The Justice Department and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have filed a consent order to resolve allegations that Provident Funding Associates engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination. The consent order resolves allegations that Provident increased loan prices for African-American and Hispanic borrowers who obtained residential mortgages between 2006 and 2011 from Provident’s nationwide network […]
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by Paul Alan Levy In a ruling issued this morning in Davis v. Cox, the Washington Supreme Court unanimously struck down that state's anti-SLAPP statute because of a provision, not contained in most other state anti-SLAPP statutes, under which once a case is found to over a matter of free speech or petition within the law's […]
Yesterday, DOL proposed guidance and regulations that would protect workers in two important ways. First, corporations would be prevented from receiving federal contracts if they have bad worker safety records or histories of wage theft. Second, federal contractors would not be permitted to use employment contracts that impose forced arbitration on their workers. In a […]
The Volcker Alliance, a nonprofit public policy organization headed by Mr. Volcker, has released a report proposing broad changes to the U.S. financial regulatory system. The Alliance suggests a three-pronged approach to reform, calling for updated oversight and surveillance, streamlined supervision and regulation, and stronger market integrity and investor protection. The report is here. Just […]
The State of New York prohibits charging more than 25% interest. You'd think that would be plenty of profit for any lender, but Saliha Madden's creditors (Midland Funding and a sister entity) wanted more. When they sought to collect a higher rate of interest from her, she sued under state and federal law and sought […]
Unwanted calls and texts are the number one consumer complaint to the FCC. Now, the FCC has announced a "proposal to protect Americans from unwanted robocalls, spam text messages, and telemarketing calls. The proposal addresses two dozen petitions that sought clarity on how the Commission enforces the Telephone Consumer Protection Act." The FCC says that […]
A federal district court in New York has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of for-profit colleges challenging regulations issued by the Department of Education to limit student debt. The Department adopted the “Gainful Employment” rule in 2014 to address overwhelming evidence that some postsecondary career training programs, particularly at for-profit institutions, were failing […]
Read this Paul Krugman column in the New York Times from this past weekend. He exposes how the defenses of the TPP offered by its supporters don't answer the charges made against it by its opponents: The administration’s main analytical defense of the trade deal came earlier this month, in a report from the Council […]
Today, Professor Rebecca Tushnet of Georgetown Law (and of 43(B)log fame), represented by Public Citizen, filed motions to intervene and unseal court documents in a trademark dispute in which two companies claim that Amazon infringed their trademark by advertising the companies' product (a dietary supplement called SeroVital) even when the product wasn't available on Amazon […]
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has issued an important decision at the intersection of First Amendment and trademark law, marking the second time in two days that free speech has triumphed over expansive intellectual property claims. On Monday it was the Ninth Circuit’s en banc decision in Garcia v. Google, rejecting an […]