Howard Beales of George Washington University's School of Business and Timothy J. Muris of George Mason have written FTC Consumer Protection at 100: 1970s Redux or Protecting Markets to Protect Consumers? 83 George Washington Law Review 2157(2015). Here is the abstract: Throughout most of the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC” or “Commission”) history, the agency has been […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Imre S. Szalai of Loyola New Orleans has written DIRECTV, Inc. v. Imburgia: How the Supreme Court Used a Jedi Mind Trick To Turn Arbitration Law Upside Down, 32 Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, 1, (2016 Forthcoming). Here's the abstract: The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) is the primary federal statute governing millions of arbitration […]
by Jeff Sovern A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran an op-ed by Georgetown Law Professor David Cole, titled What Liberals Can Learn From the N.R.A. Consumer advocates who seek to change the law would find the entire piece worth reading, but I was particularly struck by one paragraph (which is self-serving, both when […]
Here. Bad news for lawyers.
Here. Excerpt: The problem is one of disclosure. Do news organizations do a sufficient job of helping people understand that one story or link is real news while another was provided by an advertiser? * * * Consumers might say: "If it's interesting content, what's the difference?" The difference is that the goal of journalism […]
The Washington Post has the story here.
Here (free content). Makes for interesting reading. An excerpt: Time and again, lawmakers effectively stepped on their own lines, asking Cordray important questions and never bothering to let him respond. They allowed theatrics to trump (pun intended) substance, using their time to berate the CFPB chief instead of engaging in a productive discussion. Generally, the […]
Here. Excerpt: Greed is undermining class actions, according to Ted Frank, founder and director of the Center for Class Action Fairness in Washington. Consumer and other class settlements often pay more to trial lawyers than to their clients, Frank says, and he's devoted his professional life to fighting that trend. Frank is an objector—a lawyer […]
Chris Jay Hoofnagle of Berkeley has written Assessing the Federal Trade Commission's Privacy Assessments, 14(2) IEEE Security & Privacy 58–64 (Mar/Apr. 2016). Here is the abstract: Consumer protection regulators worldwide share basic problems: the companies that regulators police are so powerful and rich that fines do not matter. Consider the French with their €150,000 fine […]