Amsterdam Summer Privacy Course

We received the following announcement: The University of Amsterdam's Institute for Information Law (IViR) is accepting applications for its fourth annual Summer Course on Privacy Law and Policy which will be held from July 4-8, 2016,  The course focuses on privacy law and policy related to the internet, electronic communications, and online and social media.  It explores both the […]

CDC finds link between e-cigarette ads and youth smoking

A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a link between exposure to e-cigarette advertisements and the use of e-cigarettes by middle and high school students. The study is the first to assess the link between exposure to e-cigarette advertising and current e-cigarette use, and it concludes that efforts to reduce […]

Regulation, Access to and Costs of Financial Services, and the Payday Lending Example

by Jeff Sovern Critics of consumer protection regulation routinely assert that such regulation reduces access to credit and increases consumer costs.  For example, here is what Todd Zywicki wrote in his recent testimony before the Senate Banking Committee (footnote omitted): By imposing a regulatory regime that substitutes the judgment of bureaucrats for consumer decisions, Dodd-Frank […]

CFPB acts to stop illegal debt-collection practices by lawsuit mill and debt buyer

Yesterday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ordered the debt collection law firm Pressler & Pressler, LLP, two principal partners, and New Century Financial Services, Inc., a debt buyer, to stop churning out unfair and deceptive debt collection lawsuits based on flimsy or nonexistent evidence. The consent orders bar the companies and individuals from illegal practices […]

Gold Article on Compensation’s Role in Class Actions

Russell M. Gold of NYU and Wake Forest has written Compensation's Role in Deterrence, forthcoming in 91 Notre Dame Law Review (2016). Here is the abstract: There are plenty of non-economic reasons to care whether victims are compensated in class actions. The traditional law and economics view, however, is that when individual claim values are […]

Erichson Article on Class Action Settlement Issues

Howard M. Erichson of Fordham has written Aggregation as Disempowerment, 92 Notre Dame Law Review (Forthcoming).  Here is the abstract: Class action critics and proponents cling to the conventional wisdom that class actions empower claimants. Critics complain that class actions over-empower claimants and put defendants at a disadvantage, while proponents defend class actions as essential to […]

New research on troubling consequences of fast-food

Researchers at George Washington University have found that "people who eat fast food tend to have significantly higher levels of certain phthalates, which are commonly used in consumer products such as soap and makeup to make them less brittle but have been linked to a number of adverse health outcomes, including higher rates of infertility, especially […]

Mortgage Closing Delays Based on TRID Rule Evaporate

According to a report in HousingWire, Is TRID hysteria over? Time to close drops to 12-month low, the new TILA/RESPA closing disclosures are not delaying mortgage closings.  The story explains "lenders now have this whole TRID thing figured out, as the time to close a loan fell to a 12-month low in March." The TRID […]

Washington Post on child deaths by strangling on blind cords and regulatory “underreach”

More than 300 kids have been killed and almost that many seriously injured when they've gotten tangled up in blind cords, the Post reports. It describes the deaths in chilling fashion: "The deaths are fast and silent. Often, the parent is in the same room and turns away to change a channel or put away […]