Law professor Rhonda Wasserman has written Cy Pres in Class Action Settlements. Here is the abstract: Monies reserved to settle class action lawsuits often go unclaimed because absent class members cannot be identified or notified or because the paperwork required is too onerous. Rather than allow the unclaimed funds to revert to the defendant or escheat […]
Jay Tidmarsh of Notre Dame has written Auctioning Class Settlements, forthcoming in the William & Mary Law Review. Here's the abstract: Although they promise better deterrence at a lower cost, class actions are infected with problems that can keep them from delivering on this promise. One of these problems occurs when the agents for the […]
A fascinating talk here today from Acting Chairman Adler, who displayed a wide range of expertise and institutional memory about the CPSC's history, jurisdiction, and actions. Although his outlook is generally pro-regulatory, he also pointed to the importance of protecting small businesses from overly onerous regulations; he came across as neither inflexible nor one-sided in […]
by Paul Alan Levy When I was pulling together my recent analysis of Hadeed Carpet Cleaning’s assertion that its negative reviews had appeared on Yelp only after it pulled its advertising from Yelp, I figured that it might be helpful if I ran a cross-check against how Hadeed is portrayed on other web sites that […]
From the FTC’s press release: Two data brokers have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) by providing reports about consumers to users such as prospective employers and landlords without taking reasonable steps to make sure that they were accurate, or without making sure their users […]
…is the title of this informative story from WSJ's MarketWatch about a new study from the Pew Charitable Trusts released today. The takeaway is that although most consumers don't read banking-contract fine print (the median length of which is 44 pages), more banks are adding verbiage to their checking account fine print that prevents customers […]
I don't usually link to posts on Ballard Spahr's CFPB Monitor on the theory that our readers also read their blog (and if you don't, you should), but just in case that theory is incorrect as to some of our readers, here is the the story.
Timothy E. Goldsmith of New Mexico's Psychology Department and Nathalie Martin at New Mexico's Law School have written Interest Rate Caps, State Legislation, and Public Opinion: Does the Law Reflect the Public's Desires? 89 Chicago-Kent Law Review (2014). Here's the abstract: In scholarly circles, debates about the benefits and burdens of high-costs lending are prevalent, […]
The Consumer Financial Protetion Bureau has obtained this big-dollar consent order from Bank of America (BOA) arising from the bank's unfair and deceptive credit-card practices. About 1.4 million consumers will receive refunds totalling $727 million. BOA will also pay the CFPB a $20 million civil penalty. CFPB Director Richard Cordray talked tough in announcing the […]
Even aside from concerns about Facebook and privacy, the people who set up this business must truly be, well, jerks …. On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission charged the operators of the website “Jerk.com” with harvesting personal information from Facebook to create profiles labeling people a “Jerk” or “not a Jerk,” then falsely claiming that […]