The Department of Justice has announced: As part of a nationwide sweep, the Department of Justice and its federal partners have pursued civil and criminal cases against more than 100 makers and marketers of dietary supplements. The actions discussed today resulted from a year-long effort, beginning in November 2014, to focus enforcement resources in an […]
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Forbes reports: The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that litigation-finance contracts — non-recourse loans to consumers that are repayable only if they win their case — are indeed loans under that state’s consumer finance laws, making it harder for high-interest lawsuit lenders to operate in the state. The decision [yesterday] by Colorado’s highest court upholds […]
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 […]
The Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to further the agencies’ ongoing cooperation on consumer protection matters. The memorandum is designed to formalize the existing cooperation between the agencies, outlining how the FTC and FCC will coordinate consumer protection efforts.
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 Washington Post's Wonkblog reports today on a new study. The study's authors found that a third of the clinical trial results that federal regulators reviewed to approve drugs made by large pharmaceutical companies in 2012 were never publicly reported. The full article is here.
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.