Try our Advanced Search for more refined results
Consumer Protection
-
June 25, 2024
Bulk Of Colo. Climate Case Against Oil Giants Beats Dismissal
A Colorado state judge has paved the way for a county's lawsuit against major oil and gas companies that aims to hold them liable for damages caused by climate change, rejecting bids to toss claims for public and private nuisance, conspiracy and unjust enrichment.
-
June 25, 2024
4th Circ. Revives Arranger Liability Claims In Superfund Suit
The Fourth Circuit revived claims Tuesday against six companies that arranged the disposal of hazardous waste in the 68th Street dump site in Baltimore County, Maryland, ruling that a lower court was wrong to say the companies needed to know that the waste was hazardous to be liable for cleanup costs.
-
June 25, 2024
Adviser, Firm Owe SEC $425K For Mishandling Crypto Assets
A Florida federal judge on Tuesday approved approximately $425,000 in settlements in a suit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against an investment adviser and its owner, alleging they hid investment strategies and lost control of the firm's recordkeeping, preventing them from accessing crypto assets possibly worth $10 million.
-
June 25, 2024
CFPB Delays Start Of Small-Biz Loan Rule Deadlines Until '25
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday formally pushed back the compliance deadlines for its contested rule that establishes reporting requirements for the small-business lending market, putting nearly 10 more months on the clock for banks and other lenders after a court-ordered stay.
-
June 25, 2024
USDA Tackles 'Inconsistent' Court Handling Of Packers Suits
The U.S. Department of Agriculture sought Tuesday to empower itself, and perhaps individual farmers, in lawsuits against allegedly unfair practices in the livestock, meat and poultry industries, by proposing a new rule that would replace the current case-by-case adjudication of what counts as a violation of the Packers and Stockyards Act.
-
June 25, 2024
Norfolk Southern Torched In NTSB Final Derailment Findings
Norfolk Southern used "reprehensible" tactics to interfere with the investigation into last year's derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, and pushed for an "unnecessary" controlled vent and burn of highly flammable vinyl chloride during the accident's chaotic aftermath, the National Transportation Safety Board said Tuesday.
-
June 25, 2024
Judge Tosses Skiers' Last Bid For COVID Shutdown Damages
A final attempt by ski pass holders to receive damages after resort giant Vail Corp. shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 ended Tuesday when a Colorado federal judge dismissed the putative class action and its breach-of-contract claim.
-
June 25, 2024
Ralph Lauren Sued Over Fake Discount Prices On Outlet Items
Ralph Lauren advertises sham reference prices for merchandise sold at its Polo Factory outlets that purport to provide customers with significant discounts, which misleads them into believing the merchandise was initially sold at much higher prices, according to a proposed class action filed Tuesday in New York federal court.
-
June 25, 2024
Verizon To Pay $1M For Southeast 911 Outage, FCC Says
Verizon has agreed to pay just more than $1 million and follow a compliance plan after a December 2022 breakdown of 911 connectivity throughout the Southeast, the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday.
-
June 25, 2024
Broker's Lax ACH Monitoring Led To $330K Theft, FINRA Says
A broker-dealer that was once a unit of Oregon-headquartered Umpqua Bank has agreed to pay $225,000 to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority after self-reporting supervisory oversights that enabled unauthorized parties to siphon over $330,000 out of a customer's account.
-
June 25, 2024
Amazon Says It Shares 'Cookies,' But Not Prime Viewers' ID
Amazon.com Inc. on Tuesday urged a federal judge to toss a proposed class action filed by Prime movie subscribers, calling the privacy complaint a "smokescreen" attempting to get around the terms of a use agreement that allows advertisers to access cookies that don't identify specific customers.
-
June 25, 2024
3rd Circ. Says Smith & Wesson Can't Sidestep NJ Subpoena
The gunmaker Smith & Wesson must comply with a subpoena from New Jersey to produce advertising materials requested in a consumer fraud case brought by the state, a divided Third Circuit panel ruled Tuesday.
-
June 25, 2024
No Need To Ship Net Neutrality Appeals To DC, 6th Circ. Told
The Sixth Circuit should stand up to the "concerted effort" to push administrative law matters out of other appellate courts and into the D.C. Circuit by refusing to transfer a bundled set of challenges to the FCC's new net neutrality rules, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has said.
