Recents announcements from DOJ’s Consumer Protection Branch

November 22, 2017 – Tobacco Companies to Begin Issuing Court-Ordered Statements in Tobacco Racketeering Suit November 22, 2017 – Former Pharmacy Compliance Director Pleads Guilty to Introducing Adulterated Drugs into Interstate Commerce and Conspiracy to Defraud the United States November 8, 2017 – District Court Enters Order Against Los Angeles Area Telemarketing Companies and Their […]

Payday lending group plans to sue CFPB

USA Today reports on plans to sue the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over its rule on payday lending. As the article epxlians, "The new rule requires providers of payday loans, auto title loans, and other small-dollar advances to predetermine whether borrowers can afford to repay the debts. The rule also limits lender efforts to debit borrowers' checking accounts, a […]

Sixth Circuit Implicitly Embraces Dendrite Balancing Standard for Protecting Anonymous Speech

by Paul Alan Levy In a decision issued on Tuesday in Signature Management Team v. Doe, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit implicitly adopted the majority rule followed in the state courts that have addressed the issue, holding that a plaintiff seeking to identify an anonymous defendant in order to pursue litigation over […]

Supplement sellers settle false advertising charges with FTC and Maine

A health products company called Health Research Laboratories and its owner Kramer Duhon have agreed to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission and the State of Maine that they deceived consumers with promises that their products could treat everything from arthritis to memory loss. The proposed federal court order announced today bars the defendants from […]

Professor Chris Peterson’s study on why the republican version of the CFPB — contained in the Financial Choice Act of 2017 — would be bad for consumers

If you want to learn what the CFPB would look like if republican plans to defang it were enacted, law prof Chris Peterson has done a study for you: Choosing Corporations Over Consumers: The Financial Choice Act of 2017 and the CFPB. Here is the abstract: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is the U.S. Government’s […]

Federal district court rules, at TRO stage, that Mulvaney (not English) is the Acting CFPB head

This article by C. Ryan Barber says that  U.S. Justice Department lawyers convinced [U.S. district judge Timothy] Kelly that the Federal Vacancies Reform Act should control the outcome of the leadership dispute. That law gives the president wide authority to install Senate-confirmed acting heads at executive agencies. Kelly said the text of the vacancies law applies […]

CFPB Judge Promises to Decide Case Quickly as DOJ Attorney Refuses to Pledge that English Won’t Lose Job

The Wall Street Journal reports here. Excerpt: Asked by the judge if he could provide assurance that the administration wouldn’t take any adverse action against Ms. English that could immediately affect the case, [Brett Shumate, deputy assistant attorney general for federal programs] replied, “Loss of a position is not irreparable harm.”