We reported earlier that the interest rate for new federal student loans doubled from 3.4% to 6.8% on July 1 because Congress failed to agree on new legislation. The Senate tried again yesterday, but again failed. A bill sponsored by Senate Democrats would have brought the rate back down to 3.4% for one year, retroactive […]
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The Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation remains under assault in the Republican controlled House of Representatives. At a hearing yesterday before the House Financial Services Committee's subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, law professor Thomas Merrill and lawyer C. Boyden Gray testified that certain aspects of Dodd-Frank are likely unconstitutional. Merrill's testimony is here and Gray's testimony […]
The case was brought by our own U.S. Department of Justice. Read about it here.
The FTC announced yesterday that the "world’s largest debt collection operation, Expert Global Solutions and its subsidiaries, has agreed to stop harassing consumers with allegedly illegal debt collection calls and to pay a $3.2 million civil penalty – the largest ever obtained by the Federal Trade Commission against a third-party debt collector." The FTC's press […]
Law profs Sam Issacharoff and D. Theodore Rave "The BP Oil Spill Settlement and the Paradox of Public Litigation." Here is the abstract: The streamlined administrative program that BP set up to pay claims arising out of the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill — the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF) — promised a significant transaction-cost savings […]
That's the topic of this article by Alana Semuels of the LA Times.
The plaintiffs make what sound like serious and detailed allegations involving price fixing against Travelocity (agreement not to resell hotel rooms below fixed price, most favored nation restrictions, etc.). But wait, you can guess what happens. Because, of course, Travelocity has a forced arbitration clause. The district court (N.D. Texas) decision finds that the arbitration […]
Law professor Keith Hylton has written "The Economics of Class Actions and Class Action Waivers." Here is the abstract: Class action litigation has generated a series of recent Supreme Court decisions imposing greater federal court supervision over the prosecution of collective injury claims. This group of cases raises the question whether class action waivers should […]
by Paul Bland Here is a terrific amicus brief written by Professor Walker of Drake University and his co-counsel. As some of you may know, in 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court held in EEOC v. Waffle House that even if employees of a company had signed an arbitration clause, that the federal agency could still pursue […]
by Brian Wolfman This June 21 article by James Stewart explains that In a departure from long-established practice, the recently confirmed chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary Jo White, said this week that defendants would no longer be allowed to settle some cases while “neither admitting nor denying” wrongdoing. “In the interest of […]