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Consumer Protection
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July 31, 2024
SEC Settles Reg BI Case Against Calif. Broker-Dealer
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Wednesday it has agreed to settle allegations that Western International Securities Inc. sold more than $13 million in high-risk debt securities to those with lower risk profiles, marking the potential end of a first-of-its kind enforcement action claiming violations of Regulation Best Interest.
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July 31, 2024
5th Circ. Pause Spells Doom For DOT Airline Fees Rule
The Fifth Circuit gave the airline industry a temporary reprieve from a new U.S. Department of Transportation rule requiring carriers to more clearly disclose add-on fees upfront, a decision that stands to embolden opponents of the Biden administration's more aggressive consumer-focused policies.
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July 31, 2024
Philip Morris Nicotine Pouches Are Deceptive, Lawsuit Claims
Philip Morris violated advertising and trade practices laws by selling "highly addictive" nicotine products designed and packaged to resemble breath mints and deceptively telegraphed that the tobacco-free pouches were healthier than cigarettes, according to a proposed class action in Connecticut federal court.
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July 31, 2024
Corteva Unit Ordered To Search 110K Boxes For PFAS Docs
A former North Carolina Superior Court judge in charge of ironing out a dispute between the state and a Corteva Inc. subsidiary over allegedly missing documents ordered the company to search through 110,000 boxes for information related to "forever-chemicals," finding it failed to give assurance the boxes were thoroughly searched.
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July 31, 2024
NYC Fraudster Gets Two Years For Crime Borne Of 'Nastiness'
A Manhattan federal judge sentenced a New York City woman to two years in prison Wednesday for stealing $290,000 from investors who backed her purported investment club, saying the defendant's criminal conduct, including threats to victims, was uncommonly callous.
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July 31, 2024
Pop-Up Malware Scammer Gets 7 Years For Duping Elderly
A Manhattan federal judge hit an Indian national with a seven-year prison sentence Wednesday after he admitted operating a malware call center that targeted over 6,000 victims with deceptive pop-up warnings and generated more than $6 million in criminal proceeds.
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July 31, 2024
4 Mass. Rulings You May Have Missed In July
Massachusetts state court judges refereed a damages dispute between a real estate titan and a Big Four consultant, ruled in favor of allegedly underpaid healthcare workers and untangled a defamation suit over a labor executive's old social media posts, among other notable rulings during the month of July.
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July 31, 2024
DraftKings Closes NFT Platform Over 'Legal Developments'
DraftKings has announced that it is shuttering its nonfungible token marketplace due to "recent legal developments," with the decision coming weeks after a Massachusetts federal judge permitted a proposed securities class action involving the marketplace to move forward.
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July 31, 2024
Fifth Third Seeks Exit From Bounced Check Fee Suit
Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bank NA has asked a federal judge to toss a proposed class action alleging it charges consumers unlawful fees when they try to deposit a check that bounces, saying the customers agreed to a contract that contains fee clauses for depositing returned items.
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July 31, 2024
Chicago Area's Brookfield Zoo Sued Over Data Breach
The popular Brookfield Zoo has been hit with a putative class action alleging inadequate cybersecurity measures failed to protect against a January data breach the zoo waited six months to make public, putting employees at risk of identity theft without proper notice.
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July 31, 2024
TaxAct Customers' Attys Want $5.8M Fee For $23M Deal
The attorneys for TaxAct Inc. customers who secured a $23 million deal to resolve claims that the company was secretly sharing confidential taxpayer information with Meta and Google asked a federal judge to award them more than $5.8 million in fees for their work.
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July 31, 2024
Ex-AUSA Joins Motley Rice Fraud Team From DiCello Levitt
Plaintiffs' firm Motley Rice LLC said Wednesday that it hired a former New York assistant U.S. attorney to support its efforts to protect whistleblowers who expose misconduct, fraud and deceptive trade practices.
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July 31, 2024
DC Attorney General Sues StubHub Over 'Junk Fees'
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb on Wednesday sued StubHub, accusing the ticket resale and exchange website of duping consumers with low ticket prices before tacking on "junk fees" at the end of an artificially urgent purchasing process.
