The New York Times reports today: The students attended institutions with pragmatic names like the Minnesota School of Business and others whose branding evoked ivy-draped buildings and leafy quads, like Corinthian Colleges. Tens of thousands of them say they are alike in one respect: They were victims of fraud, left with useless degrees and crushing […]
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Read Wells Fargo says its promises to restore consumer trust were just ‘puffery.’ But now they look like lies by Michael Hiltzik. Here's an excerpt that sets the theme: If you’ve ever wondered how businesses can get away with making transparently false or deceptive claims about themselves or their products — “The Best Tasting Juice in America,” […]
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has issued "Procedural Guidance for Class Action Settlements." The guidance addresses items to include in a motion for preliminary approval, suggestions for class notice, and attorney fees. Among other things, the guidelines instruct lawyers to file an accounting of the distribution to the class and […]
The New York Times reports: Across the corporate landscape, the Trump administration has presided over a sharp decline in financial penalties against banks and big companies accused of malfeasance, according to analyses of government data and interviews with more than 60 former and current federal officials. The approach mirrors the administration’s aggressive deregulatory agenda throughout […]
by Paul Alan Levy A recent trial court decision from New York addresses a question about which I have long held a tentative opinion, albeit without having known of any direct precedent to back up my view: When speaker states facts in an online publication that are not subject to defamation liability when made (because […]
"Wells Fargo & Co will not finish paying back the estimated 600,000 customers it wrongly charged for auto insurance until at least 2020, the bank said in a letter to U.S. lawmakers. … U.S. regulators slapped Wells Fargo with a $1 billion penalty in April when it admitted to wrongly forcing drivers into auto insurance […]
Online student loan refinancer SoFi has agreed to stop misrepresenting how much money student loan borrowers have saved or will save from refinancing their loans with the company, in order to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it deceptively advertised inflated figures for more than two years. In a complaint against Social Finance, Inc. and […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today issued a statement about its plans for its payday-loan regulation: The Bureau expects to issue proposed rules in January 2019 that will reconsider the Bureau's rule regarding Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans and address the rule's compliance date. The Bureau will make final decisions regarding the scope of the […]
We've posted many times on the NFL concussion class-action settlement. Go here, for instance. Now there's this story in USA Today saying that some injured former players who qualify for payments under the settlement are getting little or nothing after the lawyers, health-care providers, and other (purported?) lien holders take what they say is theirs (and for other reasons).
We've posted here many times about the massive and growing student-loan debt in this country. Two new pieces might interest our readers. First, Maine is so interested in getting educated people to move to Maine that it will refund most (and often all) student loan repayments through a state tax credit. The program applies to […]