Retired Chief Judge Susan G. Braden, formerly of the United States Court of Federal Claims, has written Quo Vadis—Federal Trade Commission? She argues that the Department of Justice should absorb the FTC. The paper was written before the Court decided Trump v. Slaughter but it anticipated the result. This proposal reminds me of how the […]
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Mark Bartholomew of Buffalo and Samuel Becher of the City University of Hong Kong have written a short opinion piece for the Regulatory Review: Consumer Protection Law Was Not Built for Robot Shoppers. Here are the first and last paragraphs: Imagine waking up to find that, while you slept, an artificial intelligence (AI) shopping agent […]
Americans for Financial Reform published a report card on how members of Congress have voted so far in this session on financial services issues. The report documents member votes on CFPB-related legislation, including on the 2025 resolutions that repealed agency regulations. It also covers members’ floor votes on crypto-related legislation, including the Genius Act and […]
Recently I took a redeye from California to New York. I paid a bit more for extra leg room in the hope that it would help me sleep. But when I boarded the flight, I discovered a metal box–part of the plane–taking up some of the space under the seat in front of me. The […]
The Center for Justice & Democracy has issued Civil Justice Skewed: The Groups and the Billions Spent Advocating for “Tort Reform.” The study provides “a comprehensive overview of the organizations working in 2026 to limit the legal rights of injured parties, updating [CJ&D’s] prior research in a field that has expanded considerably in recent years.” […]
The ALI is working on a new project, Principles of the Law, Civil Liability for Artificial Intelligence. NYU Professor Mark Geistfeld is the reporter. Alan Kaplinsky interviewed him for Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Finance Monitor podcast about the project and some of AI’s implications for consumer law.
A new report from the The People’s Parity Project examines the backgrounds of judges on state “business courts.” Sixty-three percent of Americans live in a state with a business court. Although business courts are intended to hear cases between businesses, a significant number of states hear cases that include workers and consumers, typically relating to […]
Then listen to this episode of Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Finance Monitor podcast.
It’s been a few months since I last published about the abusive copyright enforcement campaign operated by Prepared Food Photos, which has been shaking down small business that have used its stock photos of food, rightly or wrongly, for damages settlements many times the market value of its copyrighted images. (Other discussions are here, here […]
Text available here. It’s believed to be the first law banning surveillance pricing in the country (New York has a law requiring that any use of algorithmic pricing be disclosed). The law is limited to larger grocery stores and delivery services. It follows a December story by Consumer Reports that Instacart was using surveillance pricing […]