Law360 Interview with Acting Head of FTC’s Consumer Protection Bureau Thomas Pahl

Here. Excerpt: In the area of national advertising, Pahl listed three priorities that indicate a return to a more traditional, conservative approach to law enforcement. First, he said the agency will focus on “fraud” and “quasi-fraud,” similar to the agency’s historic approach to deceptive weight loss and dietary supplement claims. A second priority is health […]

New York Law’s Center for Justice & Democracy: 9 Examples of Class Actions that Helped Consumers

The report is titled How Consumer Financial Class Actions Help and Protect Americans. Here is an excerpt from the press release: This report illustrates how anytime, anywhere, an unscrupulous bank or lender could steal money from you, your family, or your small business. … If, say, a bank opens a fraudulent bank account in your […]

American Banker: GOP efforts to repeal CFPB arbitration rule off to rocky start

by Jeff Sovern Here. The article points out that one Republican member of the Senate Banking Committee, John Kennedy of Louisiana, did not agree to cosponsor the Senate CRA resolution to rescind the CFPB rule (he was said to be reviewing the resolution); that Senator McCain's unfortunate health issues may prevent him from voting on […]

Consumerist: Lawmakers Who Want To Hand ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ Card To Banks Made Millions From Financial Sector Last Year

Here.  Excerpt: [T]he two main sponsors — Rep. Jeb Hensarling (TX) and Sen. Mike Crapo (ID) — received a total of $6 million in campaign contributions from the financial sector in 2016, with $1.9 million going to Hensarling’s campaign and $4.1 million going to Crapo. * * * Sen. Pat Toomey (PA) received a total […]

Who Are the “leading scholars” Who Senator Crapo Said Have Criticized the CFPB Arbitration Study “as biased and inadequate”?

by Jeff Sovern Yesterday, the Senate Banking Committee released a press release that said in part: Today, U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Republican colleagues will file a Congressional Review Act (CRA) Joint Resolution of Disapproval in the Senate against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) arbitration […]

Conservative Commentator Argues Against CRA Challenge to CFPB Arbitration Rule

Dean Clancy in US News has written The GOP's Foolish Decision. Excerpt: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce urged Congress to kill not only [the arbitration] regulation, but every CFPB rule, on grounds the agency is unconstitutional and therefore all of its actions are invalid. The GOP would be terribly foolish to go down this road, […]

The CFPB is busy at work

The independence of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's director is under challenge in the D.C. Circuit. And the agency's arbitration rule is under siege from corporate America and in Congress. Meanwhile, the agency — because of its independence — keeps very busy doing the work Congress assigned to it. To see what the CFPB is up to, review […]

“FTC probing allegations of Amazon’s deceptive discounting”

Reuter's reports that, "[a]s part of its review of Amazon's agreement to buy Whole Foods, the Federal Trade Commission is looking into allegations that Amazon misleads customers about its pricing discounts, according to a source close to the probe. The FTC is probing a complaint brought by the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, which looked at […]

On the effort to kill the CFPB’s access-to-courts rule

Discussing a resolution introduced by two Republican Congressmen to kill the CFPB's arbitration rule, Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell observes: "For some reason, though, the idea of giving consumers the choice to participate in a court of law — a right enshrined in the Seventh Amendment — leaves some GOP legislators quaking in their loafers." […]

Two new decisions support the right to speak anonymously

by Paul Alan Levy Two decisions were issued late yesterday in cases involving the procedures for adjudicating subpoenas seeking to identify anonymous Internet speakers who are accused of actionable speech. An appeals court in California embraced most elements of the Dendrite / Cahill test for deciding whether the plaintiff in such a case should be […]