The Federal Trade Commission made a few interesting announcements in late December: FTC Orders an End to Illegal Mastercard Business Tactics and Requires it to Stop Blocking Competing Debit Card Payment Networks (Dec. 23) – Mastercard will have to start providing competing networks with customer account information they need to process debit payments, reversing a […]
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
In late December, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released a report covering the financial health of American households. Here is the report summary: In 2022, consumer financial health continued to be buoyed by pandemic relief, high employment, and increased savings accumulated during the first year of the pandemic. But financial health was no longer as […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today ordered Wells Fargo Bank to pay more than $2 billion in redress to consumers and a $1.7 billion civil penalty for legal violations across several of its largest product lines. The bank’s illegal conduct led to billions of dollars in financial harm to its customers and, for thousands of […]
The New York Times reports: Until last month, a class-action lawsuit by Tesla owners looked as if it would reveal new details about the carmaker’s self-driving technology, which has been blamed for serious accidents and deaths. But then Tesla deployed a legal strategy that has allowed it to avoid the kind of attention-grabbing lawsuits other […]
A new ProPublica article reports that, “[f]rom a powerful chemical industry that helped write the toxic substances law to an underfunded EPA lacking in resolve, the flaws in the American chemical regulatory apparatus run deep.” When ProPublica published stories this fall cataloging new evidence that American chemical workers are being exposed to asbestos, readers reacted […]
The Washington Post reports that an outside group that was asked to examine problems at the Food and Drug Administration in the wake of an infant formula crisis this year offered a scathing indictment of the agency’s structure and culture and recommended major restructuring. The task force’s first suggestion was to create separate food and […]
In 2010, Congress passed the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, which, among other things, required the Food and Drug Administration to issue a rule requiring graphic warning labels covering the top half of the front and back of cigarette packs and 20% of cigarette advertising. Ruling in a case challenging the regulation, brought […]
The Center for Responsible Lending reports: “New data from the bipartisan polling team Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consultingi shows that voters across the political spectrum overwhelmingly support the ongoing mission of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to regulate the financial industry and protect consumers. The new findings are consistent with over 10 […]
The Federal Communications Commission recently issued a unanimous decision on ringless voicemails — that is, messages left in voicemail boxes without ringing the consumers' cell phones. The FCC determined that ringless voicemails are “calls” and, therefore, require consumers’ prior express consent under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. The FCC's press release and ruling are available […]
Nearly half of the children caught in cords for shades, blinds, or other window coverings die — close to 100 kids died of strangulation from window covering cords in 2021 — according to data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Two years ago, Canada announced a regulation strictly limiting the length of window covering cords […]