Some comments on Alan Kaplinsky’s comments on my comments

by Jeff Sovern I am grateful to Alan Kaplinsky for commenting on two of my earlier posts, Whither Arbitration Regulation? and Why the CFPB is right that it can act against discrimination using its unfairness power. One of Alan’s posts is titled Why the CFPB’s expansion of its UDAAP authority to target discrimination requires rulemaking. In the other […]

Attend a panel discussion on the FTC’s monetary authority in the wake of the Supreme Court’s AMG decision

Join the Washington D.C. ACS Lawyer Chapter for a discussion on the Supreme Court's decision in AMG Capital v. FTC. The panel discussion — a Zoom webinar — is on Thursday, May 26, 2022 from 12:30PM – 1:30PM ET. Register here. The panelists will discuss the background of the case, it's impact on the agency, […]

Nielson Paper Asks What Happens If the FTC Becomes a Serious Rulemaker?

Aaron L. Nielson of Brigham Young has written What Happens If the FTC Becomes a Serious Rulemaker? forthcoming in FTC's Rᴜʟᴇᴍᴀᴋɪɴɢ Aᴜᴛʜᴏʀɪᴛʏ (Concurrences 2022). Here's the abstract: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is no one’s idea of a serious rulemaker. To the contrary, the FTC is in many respects a law enforcement agency that operates […]

CFP: Symposium on AI, Consumer Credit, and Discrimination

We received the following call for papers: Nikita Aggarwal, Matt Bruckner, Kathleen Engel and Cre Johnson are putting together proposals for a symposium on AI, Consumer Credit, and Discrimination. They are applying to multiple law reviews on a rolling basis. If you have a project that fits within the proposed topic and are interested in […]

CFP for Hybrid International Consumer Protection Law Conference

Here is the announcement: University of Pretoria International Consumer Law Conference (UPICLC 2022) Since the first UPICLC conference in 2014, the University of Pretoria Consumer Protection Law Cluster has attempted to propagate and address various consumer issues and trends on a national, regional and international scale. Through the years there have been consistent collaborative efforts […]

Virtual Conference: Multilevel Marketing: The Consumer Protection Challenge 2022

Hosted by The College of New Jersey School of Business on June 10th / 11th 2022. From the conference website: "This virtual conference brings together expertise from regulators, prosecutors, former MLM distributors, social media consumer advocates, researchers, educators, and journalists to discuss ways to improve consumer protection and reduce consumer harm within the multi-level marketing […]

Watch Tower Drops Its Effort to Identify a Dissident Blogger Based on Spurious Copyright Claims

by Paul Alan Levy The effort by the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (a/k/a Jehovah’s Witnesses) to identify a dissident member, "Kevin McFree," through a spurious claim of copyright infringement has ended with a whimper rather than a bang as Watch Tower agreed to dismiss its copyright lawsuit with prejudice to avoid a possible […]

Whither Arbitration Regulation?

by Jeff Sovern Every six months, the CFPB director testifies before the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee. Each committee member gets five minutes to question the director, a process that collectively takes hours and this last time covered a wide variety of topics, including topics over which the CFPB lacks power, […]

CLASS Network Directorship Position Deadline for Applications Extended to 5/22

Here’s the job posting: Director of the CLASS Network – Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice Do you want to work every day to advance the rights of low-income consumers? Do you want to help create a national network of law school programs dedicated to building equity and economic justice? Well, then, perhaps this […]

Report: “Consumers Lured Into Predatory Car Repair Loans”

Consumer Reports writes today: Auto repair shops affiliated with well-known brands—including AAMCO, Big O Tires, Grease Monkey, Jiffy Lube, Meineke, Midas, and Precision Tune Auto Care—are steering unsuspecting customers into loans charging up to 189 percent interest, according to a study by consumer advocacy groups including Consumer Reports. While most states have interest-rate limits to […]