Kiva and Microlending

Over at Credit Slips, Alan White has a great post about what he loves about the microlending non-profit, Kiva. He then discusses microlending more generally. Kiva is "a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty." "Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions," Kiva says, it "lets […]

Be Careful Buying a Used Car in the Wake of Hurricane Sandy

Bad floods damage a lot of cars, and then some used car sellers want to sell those damaged cars to unsuspecting customers without disclosing the damage. This happened after Katrina (go, for instance, go here and here). Holly Petreaus, the head of Servicemember Affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has posted this warning about used […]

Disclosure vs. Regulation

by Jeff Sovern Last week I had a very interesting conversation with a Ph.D candidate from the University of Amsterdam, Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius, who is researching privacy regulation and behavioral targeting. He asked me if I could refer him to a book that explores when disclosure is an appropriate response to consumer protection problems […]

Supreme Court Grants Review in Pay-for-Delay Settlement Case

by Brian Wolfman In a pay-for-delay settlement, a brand-name drug company pays a generic company that has challenged the brand-name company's patent to stay out of the market. Some early antitrust challenges to these settlements succeeded, but later court of appeals' rulings gave them a green light. Then, as we discussed in this post last July, […]

Second Circuit Says First Amendment Shields Sales Rep’s Promotion of a Prescription Drug for Off-Label Use (that is, a use not approved by the FDA)

by Brian Wolfman The FDA says it violates federal law for a drug company sales rep to promote a prescription drug for an off-label use (that is, a use not approved by the FDA). So, a rep is convicted of a misdemeanor in federal district court for promoting a prescription drug for an off-label use. […]

Dee Pridgen Paper on the CFPB and Recent Consumer Protection Statutes

Dee Pridgen of Wyoming has written Sea Changes in Consumer Financial Protection: Stronger Agency and Stronger Laws.  I read this one before it was posted and found it particularly useful in pulling together some recent themes in consumer law and explaining how the Dodd-Frank Act's anti-predatory lending rules are based on behavioral economics, as opposed to […]

D.C. Circuit recess appointment case challenging NLRB has implications for CFPB

Many media outlets have reported on this week's D.C. Circuit hearing in a challenge to President Obama's three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. You'll recall that the President used his recess appointment power at the beginning of the year to make several appointments during pro forma Senate sessions that were specifically designed […]