Consumer Protection

  • 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.

  • December 17, 2024

    TelexFree Victims Seek Class Cert. Over Ponzi Losses

    Victims of the multibillion-dollar TelexFree Ponzi scheme have asked a federal judge to certify their class in their suit against the litigation's remaining defendants, including TelexFree insiders and Wells Fargo, arguing that cases arising from Ponzi schemes are the "very archetypes for class treatment."

  • December 17, 2024

    Copyright Officials Say Rest Of AI Report To Come Next Year

    The U.S. Copyright Office says it won't be until early next year that it plans to submit the remainder of a report on the intersection of artificial intelligence and copyright law.

  • December 17, 2024

    Fla. Judge Trims Suit Over Misrepresented Pickleball Paddles

    A Florida federal judge on Tuesday declined to completely toss a proposed class action brought by a pickleball player accusing a paddle manufacturer of deceptively marketing its products as certified by the sport's governing body, dismissing the suit's breach of warranty counts but saying its primary consumer protection claims would remain intact.

  • December 17, 2024

    NTIA Puts $450M More Toward Wireless Supply Chain

    The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is putting an additional $450 million toward helping the industry build open radio access networks, which many have pointed to as the solution for pivoting away from Chinese-made technology due to security concerns.

  • December 17, 2024

    SEC, CFTC Members Eye Crypto Coordination Under Trump

    Republican commissioners at the federal securities and futures regulators told crypto industry participants on Tuesday that they will urge their agencies to collaborate more closely on providing regulatory relief and clarity in the new year as they wait for lawmakers to get long-awaited crypto legislation across the finish line.

  • December 17, 2024

    Quinn Emanuel, Keller Postman Want To Lead Live Nation Suit

    Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and Keller Postman LLC attorneys told a California federal court that they are best suited to represent proposed classes of consumers accusing Live Nation and Ticketmaster of monopolizing the ticketing services space, saying they "developed the heart" of the consumers' claims.

  • December 17, 2024

    Google-Apple Collusion Plaintiff Asks 9th Circ. To Revive Suit

    A California crane operator training school asked the Ninth Circuit on Monday to revive its case accusing Google of paying Apple to refrain from developing its own search engine in light of a recent Washington, D.C., federal judge's decision that Google monopolizes the search market.

  • December 17, 2024

    FTC, Meta Fight Over Monopolization Trial Limits

    Meta Platforms and the FTC are butting heads about how to structure the trial they are hurtling toward in April in D.C. federal court over the agency's monopolization claims, trading barbs Tuesday and trying to make their cases for how they think the multiweek trial should look.

  • December 17, 2024

    DOJ Antitrust Division Head Kanter Stepping Down Friday

    The head of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division, Jonathan Kanter, announced his imminent departure Tuesday, leaving the agency after a little over three years and with a legacy of dramatically ramped-up monopolization enforcement, an extremely low tolerance for potentially problematic transactions and more aggressive criminal enforcement.

  • December 17, 2024

    Insurer Gets $29M Fatal Crash Judgment Thrown Out

    A North Carolina appeals court on Tuesday threw out a nearly $29 million judgment against an insurance company in a suit alleging it failed to defend and settle claims from a fatal car accident, saying the company had no duty to defend.

  • December 17, 2024

    T-Mobile-UScellular Link Will Help Consumers, Think Tank Says

    A free-market think tank is urging the federal government to clear the way for T-Mobile's $4.4 billion purchase of UScellular's wireless operations, saying in a new report that because the smaller UScellular poses no real competitive threat to T-Mobile, the deal could carry significant consumer benefits through increased competition.

  • December 17, 2024

    Visa Says 'Contradictory' Debit Card Market Dooms DOJ Suit

    Visa Inc. formally asked a New York federal judge Monday to nix the U.S. Department of Justice monopolization lawsuit accusing it of paying off would-be debit network rivals and penalizing the use of alternate payment systems, arguing the government cannot mix-and-match its way into claiming the company holds a dominant market share.