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July 31, 2024
Judge Refuses To Rethink Injury Firm Conflict Of Interest DQ
A law firm was properly disqualified from a family's design defect lawsuit against Home Depot USA Inc. and makers of a lawn mower, a New Jersey federal judge has ruled, confirming a prior finding that a conflict of interest arose between the father and daughter when the companies countersued the father.
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July 30, 2024
Delta Hires Boies Schiller To Recoup Outage-Related Damages
Delta Air Lines has retained Boies Schiller Flexner LLP to help it pursue potential damages from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and Microsoft in the wake of the mid-July global tech outage that left passengers stranded, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to Law360 on Tuesday.
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July 30, 2024
Pa. House Majority Leader Fights Robocall Suit At 3rd Circ.
The Democratic majority leader of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives on Tuesday asked the Third Circuit to undo a ruling that his automated calls informing constituents about government programs violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.
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July 30, 2024
Judge Asks Dish If Circuits Truly Split On Data Breach Claims
A Colorado federal judge on Tuesday pressed Dish Network Corp. and a group of current and former Dish employees who are suing the company in a putative class action about a ransomware attack last year to address whether there is a split among federal circuits on what allegations are needed to support claims in data breach cases.
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July 30, 2024
Amazon Must Recall Unsafe Third-Party Products, CPSC Says
Amazon bears legal responsibility for recalling the hundreds of thousands of products sold by third-party sellers on its site that are defective or fail to meet safety standards, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found in an order issued Monday.
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July 30, 2024
FDIC Moves To Revamp Brokered Deposit Regs In Policy Push
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. on Tuesday unveiled a proposal that would subject more bank deposits to heightened regulation as "brokered" funds, outlining new rules that the agency pitched as addressing risks highlighted by failures of firms like First Republic Bank and Voyager, a crypto lender.
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July 30, 2024
LastPass Can't Ditch Data Breach Fight, But Its Parent Co. Can
A Massachusetts federal judge trimmed some claims Tuesday from a sprawling putative class action alleging LastPass failed to prevent a data breach of its backup cloud server, throwing out allegations against LastPass US LLP's parent company, but finding the consumers sufficiently stated claims against LastPass and alleged they have been harmed.
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July 30, 2024
FTX Users Say Sullivan & Cromwell Must Face Abetting Claims
FTX customers told a Florida federal judge on Tuesday that Sullivan & Cromwell LLP can't dismiss customer claims it aided and abetted the defunct cryptocurrency exchange's fraud as "speculative allegations" when the customers' complaint "paints a much more detailed and nefarious picture."
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July 30, 2024
Texas' Meta Deal Signals Future Data Privacy Actions
While the announcement of an "astronomical" $1.4 billion settlement between Texas and Meta Platforms Inc. on Tuesday won't lead to a flood of consumer suits, it's "absolutely" a signal of future enforcement actions by the Lone Star State in the data privacy sphere, experts told Law360.
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July 30, 2024
FTC Seeks Temporary Kroger-Albertsons Block In Oregon
The Federal Trade Commission is formally seeking a temporary block against Kroger's proposed purchase of Albertsons, arguing in an Oregon federal court brief unsealed Tuesday that the planned divestiture of 579 stores to a "failed" supermarket boss won't adequately protect consumers or union labor facing dramatically increased concentration.
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July 30, 2024
SEC Ruling Calls For FCC Revamp, Ex-Agency Lawyer Says
Although the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that civil defendants must be allowed jury trials to contest government fines was focused on securities law, the ruling will also upend the Federal Communications Commission's in-house enforcement and require new legislation, warns an appellate lawyer and former FCC attorney.
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July 30, 2024
FTX Exec Gets Prison Report Date Delayed After Dog Attack
A New York federal judge on Tuesday allowed ex-FTX executive Ryan Salame to delay his surrender date to begin his prison term from August to October, as he was forced to undergo medical treatment and surgery after being mauled by a German shepherd while visiting a friend's house last month.
Expert Analysis
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Key Antitrust Class Certification Questions Remain Unclear
The U.S. Supreme Court, by recently rejecting certiorari in Visa v. National ATM, turned down the opportunity to clarify how to analyze disputed evidence bearing on the certification of antitrust class actions, leaving the applicable standards unclear instead of resolving this split of authority, says Jonathan Berman at Jones Day.
