Today, the FTC, along with 17 state attorneys general, sued Amazon in the Western District of Washington, arguing that it “is a monopolist that uses a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power.” The lawsuit alleges anticompetitive conduct both in the consumer-facing market, and in the services Amazon offers […]
Author Archives: Adam Pulver
Ten years after the case was first filed, after intervening regulatory flip-flops and the Supreme Court’s decision in Texas Department of Housing & Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, a D.C. district judge granted summary judgment to HUD yesterday in a challenge to its disparate-impact regulations brought by insurers. Limiting its analysis to the question […]
The CFPB today issued a report finding that “payment plans” offered by various postsecondary schools can carry risks to students, as they often include high fees, confusing and inconsistent disclosures, forced arbitration agreements, and snowballing interest. The Bureau also found that the third-party service providers schools partner with can engage in abusive debt collection practices. […]
In a decision today, the DC Circuit vacated the CPSC’s safety standard for the operating cords on custom-made window coverings. Based on a finding that such cords pose a strangulation risk to young children, the rule, in the DC Circuit’s words, “essentially prohibit[ed] corded window products,” and the CPSC “set an aggressive timeline for industry […]
On Friday, a Texas district judge held that the CFPB’s authority to prohibit “unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices” does not authorize the agency to regulate discrimination as one such practice, invoking the major questions doctrine. As such, in a win for the Chamber of Commerce, he vacated the CFPB’s March 2022 update to […]
Some cases are destined to continue forever, and the case of Carlton & Harris Chiropractic v. PDR Network may be one of them, given the Fourth Circuit’s decision yesterday- its third encounter with the case since it was filed back in 2015. As Judge Harris explains, the basic facts are that the plaintiff, “a chiropractic […]
According to the New York Attorney General, before reporting to prison in 2020, Jonathan Braun was a prolific predatory lender, notorious for charging borrowers extreme interest rates and threatening those who fell behind–collecting $77 million in payments from small-business owners via merchant cash advances. In 2019, Braun was sentenced to 10 years in prison in […]
In 2008, a federal district court, in an action brought under section 13(b) of the FTC Act, issued a permanent injunction against three dietary supplement companies and affiliates, finding that they had engaged in misleading and materially false marketing with respect to certain weight loss supplements. In 2017, the district court granted the FTC’s motion […]
In 2018, the Fifth Circuit vacated the Department of Labor’s 2016 Fiduciary Rule, which required certain broker-dealers and investment advisers providing investment advice subject to ERISA to act in consumers’ best interests, as opposed to their own. DOL has indicated it will be proposing a new rule. But in the meantime, states have adopted and […]
Last week, the Fourth Circuit decided In re Marriott International, Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation, in which it vacated a district court’s class certification order. The district court had granted certification before addressing the merits of Marriott’s argument that the plaintiffs were barred from proceeding as a class under a waiver. While acknowledging “it […]