  • December 17, 2024

    AGs Can File Opposition To Clearview AI BIPA Deal

    An Illinois federal judge is allowing 22 states and the District of Columbia to challenge a deal to end multidistrict litigation over Clearview AI's practice of automatically collecting biometric facial data online, with attorneys general arguing the settlement would provide no meaningful injunctive relief and give plaintiffs an unknown financial stake in the company.

  • December 17, 2024

    House GOP Asks CVS How Its PBM Treats Smaller Pharmacies

    Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are demanding documents from CVS on its pharmacy benefit manager's treatment of independent pharmacies, continuing to press the healthcare giant over potentially anticompetitive conduct.

  • December 17, 2024

    CFPB Finalizes Rule For PACE Loans

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday finalized a rule that applies standard mortgage protections to so-called Property Assessed Clean Energy loans, where homeowners pay for upgrades through property tax bills.

  • December 17, 2024

    Grubhub To Pay $25M To End FTC Suit Over Deceptive Tactics

    The Federal Trade Commission and the Illinois attorney general teamed up Tuesday to announce a settlement that requires Grubhub Inc. to pay $25 million to resolve claims that the food-delivery service charged customers hidden junk fees, listed restaurants on its app without their permission and misled drivers about how much money they could make.

  • December 17, 2024

    Roblox, Epic Games Accused Of Addicting Minors

    A suit filed in California state court has alleged that Epic Games and Roblox purposefully addict minors to playing their video games, knowing that the more time that they spend playing games, the more they will spend on in-game purchases.

  • December 17, 2024

    Rival Says In-Flight Internet Provider Gogo Foils Competitors

    SmartSky Networks LLC is seeking more than $1 billion in damages in a new lawsuit accusing Gogo Business Aviation LLC of blocking its entry in the market for internet service on business flights, building on an intellectual property dispute between the companies.

  • December 17, 2024

    Asset Manager Gets 2½ Years For Role In $1.2B PDVSA Scheme

    A Florida federal judge on Tuesday sentenced an asset manager who pled guilty to participating in a $1.2 billion scheme to embezzle money from Venezuela's state-owned oil company to 2½ years in prison.

  • December 17, 2024

    Senate Dem's Bill Would Mandate New FCC Outage Reports

    Networks that receive funding to help them rebound from climate-related disasters would need to file new reports of outages to the Federal Communications Commission under a Democratic bill filed in the U.S. Senate.

  • December 17, 2024

    Apple Fights Epic's Atty Privilege Challenge Win Over Docs

    Apple has asked a California federal judge to overturn a magistrate judge and allow it to withhold documents in a discovery spat with Epic Games, arguing Monday the documents in the antitrust case aren't simply business analyses but rather, reflect "'legal advice on a business decision,' which is protected."

  • December 17, 2024

    Heartland Payment Settles Florida School Lunch Card Suit

    Parents from Florida and elsewhere have settled a proposed federal class action with a payment processor over alleged unfair surcharges collected after depositing lunch money onto school-sponsored reloadable cards used by their kids.

Expert Analysis

  • How To Avoid Liability When Using Cookie Consent Managers

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    As companies attempt to comply with consumer protection laws by implementing cookie consent managers on their websites, they must be wary of separate legal risks that can stem from implementing or using these tools incorrectly, says Ian Cohen at LOKKER.

  • 6 Tips For Trying Cases Away From Home

    Excerpt from Practical Guidance
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    A truly national litigation practice, by definition, often requires trying cases in jurisdictions across the country, which presents unique challenges that require methodical preparation and coordination both within the trial team and externally, say Edward Bennett and Suzanne Salgado at Williams & Connolly.

  • Taking Stock Of FCC's New Spectrum Rule For Drones

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    While an order recently adopted by the Federal Communications Commission is intended to provide drones with rapid access to a limited amount of spectrum in the 5030-5091 megahertz band, the commission envisions an incremental approach to full usage that will play out over the course of the coming months and years, say attorneys at Wiley.

