With so many avenues to challenge the use of forced arbitration clauses in consumer contracts closed off by Supreme Court precedent, plaintiffs tried another one: allege that so many credit card companies' parallel adoption of the clauses was collusive and therefore violated antitrust law. But the district court dismissed the challenge and yesterday the Second […]
Author Archives: Scott Michelman
In response to our recent discussion of the TPP, alert reader Matthew Bruckner pointed out that NPR's Planet Money podcast covered the trade pact recently. Unfortunately, many of the aspects covered were the traditional tariff-related aspects of the deal rather than provisions like ISDS that make it so dangerous. And even as to ISDS, the reporters seem to […]
One of the examples from the aforementioned Times editorial is worth noting in its own right: Last Thursday, a $59 million settlement was filed in a class action against shady debt collection practices on behalf of tens of thousands of New Yorkers who had their wages garnished or their bank accounts frozen. Specifically, the suit attacked a […]
Discussing recent state and federal enforcement actions against debt collectors who engaged in various illegal practices including falsifying documents, the Times argues on today's editorial page for stronger state consumer protections, here. Along with the paper's three-part arbitration series and editorial on that topic ten days ago, today's editorial is a welcome sign of increasing journalistic […]
Last month, we told you how General Mills had to recall over a million boxes of Cheerios that were labeled gluten-free but in fact were not. Now the popular cereal has a new product with a new problem, according to the Post: although its special "Protein Cheerios" increases slightly the amount of protein, it also increases […]
The New York Times reports: Smoking would be prohibited in public housing homes nationwide under a proposed federal rule announced on Thursday, a move that would affect nearly one million households and open the latest front in the long-running campaign to curb unwanted exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke. The ban, proposed by the U.S. Department […]
…asks a story from NPR's Morning Edition this morning. A recent story in the Financial Times (entitled "Being 'wasted' on Facebook may damage your credit score" but behind a paywall) suggests this is a possibility, although the credit reporting industry denies it. Listen to an analysis of the ways in which various information is, or might […]
Check out this podcast, in which the reporters behind the NYT's broad and thoughtful three-part series on arbitration last week, discuss their experience reporting the story.
More than 70% of the 7,000-plus meetings of federal advisory committees in 2014 were conducted behind closed doors, according to a recent study by the Congressional Research Service. The committees influence federal regulatory policy by advising federal agencies, and the committees often include industry representatives. The Hill covers the CRS report here; the report itself […]
This morning, the Supreme Court considered whether a group of workers at an Iowa meat-processing plant appropriately proceeded as a class on their federal and state wage-and-hour claims where their proof of the amount of hours worked was based in part on an expert time study because the company failed to keep legally required records […]