Consumers’ antitrust and unfair competition suit against AAA to go ahead

Last year, four consumers who were parties to arbitration agreements in which the sole choice of forum for dispute resolution was the American Arbitration Association sued the company under the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust acts, the Arizona Constitution, and state antitrust and unfair and deceptive practices laws. They alleged monopolistic practices, and that “the AAA […]

Trump administration proposes cutting CFPB staff by two-thirds

The proposal is here. It can’t go into effect until the preliminary injunction in the NTEU case is lifted. The administration claims the plan would “allow CFPB to continue meeting its statutory obligations while expanding on the reforms that have dramatically increased its efficiency and stewardship of taxpayer funds, in line with Presidential and Congressional […]

“Complete stranger” to contract not bound by arbitration clause, groups say

Public interest groups filed an amicus brief this past week in the case Gemini Trust Company, LLC v. National Association of Consumer Advocates, Inc. (NACA), opposing the company’s attempt to force arbitration of the dispute. In 2024, *NACA sued Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange, in the District of Columbia Superior Court, alleging that the company’s terms […]

Paper on how consumer protection enforcement is going away

Alisher Juzgenbaye, a Northwestern JD/Ph.D student has written The Vanishing Enforcer: Consumer Protection in an Era of Dual Retrenchment. Here’s the abstract (the paper left out the third source of retrenchment: arbitration clauses): Recent developments, including reductions in the federal workforce, effective suspension of certain enforcement activities, and attempted centralization of independent agency rulemaking in the […]

Nelson paper: Pre-Arbitral Red Tape

Ryan H. Nelson of South Texas has written Pre-Arbitral Red Tape. Here’s the abstract: While legal scholars debate the merits of mandatory arbitration, a more insidious barrier to justice has quietly proliferated beneath their radar. I call that barrier “pre-arbitral red tape”—that is, procedural condition precedents to initiating arbitration in a pre-dispute agreement between a consumer […]

Luke Herrine paper: The Destabilizing Politics of Student Debt

Luke Herrine of Alabama has written The Destabilizing Politics of Student Debt, forthcoming in the Illinois Law Review. Here’s the abstract: This Article examines why student loans became central to higher education finance in the United States and how they have undermined their own centrality over time. As the liberal constituency for funding redistributive social […]

Guest Post by Hofstra’s Norm Silber: Surprise One-Sided Mass Tort Claim Settlement of the Roundup litigation

A comprehensive settlement of Roundup herbicide litigation is marching through the Missouri courts and scheduled to be finalized within the next three months.  There will be a flurry of media reports soon, emanating chiefly from the companies and the compensated class counsel who recommend the proposed deal.  This settlement is extremely disturbing to many affected […]

FTC restarts rulemaking on subscription practices

Will the Federal Trade Commission bring back its “click to cancel” rule? The FTC on Wednesday announced  an “advance notice of proposed rulemaking,” inviting public feedback on whether to amend its regulation for automatic subscriptions (negative option rule). In October 2024, after years of observing rampant abuse of subscription traps harming consumers, the FTC finalized […]