-
June 25, 2024
FCC Says Anti-Redlining Rule 'Dutifully' Carries Out Law
The Federal Communications Commission has urged the Eighth Circuit to toss multiple industry challenges to its rules against discrimination in broadband deployment, saying its use of a wide-reaching standard for prohibited bias fits the law's requirements.
-
June 25, 2024
FTC Suit Merely 'Publicity Stunt,' Seattle Bill Pay Biz Says
A Seattle-based online bill pay platform has accused the Federal Trade Commission of filing a baseless consumer protection suit against it, telling a Washington federal court the company has already gone above and beyond its legal obligations to satisfy regulators' concerns about misleading ads and hidden fees.
-
June 25, 2024
$3M Broker Commission Deal Stayed To Await NAR Settlement
A Massachusetts federal court will not consider a $3 million settlement reached between home sellers and a multiple listing service over broker commission rules until after a decision on a much larger settlement in the separate sprawling case against the National Association of Realtors.
-
June 25, 2024
FTC Looks To Ax MGM Suit Over Cybersecurity Probe
The Federal Trade Commission rebuffed claims from MGM Resorts International that the agency improperly declined to recuse chair Lina Khan from investigating the hospitality giant's data security practices, urging a D.C. federal judge to toss MGM's lawsuit that seeks to stop the probe.
-
June 25, 2024
Oil Co. Accused Of Duping Consumers With Biodiesel Product
A Massachusetts home heating oil dealer falsely told consumers they were purchasing an environmentally friendly biodiesel product, a proposed class action filed in state court on Monday alleges.
-
June 25, 2024
Exxon Bid For Avangrid Docs In Greenwash Case Faces Doubt
A Massachusetts judge on Tuesday questioned the relevance of potentially millions of wind energy company Avangrid's documents being sought by ExxonMobil in its defense of a greenwashing case brought by the state.
-
June 25, 2024
American Airlines Can't Move Frequent Flyers' Suit To Texas
American Airlines lost its bid to transfer to Texas a proposed class action alleging it improperly terminated frequent flyer accounts and erased accrued airline miles, as a California federal judge ruled Monday the airline hadn't shown convenience and justice required moving it from the Golden State.
-
June 25, 2024
Calif. Pot Co. Accused Of 'Lab Shopping' To Skirt Safety Rules
A California marijuana cultivator has been accused of selling cannabis products with unacceptable levels of contaminants, getting around state requirements by seeking out laboratories that turned a "blind eye" to its crops' impurities, according to a proposed class action.
-
June 25, 2024
Schouest Bamdas Opens Dallas Office With 6-Partner Hire
Schouest Bamdas Soshea BenMaier & Eastham PLLC has expanded its footprint in Texas by launching a new office in Dallas with six new partners from Hartline Barger LLP, it said in an official announcement Tuesday.
-
June 25, 2024
EU Opens Microsoft Case, Unappeased By Teams Unbundling
European Union antitrust authorities opened a formal complaint against Microsoft on Tuesday over the company's bundling of its Teams communications program with its Office 365 suites, calling out as insufficient the disconnection of the services Microsoft initiated last year to appease enforcers.
-
June 25, 2024
Int'l Paper Gets US Clearance On $7.2B DS Smith Buy
International Paper Co. and its U.K. competitor DS Smith PLC said Tuesday that the waiting period for U.S. antitrust authorities to try and block their planned roughly $7.2 billion merger has expired.
-
June 25, 2024
Advance Auto Parts Hit With 4 Data Breach Suits
Advance Auto Parts Inc. has been hit with four proposed class action complaints over a recent data breach that one suit says exposed more than 1 million people's private information, some of which has purportedly already gone up for sale on the dark web.
Expert Analysis
-
Using Rule 23(f) To Review Class Certification Orders
Since plaintiffs on average are prevailing in certifying a class more often than not, the best-positioned class action defendants are those prepared to pursue relief under Rule 23(f) well before the district court issues its certification decision, say attorneys at K&L Gates.
-
Binance Ruling Spotlights Muddled Post-Morrison Landscape
The Second Circuit's recent decision in Williams v. Binance highlights the judiciary's struggle to apply the U.S. Supreme Court's Morrison v. National Australia Bank ruling to digital assets, and illustrates how Morrison's territorial limits on the federal securities laws have become convoluted, say Andrew Rhys Davies and Jessica Lewis at WilmerHale.
