As explained in this article by Jenna Greene, "the Federal Trade Commission in a final decision issued January 16 will require juice maker POM Wonderful to conduct extensive clinical trials before it can make any claims about the health benefits of its products." And those clinical trials must produce "competent and and reliable scientific evidence" […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
We have posted several times recently (go here, here, and here) about Mutual Pharmaceutical Company v. Bartlett, a pending Supreme Court case that presents the question whether FDA approval of a generic prescription drug preempts a state-law damages claim premised on the drug's design defect. (The Supreme Court held 5-4 in PLIVA v. Mensing (2011) that FDA […]
Should public companies be forced to disclose to their shareholders — and thus to the world — their campaign contributions (rather than funnelling them secretively through third parties, such as the Chamber of Commerce)? The SEC is considering a disclosure rule, but the Chamber of Commerce is opposed, as explained in this article by Sue […]
You can get notices via email of government recalls of various products. You don't have to get notices for everything regulated by the relevant agency. For instance, you can get recall notices that concern only the make and model of the car that you own. To sign up for emails from the Consumer Product Safety […]
Five U.S. senators, led by former Connecticut Attorney General (now Senator) Richard Blumenthal, has called on the Fed and the FDIC to ban payday lending by federally regulated banks. The Consumerist has a nice write up.
This tax advice from Holly Patreus, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's head of Servicemember Affairs, is directed at members of the military and their families, but much of the advice is useful to consumers generally.
This week, the Supreme Court decided Already v. Nike. There, in a trademark suit instituted by Nike, Already counterclaimed that Nike's trademark on its "Air Force 1" sneakers is invalid. Applying the Court's standard for when a once justificiable case becomes moot under Article III's case-or-controversy requirement — “a defendant claiming that its voluntary compliance […]
We just told you about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new rules to curtail high-risk consumer mortgages. The CFPB has just issued this informative press release, a fact sheet on the new rules, and a summary of the ability-to-repay and qualified mortgage rule. Here are the key attributes of the ability-to-repay rule: Financial information has to be […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau thinks that people should not take on mortgages that they cannot afford. As explained in this Washington Post article, the CFPB today will issue new rules to protect consumers from high-risk mortgage borrowing. Among other things, the rules will define a "qualified mortgage" and say that a consumer cannot obtain […]
Consistent with rulings of other circuits, the Second Circuit held today, in Purdue Pharma v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, that a state's parens patriae action is not removable from state court to federal court as a "class action" under the Class Action Fairness Act. (A parens patriae action is one in which the state or other government […]