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Action Steps To Address New Restrictions On Outbound Data
Companies should immediately assess all their data-based operations so they can consider strategies to effectively mitigate new compliance risks brought on by recently implemented transaction restrictions, including a Justice Department proposal and landmark data legislation, say attorneys at Wiley.
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E-Discovery Quarterly: Recent Rulings On Text Message Data
Electronically stored information on cellphones, and in particular text messages, can present unique litigation challenges, and recent court decisions demonstrate that counsel must carefully balance what data should be preserved, collected, reviewed and produced, say attorneys at Sidley.
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CFPB Reality Check: Video Game Cash Is Still Money
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent report examining payments within online video games indicates that financial services offered within the game marketplace are quickly evolving to the point where they are indistinguishable from traditional financial services subject to regulation, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.
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What CRA Deadline Means For Biden Admin. Rulemaking
With the 2024 election rapidly approaching, the Biden administration must race to finalize proposed agency actions within the next few weeks, or be exposed to the chance that the following Congress will overturn the rules under the Congressional Review Act, say attorneys at Covington.
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The Legal Issues Raised In Minn. Rate Exportation Opt-Out Bill
A recent Minnesota House bill would amend state law by opting out of the federal interest rate preemption and introduce several legal gray areas if passed, including issues regarding loan location, rates on credit card loans and values of state charters, says Karen Grandstrand at Fredrikson & Byron.
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Keeping Up With Class Actions: A New Era Of Higher Stakes
Corporate defendants saw unprecedented settlement numbers across all areas of class action litigation in 2022 and 2023, and this year has kept pace so far, with three settlements that stand out for the nature of the claims and for their high dollar amounts, says Gerald Maatman at Duane Morris.
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What's Notable In JAMS' New Mass Arbitration Rules
The Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services’ recently released guidelines, coming on the heels of similar American Arbitration Association amendments, suggests that mass arbitrations will remain an efficient means for consumers to vindicate their rights against companies, say Jonathan Waisnor and Brandon Heitmann at Labaton Keller.
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5 Climate Change Regulatory Issues Insurers Should Follow
The climate change landscape for insurers has changed dramatically recently — and not just because of the controversy over the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's climate-related risk disclosure rules, says Thomas Dawson at McDermott.
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How New Rule Would Change CFIUS Enforcement Powers
Before the May 15 comment deadline, companies may want to weigh in on proposed regulatory changes to enforcement and mitigation tools at the disposal of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, including broadened subpoena powers, difficult new mitigation timelines and higher maximum penalties, say attorneys at Venable.
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Is The Digital Accessibility Storm Almost Over?
Though private businesses have faced a decadelong deluge of digital accessibility complaints in the absence of clear regulations or uniformity among the courts, attorneys at Epstein Becker address how recent federal courts’ pushback against serial Americans with Disabilities Act plaintiffs and the U.S. Department of Justice’s proposed government accessibility standards may presage a break in the downpour.
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PE In The Crosshairs Of Public And Private Antitrust Enforcers
A series of decisions from a California federal court in the recently settled Packaged Seafood Products Antitrust Litigation, as well as heightened scrutiny from federal agencies, serve as a reminder that private equity firms may be exposed to liability for alleged anti-competitive conduct by their portfolio companies, say attorneys at Axinn.
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Series
Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Years of participation in swimming events, especially in the open water, have proven to be ideal preparation for appellate arguments in court — just as you must put your trust in the ocean when competing in a swim event, you must do the same with the judicial process, says John Kulewicz at Vorys.
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Key Priorities In FDIC Report On Resolving Big Bank Failures
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s report last month on the resolvability of large financial institutions contains little new information, but it does reiterate key policy priorities, including the agency's desire to enhance loss-absorbing capacity through long-term debt requirements and preference for single-point-of-entry resolution strategies, say attorneys at Freshfields.
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Microplastics At The Crossroads Of Regulation And Litigation
Though there are currently not many federal regulations specifically addressing microplastics as pollutants, regulatory scrutiny and lawsuits asserting consumer protection claims are both on the rise, and manufacturers should take proactive steps to implement preventive measures accordingly, say Aliza Karetnick and Franco Corrado at Morgan Lewis.