Reuters reports that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is considering sanctions against Citigroup for denying minority customers the kinds of mortgage discounts that the bank offered to many other borrowers. Citigroup, while performing a review to ensure it adhered to fair lending standards, reportedly found that some minority borrowers were not getting […]
Law prof Albert Lin has written President Trump's War on Regulatory Science. Here is the abstract: The Trump administration has taken numerous actions that appear hostile to scientists, scientific research, and scientific data, leading some observers to assert that a war on science is underway. A more precise characterization is that the Trump administration is engaging […]
The Kentucky Supreme Court's unanimous decision is Northern Kentucky Area Development District v. Snyder. The first two paragraphs of the court's opinion summarizes its reasoning: Kentucky Revised Statute (“KRS”) 336.700(2) prohibits employers from conditioning employment on an existing employee’s or prospective employee’s agreement to “waive, arbitrate, or otherwise diminish any existing or future claim, right, or […]
In a filing last night, the Department of Education announced that it will miss a November 1 statutory deadline to publish a rule that rolls back protections for student loan borrowers and students defrauded by for-profit colleges. Those protections, part of what’s known as the Obama-era borrower defense rule, were set to go into effect […]
Citing the U.S. Supreme Court's precedent in favor of arbitration, California Governor Jerry Brown yesterday vetoed a bill that would end the practice of employers requiring workers to use private arbitration instead of the courts to resolve sexual harassment complaints. The bill would not have barred workers from voluntarily opting for arbitration, only barred predispute […]
California's net neutrality law was just signed into law. The Justice Department says it will sue to invalidate California's law on federal preemption grounds. Read about it here.
Todd J. Zywicki of George Mason has written The Behavioral Economics of Behavioral Law & Economics, Journal of Behavioral Economics (2019, Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: Behavioral Law & Economics (BLE) has loudly proclaimed its victory over traditional law & economics methodologies. Nowhere has this proclamation been so loud or self-certain as with respect to claims […]
We have from time to time blogged about non-disparagement clauses inserted into consumer contracts to try to prevent consumers from complaining publicly about a product or service. Yesterday, a district court in Florida, in a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission against weight-loss supplement marketer Roca Labs, granted the FTC's summary judgment motion in a […]
by Jeff Sovern Years ago, I heard the puppet Lambchop (Shari Lewis) sing The Song That Never Ends: This is the song that never endsYes, it just goes on and on my friends.Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was.And they continue singing it forever just because,This is the song that doesn’t end. […]
That's the topic of this article by consumer reporter Michelle Singletary. It includes this hypothetical underscoring how the cost of credit can differ based on one's credit score: Let’s look at a person taking out an auto loan who has a subprime credit score below 600 (on a scale of 300 to 850, the highest score being […]