By now, you may have read about the FDA's proposed regulations that would, if finalized, extend the agency's tobacco-control authority to additional, non-traditional tobacco-related products (such as e-cigarettes). By legitimizing some of these products, the FDA may boost the industries that sell them. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg wrote this short blog post explaining why the agency […]

That's the name of this article by law professor Hiro Aragaki. Here's the abstract: Recent, game-changing Supreme Court decisions on arbitration such as American Express v. Italian Colors Restaurant, 133 S. Ct. 2304 (2013), and AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, 131 S. Ct. 1740 (2011), have had far reaching implications for civil procedure and the future […]

As the Wall Street Journal reports, "[r]egulators are proposing new rules on Internet traffic that would allow broadband providers to charge companies a premium for access to their fastest lanes." What does this mean? As Tim Wu at the New Yorker explains, it's a zero-sum game, so the big, rich content providers will win out […]

What happened to good ol' American free-market competition when it comes to cable and internet service? Why do the Brits have choices while most Americans are stuck with our single local provider, which accordingly has little incentive to improve price or service? In an illuminating podcast from earlier this month, including interviews with key U.S. […]

Daniel Colbert has published Operation Choke Point: Using an Old Tool in a New Way in the American Criminal Law Review. The piece discusses a program of the U.S. Department of Justice aimed, among other things, at stopping fraud by on-line payday lenders. Here's the piece: By Daniel Colbert, ACLR Featured Blogger            Prosecuting financial […]

Seeking to protect California consumers from the type of "non-disparagement clause" infamously wielded against John and Jen Palmer in the KlearGear case, California Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez has introduced a bill to ban contractual fine print that restricts consumers' ability to share feedback about the companies with whom they do business. Good stuff. Meanwhile, […]

Worth reading, in Slate. An excerpt: A higher minimum wage helps reduce the structural advantages large corporations have over small businesses, and that in turn helps create a context where high-quality independent businesses can thrive by overdelivering compared to our better-capitalized, but mediocre, big competitors. . . . If the minimum wage were raised high […]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau receives and reviews complaints about student-loan practices. Yesterday, it issued this mid-year update on those complaints. The biggest concern identified by the agency is borrowers complaining about "auto-default"– borrowers reporting that lenders demand immediate full repayment of the loan after the death or bankruptcy of their loan co-signer, even when […]