Trump administration removing CFPB complaint narratives

Protect Borrowers has the story, headlined Trump CFPB Buries Financial Companies’ Abuses. So much for the claim that Trump is the most transparent president ever. This will reduce freedom of choice, something the administration has claimed to champion in other contexts, for consumers who want to avoid patronizing businesses that other consumers have found unsatisfactory. […]

Ninth Circuit upholds ITT student borrowers’ RICO win about predatory loan products

In 2016, ITT Technical Institute — a for-profit college that had engaged in aggressive and predatory marketing and lending tactics — collapsed.  In 2020, three former ITT students brought a class action against a company that ITT had assigned its loan servicing responsibilities to, and related entities, alleging a conspiracy with respect to ITT’s loan […]

Paper: The Consumer Protection Paradox: Learning, Feedback, and the Limits of Consumer Protection Law

Justin (Gus) Hurwitz of Pennsylvania and Gregory M. Dickinson of Stanford have written The Consumer Protection Paradox: Learning, Feedback, and the Limits of Consumer Protection Law, forthcoming in the Emory Law Journal. Here’s the abstract: Modern consumer-protection law is built on a simplifying picture: The consumer and her vulnerabilities are treated as static over time. […]

FTC backtracks on combating discriminatory practices

The FTC announced last Friday that it will no longer enforce policies against “disparate-impact or unfair discrimination” claims. This will affect the agency’s once active enforcement against auto dealers’ discriminatory financing practices that cheat minority car buyers. In 2022, for example, the Commission alleged that Passport Auto, a Washington D.C.-area auto dealer, violated the FTC […]

Reuters: US consumer watchdog supervisor warned staff of ‘unpleasant’ fallout if they go too hard on firms

Here, by Douglas Gillison. The memo, from Chief Examiner Fatima Batie, said “I promise you if you say something inflammatory or newsworthy it will get back to you in the most unpleasant manner and I’m not ​referring to my or [CFPB examination head] Calvin [Hagin]’s reaction.” Is it inflammatory or newsworthy to tell a financial […]

Ninth Circuit finds food consumer has “listener” standing

One diet promoted by influencers and others over the last few years is a “low-FODMAP” diet, which entails “strict reduction of all slowly absorbed or indigestible short-chain carbohydrates (ie, FODMAPs) followed by reintroduction of specific FODMAPs according to tolerance.”  The diet is controversial. FDA regulations prevent food producers from labeling products based on their FODMAP […]

Sixth Circuit to rehear challenge to FCC data breach rule en banc

In August 2025, a divided panel of the Sixth Circuit denied an industry petition for review of a 2024 FCC rule imposing reporting requirements on telecommunications in the event of data breaches involving customers’ personally identifiable information. The industry had raised both arguments about the FCC’s statutory authority, and a 2017 Congressional Review Act disapproval. […]

Zinner & Hines article on what comes next for the CFPB

Christine Chen Zinner & Christine Hines have written Consumer Protection Under the Trump CFPB. What Comes Next?, 38 Loy. Consumer L. Rev. 131 (2026). I can’t find it on the web yet except on Westlaw at 38 LYCLREV 131. Here’s the concluding paragraph: In this current moment, with seemingly no checks on wrongdoing and little […]

Another possible hit on Prepared Food Photos for abusive copyright litigation

Pool World and The National Law Review, two small business that successfully resisted extortionate copyright infringement claims filed by Prepared Food Photos (“PFP”), a notorious copyright troll whose depredations I have discussed here several times, moved in the Seventh Circuit for leave to file an amicus brief  supporting an appeal by the only PFP victim […]