Try our Advanced Search for more refined results
Consumer Protection
-
October 17, 2024
Oregon Appeals Court Says E-Cig Rules Violate Free Speech
Oregon's intermediate appellate court ruled Wednesday that a state law governing how e-cigarettes and cannabis vapes can be packaged violated guarantees of free speech enshrined in the state's constitution.
-
October 17, 2024
FTC Admits Federal Court Merger Fights Are Usually Decisive
Federal Trade Commission complaint counsel has admitted a reality that the agency has long resisted: While federal court preliminary injunction fights are ostensibly meant only to pause a merger while a merits case plays out through an in-house court, the federal court case usually decides the transaction's fate.
-
October 17, 2024
FCC OKs New Rules Mandating Georouting For 988 Calls
Calls that come into the 988 suicide and crisis hotline will now be routed to centers based on where the call is coming from, following the Federal Communications Commission's decision to adopt rules requiring georouting on Thursday.
-
October 17, 2024
3rd Circ. Undoes Arbitration Denial In Experian Row
The Third Circuit on Thursday clarified its standard for when courts should order discovery into whether a dispute should be arbitrated, in an opinion that said a New Jersey woman had admitted she signed an arbitration agreement with an affiliate of Experian that could apply to her Fair Credit Reporting Act lawsuit.
-
October 17, 2024
Solar Site Settles Conn. AG's Claims Over Social Media Ads
The Connecticut attorney general's office has reached a settlement with EnergyBillCruncher.com to resolve claims that it ran deceptive social media ads falsely claiming that the "government will cover the cost" of solar panel installation and improperly displaying the state seal.
-
October 17, 2024
FCA Blames Supplier For Defective Parts Leading To Recalls
FCA US LLC is suing one of its parts suppliers in Michigan federal court, alleging that it sold the automaker air heater grid relays for its Ram pickup trucks with a defect that can cause fires even when the vehicles are turned off and caused multiple recalls.
-
October 17, 2024
Sen. Report Slams Insurers For Medicare Advantage Denials
A trio of major Medicare Advantage insurers are driving profits by denying coverage for patient stays at "costly but critical" facilities for those recovering from injuries and illnesses, according to a report issued Thursday by a Congressional committee.
-
October 17, 2024
Google Asks 9th Circ. To Immediately Pause Epic Injunction
Google filed an emergency motion late Wednesday in its antitrust battle with Epic Games Inc. asking the Ninth Circuit to stay a lower court's injunction that's set to take effect Nov. 1 requiring Google to open up its Play Store to competing app stores, slamming the injunction as harmful and "unworkable."
-
October 17, 2024
DQ'd Atty Says It Was Wrong To Boot Her From Dominion Suit
An attorney barred from defending former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne in a defamation suit brought by Dominion Voting Systems implored a D.C. federal judge during a Thursday hearing to allow her back on the case, insisting that a magistrate judge was wrong to disqualify her.
-
October 17, 2024
FTX Insider Cites 'Limited' Fraud Role In Bid To Avoid Prison
The former head of engineering at FTX asked a Manhattan federal judge to spare him prison time in light of his cooperation with prosecutors and what he said was a relatively "limited" role in the crypto exchange's billion-dollar fraud.
-
October 17, 2024
Pa. AG Can't Get State Claims Restored In FTC Amazon Suit
A federal judge tersely denied a request from Pennsylvania's attorney general, who had sought to reinstate her state's consumer protection claims against Amazon in the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust suit.
-
October 16, 2024
TD Bank's $3B AML Deal Sparks Scrutiny Of Its Oversight
The long-standing, widespread compliance failures at the root of TD Bank's blockbuster $3 billion U.S. anti-money laundering settlement last week have stunned experts and brought tough punishment for the Canadian bank — but they're also raising questions about why regulators didn't act sooner.
-
October 16, 2024
BetterHelp Can't Ax Suit Over Sharing Data With Advertisers
A California federal judge has trimmed but refused to completely toss a consolidated putative class action accusing online counseling platform BetterHelp Inc. of unlawfully disclosing consumers' confidential information to third parties for advertising purposes, finding that newly added details boosted several of the plaintiffs' claims.
