See here for this new report on banking shenanigans. Here's the gist: When an outside analysis uncovered serious flaws with thousands of home loans, JPMorgan Chase executives found an easy fix. Rather than disclosing the full extent of problems like fraudulent home appraisals and overextended borrowers, the bank adjusted the critical reviews, according to documents […]
Category Archives: Uncategorized
by Brian Wolfman It's nice to see the FTC shutting down unscrupulous, outrageous debt collectors. In this complaint filed last month, the FTC charged a debt collection company called Goldman Schwartz and related defendants with a variety of violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act. As explained in […]
by Brian Wolfman California legislators are considering requiring used car sellers to fix cars subject to government safety recalls before they re-sell those cars to unsuspecting customers. The idea is that consumers should not be buying used cars that the government says have bad brakes or faulty, fire-prone wiring. Legislation on the topic could affect […]
Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times thinks so. Read his column "Congress's horse-and-buggy computer laws" to find out why he says federal computer laws aimed mainly at protecting intellectual property are hurting ordinary consumers and need to be re-thought.
We have blogged several times (here, here, here, here, and here) about the Federal Trade Commission's challenges to "pay-to-delay" settlements between brand-name and generic drug companies, in which the brand-name company pays the generic to delay selling a generic equivalent of the brand-name drug. The Legal Times reports that the new chair of the Senate's […]
As Todd Ruger explains in this National Law Journal article, "Senate Republicans are looking to stop work at the National Labor Relations Board and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, piggybacking on a federal appeals court ruling that invalidated some of President Barack Obama's controversial recess appointments."
by Brian Wolfman On January 25, 2013, Steve Schultze of Princeton University spoke about the fee-based system for access to federal court documents known as PACER. (PACER stands for Public Access to Court Electonic Records.) At a Capitol Hill event sponsored by the Advisory Committee on Transparency, Schultze said that PACER charges far more than […]
That's the name of a new piece by University of Texas law prof Linda Mullenix. Here's the abstract, with emphasis added to the last paragraph: In the past few years, the term “quasi-class action” has been appearing with increasing, uncritical frequency in a spate of federal court decisions. While it may be premature to characterize […]
This NPR story this morning takes a look at Florida's judicial foreclosure process, comparing it unfavorably with other states where foreclosures move faster. A banker blames the courts and defense attorneys; a judge blames the banks sloppy paperwork; a defense attorney chimes in for consumer protection. Worth a listen (or read), though the thrust of […]
by Brian Wolfman We have covered the D.C. Circuit's recent ruling striking down President Obama's "recess" appointments to the NLRB here, here, here, and here. In defending the case, government lawyers did not argue that the case was not justiciable under the political question doctrine, and the D.C. Circuit did not raise and decide the […]