Bloomberg reports: Millions of people search online for information about symptoms and prescription drugs. Patterns in their searches might reveal previously unknown side effects of medications. The Food and Drug Administration is talking to Google about how the search engine could help the agency identify previously unknown side effects of medications. Agency officials held a […]
Author Archives: Allison Zieve
In October, the Supreme Court will hear a case called Spokeo v. Robins, which poses the question, as formulated by the defendant company, "whether Congress may confer Article III standing upon a plaintiff who suffers no concrete harm, and who therefore could not otherwise invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court, by authorizing a private […]
Politico has this story about implementation — or lack thereof — of the 2010 Food Safety Modernization Act. Here is the gist of it: On paper, the law that Congress passed in late 2010 — known as the Food Safety Modernization Act — was bigger than anything since Teddy Roosevelt cleaned up the meatpacking industry. […]
Deciding a case under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Third Circuit held this week that debt collectors bear the burden of proving that their contacts with third parties fall under an exception to a ban on such contact when pursuing repayment from consumers. The court summarized the case this way: Under the Fair […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Department of Justice yesterday resolved an action with American Honda Finance Corporation concerning discretionary auto loan pricing and compensation practices. The CFPB explains: "Honda’s past practices resulted in thousands of African-American, Hispanic, and Asian and Pacific Islander borrowers paying higher interest rates than white borrowers for their auto loans, […]
On June 18, the FCC announced adoption of a set of a set of rules to resolve questions about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. See our summary here. Last Friday, the FCC issued the declaratory ruling. The TCPA Blog has this business-side perspective.
The Federal Trade Commission has had a busy week. Yesterday, the FTC announced that it had stopped a "massive payday loan fraud scheme." The operators of a payday lending scheme that allegedly bilked millions of dollars from consumers by trapping them into loans they never authorized will be banned from the consumer lending business under […]
The Federal Trade Commission has announced: The marketers of a dietary supplement called Procera AVH will relinquish $1.4 million under settlements resolving Federal Trade Commission charges that they deceived consumers with claims that the supplement was clinically proven to significantly improve memory, mood, and other cognitive functions. Under the terms of the settlements, the defendants […]
The Washington Examiner reports: Voters overwhelmingly say they want stronger regulations for banks and less Wall Street influence in Washington even as the financial crisis recedes into the past, according to a new poll released Tuesday by advocates of tougher rules on the financial industry. Seventy-three percent of likely 2016 voters favor the provisions of […]
From the CFPB press release: Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Attorneys General in 47 states and the District of Columbia took action against JPMorgan Chase for selling bad credit card debt and illegally robo-signing court documents. The CFPB and states found that Chase sold “zombie debts” to third-party debt buyers, which include accounts […]