Category Archives: Uncategorized

Financial institutions report widespread elder financial abuse

The CFPB has released a report on financial exploitation of the elderly by people ranging from offshore scammers to family members. The report compiles information from Suspicious Activity Reports submitted by banks, credit unions, casinos, and other financial services providers. The 180,000 elder financial exploitation SARs reviewed for the report were submitted from 2013 to […]

FTC case challenges fake paid reviews on Amazon

The Federal Trade Commission announced its first case challenging a marketer’s use of fake paid reviews on an independent retail website. In a settlement announced at the same time, Cure Encapsulations and its owner resolved allegations that they made false and unsubstantiated claims for their garcinia cambogia weight-loss supplement and that they paid a third-party […]

Supreme Court grants review in Fair Debt Collection Practices Act statute-of-limitations case

The Supreme Court has granted review in Rotkiskie v. Klemm. The question presented in the 8-page (!) petition for a writ of certiorari is whether the “discovery rule” applies to toll the one (1) year statute of limitations under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692, et seq., as the Fourth […]

“Google reaped millions in tax breaks as it secretly expanded its real estate footprint across the U.S.”

That's the name of this story by Elizabeth Dwoskin. Here's an excerpt: Last May, officials in Midlothian, Texas, a city near Dallas, approved more than $10 million in tax breaks for a huge, mysterious new development across from a shuttered Toys R Us warehouse. … The developer, which incorporated with the state four months earlier, went […]

A study on the relationship, if any, between Texas medical-malpractice “reform” legislation and litigation, doctor supply, and patient safety

Law profs Charlie Silver, David Hyman, and Bernard Black have published Fictions and Facts: Medical Malpractice Litigation, Physician Supply, and Health Care Spending in Texas Before and after HB 4. Note the study's findings in the abstract below: This article, written for a symposium issue of the Texas Tech Law Review, summarizes our research on […]

Should the U.S. impose greater inheritance taxes to alleviate student-loan debt?

That's the topic of a bluntly-titled article — Taxing Rich Dead People to Tackle Student Loan Debt — by law prof Victoria J. Haneman. The abstract follows. (Note in particular the stats in the second paragraph of the abstract concerning Millennials' financial situation.) Once upon a time, there was a generation of indentured servants called […]

NYT: “Trump’s Payback for Payday Lenders”

A New York Times editorial today addresses the proposal by the Consumer Financial protection Bureau to gut the Bureau's own rule protecting low-income borrowers from predatory practices of payday lenders. As the NYT put it, "The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau betrayed financially vulnerable Americans last week by proposing to gut rules conceived during the […]