DOJ Consumer Protection Branch Announcements

Here are some recent announcements from the Department of Justice's Consumer Protection Branch: February 12, 2016 District Court Enters Permanent Injunction Against Maine-Based Seafood Company and Its Owner to Prevent Distribution of Adulterated Products February 4, 2016 Father and Son Found Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court in Connection with Multimillion-Dollar Vending Machine “Business Opportunity” Scheme […]

Middle-class minorities are most at risk of falling behind on student loans, report says

That's the headline of this article by Danielle Douglas-Gabrielle. Here's an excerpt: Researchers [at Washington Center for Equitable Growth] found that a correlation between the share of minorities in a Zip code and loan delinquency rates is highest for people in the middle of the income distribution. Among Zip codes with a median income of around […]

Bar Grievance Over Allegedly Defamatory Lawyer Blog Is Dismissed on First Amendment Grounds

by Paul Alan Levy Last month I wrote about a proceeding in which Michigan’s Attorney Grievance Commission was investigating Steven Gursten, a Michigan lawyer who had criticized Dr. Rosalind Griffin, a member of the state disciplinary apparatus, for perjuring herself in expert testimony in one of his cases.  I argued that the very process of […]

“Psycho Dentist” Gordon Austin Pays $12,000 in Fees for Having Served Subpoena to Identify His Critic

by Paul Alan Levy The lawyers for Gordon Austin, the former Carrollton Georgia dentist who filed a lawsuit over the YouTube posting of a news report about his indictment for having beat his patients with a dental instrument when, insufficiently anesthetized, they cried out in pain, have now withdrawn his subpoena to identify the poster, paid […]

Two new healthcare proposals from President Obama

President Obama's recently proposed fiscal-year 2017 budget includes two new healthcare proposals: (1) requiring drug companies to disclose various production costs for specific drugs, including research and development costs; and (2) and allowing the HHS Secretary to negotiate with drug companies on certain high-cost drug prices under Medicare Part D. Read about these proposals, and […]

A proposed insurance surcharge for people with a high body mass index (BMI)

NPR reports on a troubling proposal: penalizing insured individuals who don't maintain a low enough body mass index or BMI. New proposed regulations would permit employers to charge workers more for health insurance if they are overweight as measured by BMI. There are several problems here. For instance, experts explain that millions of healthy Americans […]

Paper on Profiling and Targeting Consumers in the Internet of Things – A New Challenge for Consumer Law

Natali Helberger of the University of Amsterdam – Institute for Information Law has written Profiling and Targeting Consumers in the Internet of Things – A New Challenge for Consumer Law. Here is the abstract: What does the shift from buying ‘things’ to buying ‘smart things’ imlies for consumers and consumer protection law and policy? The […]