-
October 16, 2024
NY's Financial Regulator Releases AI Cybersecurity Guidance
New York's Department of Financial Services issued new guidance Wednesday intended to give state-regulated financial institutions an outline for protecting against cybersecurity risks posed by artificial intelligence.
-
October 16, 2024
Chinese AI Co. Hit With Investor Suit Over Nasdaq Compliance
China-based artificial intelligence company Xiao-I Corp. was hit with a proposed investor class action in New York federal court alleging it downplayed increasing research and development costs that it was incurring, increasing the likelihood that it would fail to comply with the Nasdaq Stock Market's minimum price requirement after going public.
-
October 16, 2024
SD Power Co. Agrees To Stormwater Protections At Facilities
A California federal judge has signed off on a consent decree between two conservation groups and the San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to close out a lawsuit over the utility's management of chemically treated wood waste.
-
October 16, 2024
Feds Deny That West Bank Sanctions Hamper Free Speech
The Biden administration rebuffed claims by a group of U.S. and Israeli citizens that a sanctions program covering extremist actors in the Israeli-occupied West Bank restricts their free speech rights, saying that merely opposing U.S. foreign policy goals isn't a sanctionable offense.
-
October 16, 2024
CenturyLink Seeks Erasure Of $140M Class Verdict
CenturyLink is asking for a new trial after a jury ordered it to pay more than $140 million for illegally running credit reports on customers looking for internet service on its website, telling an Arizona federal judge that no evidence from the case suggested that the company willfully violated the law.
-
October 16, 2024
Monsanto's Appellate Bid To Stop Seattle PCB Trial Flops
A Washington appellate commissioner won't overrule a lower court's decision to forge ahead with a pending Monsanto PCB poisoning trial, rejecting the company's request to pause until the state Supreme Court decides a similar case, concluding that she would be improperly "substituting" her judgment for the trial court's by pausing the case.
-
October 16, 2024
FTC Says Customers Must Be Able To 'Click To Cancel'
Companies will now be required to allow customers to ditch their subscriptions with a single click after the Federal Trade Commission finalized its new "click to cancel" rule, which has been years in the making.
-
October 16, 2024
Fla. Sued Over Threats To TV Stations For Airing Abortion Ad
The sponsor of a ballot initiative that would enshrine the right to abortion in the Florida Constitution sued the state Wednesday over letters threatening television stations with criminal prosecution if they did not pull a campaign ad promoting the initiative.
-
October 16, 2024
State Farm, Homeowners End Adjuster Delay Suit
A trio of Washington homeowners have settled for $225,000 after alleging that State Farm dragged out a fallen tree damage claim for several months while shuffling through seven field adjusters.
-
October 16, 2024
Caremark, Optum Say FTC Insulin Case Gets PBMs All Wrong
Caremark Rx, Express Scripts and OptumRx continue to attack the Federal Trade Commission's in-house case accusing the country's three largest pharmacy benefit managers of artificially inflating insulin prices by relying on unfair rebate schemes, arguing the agency's case lacks authority, facts and the right targets.
-
October 16, 2024
Bitfinex Hacker Deserves 5 Years For Crypto Heist, Feds Say
The hacker who stole bitcoin now worth billions of dollars from crypto exchange Bitfinex should serve just 60 months for the exploit and subsequent laundering of the funds because his post-arrest cooperation "benefitted numerous investigations" and merits a below-guidelines sentence, prosecutors told a federal judge.
-
October 16, 2024
NY Urges Sotomayor Not To Block Broadband Price Cap Law
New York is fighting the telecommunications industry's effort to halt its new law capping broadband prices for low-income residents, telling U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to reject a petition that would stay the law's implementation pending a forthcoming certiorari bid challenging the law.
Expert Analysis
-
Proposed Mortgage Assistance Rule: Tips For Servicers
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent proposal to alter Regulation X mortgage servicing procedures to broadly construe requests for assistance, and stay foreclosure proceedings during loss mitigation review, will, if finalized, require mortgage servicers to make notable procedural changes to comply, says Louis Manetti at Locke Lord.
