by Jeff Sovern The University of Montana Law School (where my colleague and co-author of the St. John's Arbitration Study, Paul Kirgis, is heading to take up the deanship) has just announced a $10 million gift by alum Alexander "Zander" Blewett and his wife, Andy, part of which will fund a chair in consumer law […]
Lauren E. Willis of Loyola Los Angeles has written what looks like another important article, The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Quest for Consumer Comprehension. Here is the abstract: To ensure that consumers “understand [financial products’] costs, benefits, and risks,” the CFPB has been redesigning mandated disclosures, primarily through iterative lab testing. But no […]
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has issued an important decision at the intersection of First Amendment and trademark law, marking the second time in two days that free speech has triumphed over expansive intellectual property claims. On Monday it was the Ninth Circuit’s en banc decision in Garcia v. Google, rejecting an […]
According to the Federal Trade Commission, federal courts in New York and Georgia, acting on an FTC motion, have temporarily halted three debt collection operations that the FTC alleges have violated federal law by threatening and deceiving consumers via text messages, emails, and phone calls. The FTC's press release explains: [T]he defendants used text messages, […]
Last week, a Missouri jury awarded about a quarter-million dollars in compensatory and $82 million in punitive damages to a woman who was hounded for over a year by debt collector Portfolio Recovery Associates for a $1100 debt that wasn’t hers. The problem, according to the plaintiff’s lawyer, is the debt collector tries to collect […]
"The magnitude of falsity, conservatively measured, is enormous," wrote U.S. District Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York near the start of her a 361-page ruling in Federal Housing Finance Agency v. Nomura Holding America, decided last week after a four-week trial. The core question at issue in the case, in which […]
Credit reporting agencies Experian, Equifax and TransUnion have agreed to pay $6 million to resolve an investigation by the attorney generals of 31 states into customer disputes over errors in their credit reports, fraud and identity theft. The three companies agreed to limit their marketing, wait longer before adding medical debt to a credit record, […]
The Hill reports that two senators are calling on Attorney General Loretta Lynch to take action against companies selling illegal drugs masquerading as dietary supplements. In a joint letter to Lynch on Tuesday, Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) asked the Department of Justice to enforce the dietary supplements rules and take punitive […]
Read this fascinating first-hand account of ten months in the life of a debt collector. The author's conclusion: "My agonizing time as a debt collector did have one bright spot … . After spending ten months wallowing in the misery of others, I'd found it hard to be depressed myself." (Warning for sensitive readers: the […]
The NYT reports today: Adding another entry to Wall Street’s growing rap sheet, five big banks have agreed to pay more than $5 billion and plead guilty to multiple crimes related to manipulating foreign currencies and interest rates, federal and state authorities announced on Wednesday. The Justice Department forced four of the banks — Citigroup, […]