In 1996, Congress directed the FCC to create a fund by which it ensures that Americans throughout the country have access to telecommunications services, to be funded by contributions from carriers. The FCC relies on the Universal Service Administration Company (USAC) to help administer the fund, including by calculating necessary contributions that are submitted to […]
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From time to time at a gathering of consumer law folks, I poll participants about whether they read consumer law contracts and disclosures. Here, for example, are the results of a survey of consumer law professors asked those questions. Earlier this year, I surveyed the audience at a consumer financial services lawyers, some of whose […]
The Washington Post reports: “From airlines to ticket sellers, companies fight U.S. to keep junk fees. An array of powerful moneyed lobbyists have warred with the Biden administration over its new regulatory crackdown as they scramble to protect their profits.” The full article is here.
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan is featured in a Politico piece published today on the growing antitrust movement and its popularity with law students. Possibly the line of the piece: “Critics have called it “hipster” antitrust, but make no mistake: Antitrust is hip.” Chair Khan is also scheduled to speak Nov. 10 at Federalist […]
Here. The Steiger Fellowship program is an ABA-funded paid summer internship that places students in AG’s offices around the country to do consumer protection work.
The DOJ press release is here. The emails are disturbing (see for yourself below) and are reminiscent of the Trident case. The case resulted in a consent order though, as is usual in such cases, the bank neither admitted nor denied the complaint’s substantive allegations. What makes this even more upsetting is that bank trade […]
In 2018, the Fifth Circuit vacated the Department of Labor’s 2016 Fiduciary Rule, which required certain broker-dealers and investment advisers providing investment advice subject to ERISA to act in consumers’ best interests, as opposed to their own. DOL has indicated it will be proposing a new rule. But in the meantime, states have adopted and […]
Rhoda Karpatkin, who served for 30 years as president of Consumers Union, died on August 4 at age 93. The Washington Post has this article. Consumer Reports’ current president Marta Tellado has this remembrance.
In June, George Mason professor Todd Zywicki testified before the Senate Commerce Committee’s Consumer Protection Subcommittee on junk fees. Professor Zywicki explained: I share the frustration that many consumers hold today regarding the proliferation of seemingly ubiquitous add-on fees that we experience constantly, from surcharges for using our credit cards at a merchant, to hotel […]
Consumer law was a big campaign issue for a while in the wake of the Great Recession, and it may be again next year. AP’s Will Weissert has the story in an article headlined Biden and House Democrats hope to make curbing ‘junk fees’ a winning issue in 2024.