-
A Look At 5 States' New Data Privacy Laws
With new data privacy laws in Utah, Florida, Texas, Oregon and Montana recently in effect or coming into force this year, state-level enforcement of data privacy creates significant challenges and risks for how businesses interact with employees and consumers, and for companies that provide and use technologies in multiple jurisdictions, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.
-
Antitrust In Retail: Why FTC Is Studying 'Surveillance Pricing'
The Federal Trade Commission's decision to study targeted "surveillance pricing" should provide greater clarity into the nature of the data aggregation industry, but also raises several issues, including whether these practices are in fact illegal under any established interpretations of U.S. antitrust law, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
-
Conn. Court Split May Lead To Vertical Forum Shopping
As shown by a recent ruling in State v. Exxon Mobil, Connecticut state and federal courts are split on personal jurisdiction, and until the Connecticut Supreme Court steps in, parties may be incentivized to forum shop, causing foreign entities to endure costly litigation and uncertain liability, says Matthew Gibbons at Shipman & Goodwin.
-
Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys
Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.
-
Series
Calif. Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q3
In the third quarter of the year, California continued to be at the forefront of banking regulation as it enacted legislation on unfair banking practices and junk fees, and the state Department of Financial Protection and Innovation notably initiated enforcement actions focused on crypto-assets and student loan debt relief, say Stuart Richter and Eric Hail at Katten.
-
Opinion
FTC's Report Criticizing Drug Middlemen Is Flawed
The Federal Trade Commission's July report, which claims that pharmacy benefit managers are inflating drug costs, does not offer a credible analysis of PBMs, and its methodology lacks rigor, says Jay Ezrielev at Elevecon.
-
2 High Court Securities Cases Could Clarify Pleading Rules
In granting certiorari in a pair of securities fraud cases against Facebook and Nvidia, respectively, the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled its intention to align interpretations of the heightened pleading standard under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act amid its uneven application among the circuit courts, say attorneys at V&E.
-
What 2 Key Rulings Mean For Solicitation Under TCPA
Two recent rulings from federal district courts in New York and California — each of which came to a different conclusion — bring to light courts' continued focus on and analysis of when an alleged communication constitutes a solicitation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, say Felix Shipkevich and Jessica Livingston at Shipkevich.
-
Series
NY Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q3
In a relatively light few months for banking legal updates in New York, the state Department of Financial Services previewed its views on banking sector artificial intelligence use via insurer guidance, and an anti-money laundering enforcement action underscored the importance of international monitoring processes, say Eric McLaughlin and Dana Bayersdorfer at Davis Polk.
-
Series
Collecting Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer
The therapeutic aspects of appreciating and collecting art improve my legal practice by enhancing my observation skills, empathy, creativity and cultural awareness, says attorney Michael McCready.
-
Navigating The Complexities Of Cyber Incident Reporting
When it comes to cybersecurity incident response plans, the uptick in the number and targets of legal and regulatory actions emphasizes the necessity for businesses to document the facts underlying the assumptions, complexities and obstacles of their decisions during the incident response, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.
-
Aviation Watch: Boeing Plea Agreement May Not Serve Public
The proposed plea agreement between the U.S. Department of Justice and Boeing — the latest outgrowth of the company's 737 Max travails — is opposed by crash victims' families, faces an uncertain fate in court, and may ultimately serve no beneficial purpose, even if approved, says Alan Hoffman, a retired attorney and aviation expert.
-
Using Primacy And Recency Effects In Opening Statements
By understanding and strategically employing the primacy and recency effects in opening statements, attorneys can significantly enhance their persuasive impact, ensuring that their narrative is both compelling and memorable from the outset, says Bill Kanasky at Courtroom Sciences.
-
Litigation Inspiration: Honoring Your Learned Profession
About 30,000 people who took the bar exam in July will learn they passed this fall, marking a fitting time for all attorneys to remember that they are members in a specialty club of learned professionals — and the more they can keep this in mind, the more benefits they will see, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.