations of defrauding investment advisory clients with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are suing in D.C. federal court to block the agency from barring them from the securities industry, claiming that the administrative case is unconstitutional.

  • December 20, 2024

    Fed. Circ. Says Teva Inhaler Patents Can't Be In Orange Book

    The Federal Circuit on Friday upheld a decision that Teva Pharmaceuticals improperly listed its asthma inhaler patents in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Orange Book, saying that only patents that claim a drug's active ingredient can be included in the database.

  • December 20, 2024

    Crypto Trading Co. To Pay SEC $123M Over Terraform Claims

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Friday that it secured a $123 million settlement with a Jump Trading subsidiary for allegedly misleading investors about the stability of the now-collapsed Terraform ecosystem by effectively propping up the project's flagship token following a trading arrangement made while the token dipped in value.

  • December 20, 2024

    Amazon Touted Efforts To Curb Price-Gouging, Shoppers Say

    A group of online shoppers said Thursday that Amazon can't dodge litigation alleging price-gouging during the pandemic, arguing that the retail giant's efforts to toss the case are contradicted by earlier public statements "trumpeting" the company's work with Washington's attorney general to enforce the state's consumer protection law against price-gougers.

  • December 20, 2024

    Insurer Gets Out Of Ga. Sperm Bank's Bad Seed Claims

    A Georgia federal judge said Allied World Surplus Lines Insurance Co. has no duty to defend a sperm bank that has been sued in Canada and the United States for allegedly selling semen from a donor with genetic abnormalities.

  • December 20, 2024

    Car Dealerships Reach $20M Junk Fee Deal With FTC, Ill. AG

    A group of 10 car dealerships and their parent company have agreed to pay $20 million to settle a lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission and the state of Illinois alleging they systematically defrauded thousands of car buyers through illegal prize mailers, undisclosed junk fees and phony online reviews.

  • December 20, 2024

    Medical Records Co. Wants Rival's Antitrust Suit Tossed

    Epic Systems Corp. told a New York federal court that an antitrust case lodged by Particle Health Inc. is really just payback for revealing concerns that Particle allowed its customers to inappropriately access personal medical records.

  • December 20, 2024

    No, Microsoft Isn't Driving DOJ's Google Antitrust Suit: Judge

    A D.C. federal judge pushed back Friday on Google's efforts to paint Microsoft as the true plaintiff in the Justice Department's search monopolization lawsuit, casting doubt during a hearing that Google should get even more information about Microsoft's relationship with ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

  • December 20, 2024

    The Top Cases Of 2024 In Texas: Year In Review

    Texas closed out the year with blockbuster rulings on social media companies’ use of biometric data and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s expanded definition of a dealer. Here are the biggest decisions out of Texas that topped Law360’s radar this year.

  • December 20, 2024

    Trade Panel Strikes Down Mexico's Curbs On Biotech Corn

    Mexico's 2023 restrictions on the use of genetically modified corn to make tortillas and animal feed violated the country's trade accord with the U.S., a dispute settlement panel ruled Friday, finding that the policy was not based on sound science. 

  • December 20, 2024

    Edward Jones, Others To Return $8.2M To Mutual Fund Clients

    Edward Jones and two firms that oversee mutual funds have agreed to collectively return $8.2 million to customers who were allegedly made to pay excess sales charges and fees, according to a Friday statement from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.

  • December 20, 2024

    Top Product Liability Cases Of 2024

    Some of the top cases for product liability for 2024 include an Ohio Supreme Court ruling on opioids and public nuisance, baby formula trials and an appellate decision in Fosamax litigation. 

  • December 20, 2024

    DC Circ. Says Toxic Subtances Rule Threatens Trade Secrets

    A D.C. Circuit panel on Friday threw out a facet of new Toxic Substances Control Act regulations that the judges said could lead to the unwanted disclosure of chemical manufacturers' trade secrets.

  • December 20, 2024

    FDA Updates Definition Of 'Healthy' Claims On Food Labels

    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a final rule to update the definition of "healthy" claims on food labels, saying there is an epidemic of diseases in the country that are related to diet.

Expert Analysis

  • 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.

  • 6th Circ. Preemption Ruling Adds Uncertainty For Car Cos.

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    Automakers and their suppliers need uniformity under the law to create sufficient scale and viable markets — but the Sixth Circuit's recent decision in Fenner v. General Motors creates more uncertainty around the question of when state law consumer claims related to violations of federal vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards are preempted, say attorneys at Sidley.

  • State Of The States' AI Legal Ethics Landscape

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    Over the past year, several state bar associations, as well as the American Bar Association, have released guidance on the ethical use of artificial intelligence in legal practice, all of which share overarching themes and some nuanced differences, say Eric Pacifici and Kevin Henderson at SMB Law Group.

  • How Biden Admin Has Used Antitrust Tools, And What's Next

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    The last four years have been marked by an aggressive whole-of-government approach to antitrust enforcement using a broad range of tools, and may result in lasting change regardless of the upcoming presidential election result, say attorneys at Norton Rose.

  • Cos. Face Increasing Risk From Environmental Citizen Suits

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    Environmental citizen suits stepping in to fill the regulatory vacuum concerning consumer goods waste may soon become more common, and the evolving procedural landscape and changes to environmental law may contribute to companies' increased exposure, say J. Michael Showalter and Bradley Rochlen at ArentFox Schiff.

  • How BIS' Rule Seeks To Encourage More Voluntary Disclosure

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    Updated incentives, penalties and enforcement resources in the Bureau of Industry and Security's recently published final rule revising the Export Administration Regulations should help companies decide how to implement export control compliance programs and whether to disclose possible violations, say attorneys at Freshfields.

  • 8 Childhood Lessons That Can Help You Be A Better Attorney

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    A new school year is underway, marking a fitting time for attorneys to reflect on some fundamental life lessons from early childhood that offer a framework for problems that no legal textbook can solve, say Chris Gismondi and Chris Campbell at DLA Piper.

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