This bipartisan bill to bar the use of "gag clauses" (or "non-disparagement clauses") in consumer contracts passed the Senate last month and awaits action in the House. Read today's Thune/Issa op-ed in the Huffington Post. Read prior coverage on our blog here and here.
…is the subtitle of a damning report issued last week by the Center for Effective Government. The report (full title: "Living in the Shadow of Danger: Poverty, Race, and Unequal Chemical Facility Hazards") finds "compelling evidence that increasing social inequality is linked to environmental degradation and that the health of people of color and those living in […]
His column is headed Why is the food industry dead set against warning labels? And he has another interesting piece on cell phone scams.
As NPR reports, insurance decisions about which drugs to cover present patients and doctors with an unfair choice: pay exorbitant prices or settle for a medication that may not work right. Dropping drugs leaves patients in a bind and ignores the fact that different drugs work better for different patients. Why drop some drugs? Insurers say they are trying to […]
The FTC will conduct a week of events to raise awareness about the threat posed by tax identity theft, which (it notes) puts thousands of people at risk every year. Check out the schedule and related educational materials here.
That's what it took less than two pages for the Supreme Court to say today to the Idaho Supreme Court in James v. City of Boise. Under 42 U.S.C. 1988 and many other similar civil-rights-type fee-shifting statutes, a court "may" "in its discretion" award attorney's fees to the prevailing party. Many years ago, the Supreme Court […]
Joel R. Reidenberg of Fordham, Jaspreet Bhatia and Travis Breaux, both of Carnegie Mellon,and Thomas B. Norton also of Fordham have written Automated Comparisons of Ambiguity in Privacy Policies and the Impact of Regulation. Here is the abstract: Website privacy policies often contain ambiguous language that undermines the purpose and value of privacy notices for […]
Former FTC Commissioner Joshua D. Wright, now of George Mason, and John M. Yun of the FTC have written Stop Chug-a-Lug-a-Lugin 5 Miles an Hour on Your International Harvester: How Modern Economics Brings the FTC's Unfairness Analysis Up to Speed with Digital Platforms, 6 George Washington Law Review, 2130 (2015). Here is the abstract: In this […]
by Paul Alan Levy Over the past couple of weeks, several bloggers, most impressively Rebecca Tushnet, have published their analyses of a decision by Judge Jesse Furman granting summary judgment dismissing a lawsuit by Louis Vuitton Malletier against a tiny company called “My Other Bag” which produces a line of canvas totes that poke gentle fun at […]
As one mega-brokerage firm puts it, "[f]aced with mounting pension costs and greater volatility, companies are increasingly offering their current and former employees a critical choice: Take a lump sum payment now or hold on to their pension," which would be paid out periodically over the beneficiary's lifetime. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has put […]