Here.
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
For months now, we have covered the tobacco industry's First Amendment challenge to the FDA's new graphic cigarette package labels. In late August, we told you about a D.C. Circuit panel decision invalidating the labels. We noted that the case was likely on a fast track to the Supreme Court. A couple weeks ago, though, […]
Should government impose workplace health rules? As explained here, laws requiring smoke-free workplaces may significantly improve cardiac health. An excerpt: Researchers at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. looked at the number of heart attacks among residents of Olmsted County, Minn. that occurred 18 months before and after implementation of laws banning smoking in restaurants […]
This Wall Street Journal piece explains that older and middle-aged Americans are saddled with a lot of student loan debt largely because they co-signed their kids' and grandkids' student loans and the kids and grandkids have defaulted.
Last Thursday, In AP Optronics v. State of South Carolina, No. 11-254, the Fourth Circuit held that federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act ("CAFA") was lacking because the State of South Carolina (and not its individual citizens) was the real party in interest in South Carolina's state-law antitrust action against the manufacturers of […]
This ProPublica article by Jesse Eisinger explains that, during the depths of the Great Recession, Freddie Mac would not lower consumers' interest rates because it wanted to keep its profits high. Here's an excerpt: Freddie Mac, the taxpayer-owned mortgage giant, made it harder for millions of Americans to refinance their high-interest-rate mortgages for fear it […]
Recently, we've posted about the degree to which the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) should look out for the interests of the businesses it regulates (in a guest post by Rob Bramson) and the CFPB's assertion of jurisdiction over lawyers' activities in some situations (in a post noting the American Bar Association's opposition). Now, in […]
Spurred by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent ombudsman report on student loan debt (about which we posted), the New York Times has penned this editorial about the subject, focusing in part on private student loans (which amount to a mere $150 billion of the outstanding $1 trillion in student loan debt). The Times suggests […]
Yesterday, we posted about the government's fraud suit against Bank of America. Today's Washington Post has this coverage, which quotes a former regulator who says that the suit is not big enough to deter future fraudulent conduct and who ties deterrence to the threat of jail time for bank executives: “This is an act of […]
Read about it in this National Law Journal article. Here's an excerpt: Big banks, little banks, credit card companies, student lenders – it seems like just about every player in the financial services industry has complained about the power of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Now it's the lawyers' turn. On October 24, the CFPB […]