A group of small stores filed thousands of demands for arbitration against Amex with the AAA, challenging Amex’s swipe-fee policies. The parties disagreed about what fees were due to AAA, and the AAA administrator made a determination that a $3,500 filing fee applied to each demand, with the stores responsible for $350 and Amex the […]
After more than five years of litigation, and more than a year after the district court certified a class in a TCPA consumer class action, Club Exploria, a timeshare company, moved to compel arbitration. The district court denied the motion, finding a waiver of the right to arbitrate. It then granted summary judgment to the […]
Emily Brill has the story here. Excerpt: The CFPB placed Stephen Wheeler on administrative leave and began an internal investigation shortly after he spoke to National Public Radio for a story about issues with the agency’s office relocation, NTEU Local 335 claimed. The probe launched within days of Mark Paoletta, a former DLA Piper partner […]
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. […]
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 […]
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. […]
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 […]
At Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Finance Monitor podcast. Consumer Reports recently issued a report on AI.
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 […]
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 […]