by Brian Wolfman The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took two steps yesterday in the debt-collection realm. First, it began adding complaints about debt collection to its public consumer-complaint database. Second, it began the process of rulemaking for the debt-collection industry. The agency issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking seeking data on many issues, including the […]
This story from NPR's Morning Edition this morning discusses various states' efforts to handle consumer questions regarding the implementation of Obamacare. Several states are outsourcing the operation of call centers to companies like Maximus, but most of the states won't make public how much they are paying for the service; for instance, Connecticut's contract with […]
Check out this story at MediaPost describing lobbying efforts by the Digital Marketing Association "to overhaul privacy laws in order to protect companies' ability to use data for marketing purposes."
In connection with its "Legal Reform Summit" last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform issued a new paper written by John Beisner and his colleagues at Skadden Arps with new proposals for legislation to limit class actions and expand federal jurisdiction over both class actions and individual actions. Entitled A Roadmap for […]
As Emily Babay of philly.com explains The companies that administer the SAT and ACT college entrance exams are being sued over their sales of students' personal information to outside parties. A lawsuit filed this week contends that the College Board, which runs the SAT, and ACT, Inc., sell identifying information about the hundreds of thousands […]
by Brian Wolfman Remember the Obama Administration's early "stimulus" program known as cash-for-clunkers? The Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act of 2009, or CARS, was meant to encourage people to trade in their gas guzzlers and buy new fuel-efficient cars. You traded in the gas guzzler, and the federal government funded a $3,500 to […]
Emily Houh and Kristin Kalsem, both of Cincinnati, have written It's Critical: Legal Participatory Action Research, forthcoming in 18 Michigan Journal of Race & Law. Here's the abstract: The ongoing community-based research project that we describe in this article will contribute, we hope, to an understanding of the fringe economy by offering insights into what […]
That's the name of this post published by Daniel Colbert in the American Criminal Law Review. Colbert's piece examines United States v. Phillips, a recent en banc decision from the Seventh Circuit that deals with the intersection of criminal law and mortgage fraud. Here's the piece: By Daniel Colbert, ACLR Featured Blogger […]
Last week, we posted about JP Morgan's tentative agreement with the federal government to pay $13 billion to settle claims that it knowingly sold faulty mortgage securities that contributed to the financial crisis. The Wall Street Journal's editorial page and other members of the conservative press responded to the agreement by calling it a shakedown by […]
by Paul Alan Levy In this motion a prosecutor asked a trial judge to order a particular defense lawyer to stop referring to her during jury trials as “the Government” on the ground that jurors would likely take this as a derogatory reference “and is meant to make the State’s attorneys seem oppressive and to […]