by Brian Wolfman As we've reported in the past (for instance, here), states with governors and/or legislatures who don't like the Affordable Care Act (ACA) have threatened not to participate in the Act's Medicaid expansion (which the Supreme Court said could not be forced on the states by Congress under the Constitution's "Spending Clause"). As […]
Jean Braucher of Arizona haas written Scamming Considered as One of the Exact Sciences: 19th Century American Literature Foreshadows Insights of Behavioral Economics. Here's the abstract: Nineteenth century American literary masters Edgar Allen Poe, Herman Melville, and Mark Twain (with co-author Charles Dudley Warner) all examined scamming in their largely pre-regulatory time. These authors made […]
That's the name of this article by law professor Frank Pasquale. Here is the abstract: A bad credit score may cost a borrower tens of thousands of dollars, but it is not clear how it is calculated. The formula is a trade secret, immune from scrutiny. Lenders are moving beyond scoring to “credit analytics,” which […]
Chipotle is causing a stir with an evocative new video: A silent scarecrow working in a foodlike-substance factory grows dismayed by the treatment of animals while Fiona Apple croons a haunting reinterpretion of "Pure Imagination" from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Soon, the scarecrow has an epiphany. He strikes out on his own and opens a food stand […]
By Paul Bland On Twitter: @PBlandBland In the wake of recent Supreme Court decisions, forced arbitration clauses are generally enforced unless a corporation sticks something particularly overreaching and unfair in its arbitration clause, or drafts an arbitration clause in an unusually stupid way. A U.S. district court in Nevada just found that Zappos did both […]
In its June 20 decision in American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, the Supreme Court held that the Federal Arbitration Act requires enforcement of a class-action ban in an arbitration clause even if forcing the plaintiff to aribtrate individually would make it economically impossible for the plaintiff to vindicate its rights under federal law (in […]
In Joffe v. Google, Inc., the Ninth Circuit held this yesterday: In the course of capturing its Street View photographs, Google collected data from unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. Google publicly apologized, but plaintiffs brought suit under federal and state law, including the Wiretap Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2511. Google argues that its data collection did not violate […]
by Jeff Sovern My colleague, Vincent DiLorenzo, has a piece in the New York Law Journal on the CFPB's qualified mortgages regulations.
CFPB director Richard Cordray sat down with the Washington Post for this Q&A on what's next for the agency.
We are grateful to Professor Kathleen C. Engel of Suffolk University Law School for providing this guest post on the International Association of Consumer Law biannual conference: Every two years, consumer law academics from around the world gather to present their research and discuss their countries’ credit markets and consumer protection laws. This year, the International […]