FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra and his attorney-advisor Samuel A.A. Levine have wiritten The Case for Resurrecting the FTC Act’s Penalty Offense Authority. Here is the abstract: This article details why the Federal Trade Commission should resurrect one of the key authorities it abandoned in the 1980s: Section 5(m)(1)(B) of the FTC Act, the Penalty Offense […]
Category Archives: Consumer Law Scholarship
Amy Widman of Rutgers has written Protecting Consumer Protection: Filling the Federal Enforcement Gap, 69 Buffalo Law Review __ (2021) (Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: Since 2014, when a first-of-its-kind empirical study looked at how public enforcers use their authority under UDAP laws, the enforcement landscape has changed. Most notably, the Trump Administration has weakened […]
West has published the fifth edition of Dee Pridgen's Consumer Protection Law in a Nutshell, the best short introduction to consumer protection law and an extremely useful volume for students and practitioners alike (disclosure: I commented on the manuscript of the fourth edition and coauthor a casebook with Dee). Here are some of the bigger […]
Yehuda Adar of the University of Haifa and Shmuel I. Becher of the Victoria University of Wellington have written Taking Boilerplate Seriously: Tackling Exploitation in Consumer Contracts. Here's the abstract: This Article calls for a conceptual shift toward the scrutiny of exploitative consumer standard form contracts. Current approaches to consumer standard form contracts assume that imbalanced […]
We received the following CFP: Texas A&M Journal of Property Law: Spring Symposium Proposal Purpose: The Texas A&M Journal of Property Law is currently seeking speakers and papers for its 2021 virtual Spring Symposium. The purpose of the Symposium is to create a vibrant and useful forum for consumer law scholars, practitioners, and interested students […]
Matthew A. Bruckner of Howard has written The Forgotten Stewards of Higher Education Quality, 11 U.C. Irvine L. Rev. 1 – 41 (2020). Here's the abstract: A “triad” of regulators is supposed to ensure that student loan borrowers are not harmed by low-value institutions of higher education, including exploitative profiteers operating fly-by-night or predatory institutions of […]
Christopher K. Odinet of Iowa has written Predatory Fintech and the Politics of Banking, Iowa Law Review (2021 Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: With American families living on the financial edge and seeking out high cost loans even before COVID-19, the term financial technology or “fintech” has been used like an incantation aimed at remedying everything that’s […]
We've received the following Call for Papers, which overlaps with consumer law issues: Racial Capitalism: An Elaboration in Legal Scholarship As a journal dedicated to social, racial, and economic justice, the Journal of Civil Rights & Economic Development (JCRED) is soliciting articles for Racial Capitalism, an Elaboration in Legal Scholarship, our forthcoming symposium issue. This issue will explore the […]
Albert H. Choi of Michigan and Kathryn E. Spier of Harvard have written The Economics of Class Action Waivers. Here is the abstract: Many firms require consumers, employees, and suppliers to sign class action waivers as a condition of doing business with the firm, and three recent US Supreme Court cases, Concepcion, Italian Colors, and Epic […]
Shmuel I. Becher of Victoria University of Wellington and Sarah Dadush of Rutgers have written Relationship as Product: Transacting in the Age of Loneliness. Here's the abstract: Behavioral economists and social psychologists distinguish between two main types of relationships. One type is “exchange relationships,” which are based on mutual benefit and economics principles. The second type […]