  • 3 Coverage Tips As 2nd Circ. 'Swipes Left' On Tinder Claim

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    The Second Circuit's recent opinion in Match Group v. Beazley Underwriting, overturning Tinder's victory on its insurer's motion to dismiss a coverage action, reinforces three best practices policyholders purchasing claims-made coverage should adhere to in order to avoid late-notice defenses, say Lynda Bennett and Alexander Corson at Lowenstein Sandler.

  • Proposed Legislation May Crack Down On Online Drug Ads

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    A bill recently proposed in Congress could serve as a sea change in how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates drug-related speech, with significant trickle-down effects on various corners of not only the drug industry but also on consumers and providers themselves, say Dominick DiSabatino and Arushi Pandya at Sheppard Mullin.

  • How Loper Bright Is Affecting Pending FCC Litigation

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    Pending challenges against Federal Communications Commission orders at the Sixth and Eleventh Circuits following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright highlight that counsel must be familiar with the statutes, regulations and precedent relevant to the FCC to best navigate the rapidly changing compliance landscape, say attorneys at Davis Wright.

  • A Blueprint For Structuring An Effective Plaintiff Case Story

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    The number and size of nuclear verdicts continue to rise, in part because plaintiffs attorneys have become more adept at crafting compelling trial stories — and an analysis of these success stories reveals a 10-part framework for structuring an effective case narrative, says Jonathan Ross at Decision Analysis.

  • Series

    Round-Canopy Parachuting Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Similar to the practice of law, jumping from an in-flight airplane with nothing but training and a few yards of parachute silk is a demanding and stressful endeavor, and the experience has bolstered my legal practice by enhancing my focus, teamwork skills and sense of perspective, says Thomas Salerno at Stinson.

  • Dealmaker Lessons From CFIUS' New Enforcement Webpage

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    The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States’ recently launched webpage, which details the actions — and inactions — that led to enforcement activity, provides important insights for dealmakers about filing requirements, mitigation commitments and the cost of noncompliance, say attorneys at Dechert.

  • What's In Colorado's 1st-Of-Its-Kind Neural Privacy Law

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    Colorado recently became the first U.S. state to directly regulate neurotechnology with new legislation amending the Colorado Privacy Act to specifically protect biological and neural data, offering an example of how lawmakers can tackle the perceived regulation gaps in this area, say attorneys at Goodwin.

  • What To Expect From Calif. Bill Regulating PE In Healthcare

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    A California bill currently awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom's approval, intended to increase oversight over private equity and hedge fund investments in healthcare, is emblematic of recent increased scrutiny of investments in the space, and may affect transactions and operations in California in a number of ways, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • Why Now Is The Time For Law Firms To Hire Lateral Partners

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    Partner and associate mobility data from the second quarter of this year suggest that there's never been a better time in recent years for law firms to hire lateral candidates, particularly experienced partners — though this necessitates an understanding of potential red flags, say Julie Henson and Greg Hamman at Decipher Investigative Intelligence.

  • Considering Possible PR Risks Of Certain Legal Tactics

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    Disney and American Airlines recently abandoned certain litigation tactics in two lawsuits after fierce public backlash, illustrating why corporate counsel should consider the reputational implications of any legal strategy and partner with their communications teams to preempt public relations concerns, says Chris Gidez at G7 Reputation Advisory.

  • What To Know About Insurance Coverage For Antitrust Risks

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    With all the regulatory activity surrounding antitrust and unfair competition claims, as highlighted by last month's D.C. federal court decision that Google is a monopolist, businesses must not only ensure compliance, but also understand their potential insurance coverage when such claims arise, says Micah Skidmore at Haynes Boone.

  • Exploring Practical Employer Alternatives To Noncompetes

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    With the Federal Trade Commission likely to appeal a federal court’s recent rejection of its noncompete ban, and more states limiting the enforceability of these agreements, employers should consider back-to-basics methods for protecting their business interests and safeguarding sensitive information, says Brendan Horgan at FordHarrison.

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