Craig Cowie article on compliance climates

Craig Cowie of Montana has written Creating Compliance Climates, 75 UC Law Journal (2024). Here’s the abstract: Relatively few regulated entities are the targets of enforcement activity or otherwise have direct contact with regulators. Given that absence of direct contact, this Article posits that regulators influence behavior by creating “compliance climates” that project regulators’ priorities into […]

More on “Browse-Wrap” Arbitration

Yesterday, I noted the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had agreed to hear a case involving browse-wrap arbitration agreements. Later in the day, the Seventh Circuit issued a decision concerning one such agreement, finding  that a consumer and a home improvement had entered into a valid and enforceable agreement. Adopting case law from the 9th and 2nd […]

PA Supreme Court to Consider “Browsewrap” Arbitration Agreements

In July 2023, an intermediate appellate court in Pennsylvania decided Chilutti v. Uber Technologies.  There, the court held that a so-called “browsewrap” arbitration agreement was invalid, and that two conditions are necessary to establish an unambiguous manifestation for assent to arbitration via a registration for a website: (1) explicitly stating on the registration websites and […]

Eighth Circuit Affirms Sanctions for Experian’s Overbroad FCRA Discovery Tactics

Two consumers sued Experian after discovering the agency, was reporting an automobile loan as “discharged through bankruptcy,” when they had been making payments on the loan for years, and their attempts to correct the issue proved unsuccessful. For some reason, Experian responded by issuing sweeping discovery requests — including broad subpoenas issued to the law […]

CFPB finds large retail chains charging cash-back fees to customers using debit and prepaid cards

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau published a report this week finding Americans are paying tens of millions of dollars in fees to access their own money when getting “cash back” at large retail stores when making a purchase with a debit or prepaid card. These fees are occurring against the backdrop of bank mergers, branch […]

FTC settles deceptive advertising and subscription claims with Care.com

Care.com is an online platform that matches child and older adult caregivers with consumers looking to hire such caregivers. In a federal court complaint filed yesterday, the FTC alleges that Care systematically deceived caregivers who were looking for jobs while failing to give families seeking care a simple way to cancel their paid memberships, in […]

Sixth Circuit Rejects Informational Injury Standing Theory under FCRA

Since the Supreme Court’s decision in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, many consumers have been unable to obtain relief for violations of their statutory rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Yesterday’s decision by the Sixth Circuit in Merck v. Walmart, Inc. is another case in that line. The plaintiff, Thomas Merck, had been extended a job […]

Disney withdraws arbitration motion in Disney restaurant wrongful death case after bad publicity

So reports  PHILIP MARCELO of the Associated Press here. This isn’t the first time a company has changed course in an arbitration demand after adverse publicity. Wells Fargo had actually won a motion to send a case to arbitration arising out of its unauthorized account scandal back in 2016, before settling its class action for […]

CFP Act and Ratification post-Seila back at the Supreme Court

In March, I blogged about the Third Circuit’s decision in CFPB v. National Collegiate Master Student Loan Trust, a long-running enforcement action brought by the CFPB against investment trusts that were created for the purposes of acquiring and servicing student loans, seeking to enforce civil investigative demands. The trusts have now filed a petition for […]

American Banker’s Kate Berry story on the new attack on the CFPB’s funding

Here (behind paywall but available on Lexis). Here’s a quote from Georgetown’s Adam Levitin that appears in the article: “Delay is incredibly profitable to regulated firms seeking to avoid regulation,” Levitin said. “It really doesn’t matter that they’ll lose in the end. That can mean billions of dollars of additional revenue from practices that the […]