The Supreme Court held oral argument yesterday in Jesinoski v. Countrywide Home Loan, a case potentially important to consumers and their advocates. The question presented is Does a borrower exercise his right to rescind a transaction in satisfaction of the requirements of Section 1635 [of the Truth in Lending Act] by “notifying the creditor” in […]
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission sued Gerber Products Co. in federal district court in New Jersey, alleging that the company deceptively advertised that feeding infants Good Start Gentle formula would prevent or reduce the risk that the babies would develop allergies. The complaint also alleges that Gerber falsely advertised Good Start Gentle’s health claims […]
by Jeff Sovern Last week I posted the abstract for our study, 'Whimsy Little Contracts' with Unexpected Consequences: An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Understanding of Arbitration Agreements. The abstract observed that many respondents think that form contracts can't strip consumers of certain rights. That conclusion is obvious from the statistical data, but the written comments make the […]
by Jeff Sovern Last week I posted the abstract for our study, 'Whimsy Little Contracts' with Unexpected Consequences: An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Understanding of Arbitration Agreements. But the abstract doesn't come close to capturing all the interesting findings. I hope to write more about some of them in the days to come. Here's something […]
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In what might be analogized to Mitt Romeny's infamous 47-percent remark, veteran lobbyist Richard Berman advised oil and gas companies to pursue smear campaigns to discredit environmental activists, according to a recent New York Times story on a secretly-recorded speech Berman made to industry executives in June. This paragraph from the Times story gives a […]
Read the Ditlow-Nader New York Times op-ed.
. . . and finds Pennsylvania's law wanting in his column, N.J. wrong to consider weakening consumer protection. An interesting natural experiment.
by Jeff Sovern Elayne Greenberg, Paul Kirgis, Yuxiang Liu, and I have posted a draft of our article, "Whimsy Little Contracts" with Unexpected Consequences: An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Understanding of Arbitration Agreements, to the web. Here's the abstract: Arbitration clauses have become ubiquitous in consumer contracts. These arbitration clauses require consumers to waive the […]
Attorneys general are now the object of aggressive pursuit by lobbyists and lawyers who use campaign contributions, personal appeals at lavish corporate-sponsored conferences and other means to push them to drop investigations, change policies, negotiate favorable settlements or pressure federal regulators, an investigation by The New York Times has found. For instance, the Times reports: […]