Last year, we praised a Second Circuit decision holding that the National Bank Act doesn't preempt New York usury law in a claim against a debt buyer. In response to a cert petition, the Supreme Court has now asked for the Administration's views on the case. You can read more about it (from an industry source) here.
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Ars Technica reports on a disturbing report out of Colorado that Denver cops are querying state and federal law enforcement databases for personal uses, such as "to help officers' in the romance department and to assist friends, according to an independent department monitor." Read the story here and the independent monitor's report here (go to page 16 for […]
NPR reports: Doctors have long disputed the accusation that the payments they receive from pharmaceutical companies have any relationship to how they prescribe drugs. There's been little evidence to settle the matter, until now. A ProPublica analysis has found that doctors who receive payments from the medical industry do indeed prescribe drugs differently on average […]
From Politico's Morning Money, by Ben White: M.M. hosted a panel at the ABA conference on Wednesday that generated some controversy when Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.), a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee, said people needed to "find a way to neuter" Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), whom he called "the Darth Vader of […]
Predictably, privacy groups like the idea; ISPs don't. NPR has the story.
We've discussed previously the troubling practice of some state and local courts using low-level offenses to generate fees, sometimes for the courts themselves and sometimes for for-profit entities that run court-related services. (See, for instance, here and here.) Now the Justice Department is warning states that these practices are unconstitutional and must stop, the New […]
The Department of Education announced on Friday a proposal to establish borrower-friendly processes for seeking and obtaining loan relief triggered by unscrupulous conduct by higher education institutions. The Department also proposed options to protect students from the use of mandatory arbitration provisions in enrollment agreements. The proposals were made in connection with an ongoing negotiated […]
Ralph Nader has an article on tort law entitled "Suing for Justice – Your lawsuits are good for America" in April's edition of Harper's Magazine. His conclusion: We are at a moment in our legal history at which the tort system, built over the course of a century in courts of law by tens of […]
Last week, the Vermont Attorney General announced that Advantage Payment Systems will pay $22,000 to settle claims that the company violated state consumer laws by processing electronic payments to payday lenders charging 100-300% interest despite the fact that Vermont law forbids interest rates of greater than 24%. Apparently, the company has already stopped processing payments in Vermont […]
by Jeff Sovern I recently listened to the audio version of a book authored, by two Nobel Prize winners, George A. Akerlof & Robert J. Shiller, titled Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception. Their basic thesis is that while free markets have the salutary effect of encouraging sellers to provide things that consumers want, free […]