-
Data Protection Steps To Consider After Biden Privacy Order
A recent White House executive order casts a spotlight on the criticality of securing sensitive content communications, presenting challenges and necessitating a recalibration of practices, especially for lawyers, says Camilo Artiga-Purcell at Kiteworks.
-
Highlights From The 2024 ABA Antitrust Spring Meeting
U.S. merger enforcement and cartels figured heavily in this year's American Bar Association spring antitrust meeting, where one key takeaway included news that the Federal Trade Commission's anticipated changes to the Hart-Scott-Rodino form may be less dramatic than many originally feared, say attorneys at Freshfields.
-
The Future Of BIPA Insurance Litigation After Visual Pak
A recent Illinois appellate court decision, National Fire Insurance v. Visual Pak, may have altered the future of insurance litigation under the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act by diametrically opposing a prominent Seventh Circuit ruling that found insurance coverage for violations of the act, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.
-
Consumer Privacy Takeaways From FTC Extraterritorial Action
With what appears to be its first privacy-related consent agreement with a non-U.S. business, the Federal Trade Commission establishes that its reach is extraterritorial and that consumer internet browsing data is sensitive data, and there are lessons for any multinational business that handles consumer information, say Olivia Greer and Alexis Bello at Weil.
-
NC Rulings Show Bankruptcy Isn't Only For Insolvent Debtors
Two recent rulings from a North Carolina bankruptcy court show that lack of financial distress is not a requirement for bankruptcy protection, particularly in the Fourth Circuit, but these types of cases can still be dismissed for other reasons, say Stuart Gordon and Alexandria Vath at Rivkin Radler.
-
Series
Whitewater Kayaking Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Whether it's seeing clients and their issues from a new perspective, or staying nimble in a moment of intense challenge, the lessons learned from whitewater kayaking transcend the rapids of a river and prepare attorneys for the courtroom and beyond, says Matthew Kent at Alston & Bird.
-
Navigating Kentucky's New Consumer Privacy Law
On April 4, Kentucky passed a new law that imposes obligations on affected businesses relating to the collection, use and sale of personal data — and those operating within the state must prepare for a new regulatory landscape governing the handling of consumer data, say Risa Boerner and Martha Vázquez at Fisher Phillips.
-
This Earth Day, Consider How Your Firm Can Go Greener
As Earth Day approaches, law firms and attorneys should consider adopting more sustainable practices to reduce their carbon footprint — from minimizing single-use plastics to purchasing carbon offsets for air travel — which ultimately can also reduce costs for clients, say M’Lynn Phillips and Lisa Walters at IMS Legal Strategies.
-
New Proposal Signals Sharper Enforcement Focus At CFIUS
Last week's proposed rule aimed at broadening the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States' enforcement authority over foreign investments and increasing penalties for violations signals that CFIUS intends to continue expanding its aggressive monitoring of national security issues, say attorneys at Kirkland.
-
What FinCEN Proposed Customer ID Number Change Means
The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's recent request for comment on changing a requirement for banks to collect full Social Security numbers at account sign-up represents an important opportunity for banks to express their preferability, as communicating sensitive information online may carry fraud or cybersecurity risks, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.
-
Circumstantial Evidence Requires A Pointillist Approach
Because complex cases with sophisticated defendants are unlikely to reveal much, if any, direct evidence, attorneys must aggregate many pieces of circumstantial evidence into a cohesive narrative — much like the painting technique of pointillism, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
-
Questions Persist After Ruling Skirts $925M TCPA Award Issue
After an Oregon federal court's recent Wakefield v. ViSalus ruling that the doctrine of constitutional avoidance precluded it from deciding whether a $925 million Telephone Consumer Protection Act damages award was constitutionally sound, further guidance is needed on when statutory damages violate due process, says Michael Klotz at O'Melveny.
-
Benzene Contamination Concerns: Drugmakers' Next Steps
After a citizen petition to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a flurry of class actions over benzene contamination in benzoyl peroxide acne products, affected manufacturers should consider a thoughtful approach that includes assembling internal data and possibly contacting the FDA for product-specific discussions, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.