Last Thursday, In AP Optronics v. State of South Carolina, No. 11-254, the Fourth Circuit held that federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act ("CAFA") was lacking because the State of South Carolina (and not its individual citizens) was the real party in interest in South Carolina's state-law antitrust action against the manufacturers of […]
by Jeff Sovern The Times reports that many phone apps, including the Angry Birds game (and the flashlight apps that many who lose power because of the storm on the East Coast today may use), spy on their users–and usually without the users' knowledge. Sometimes they gather information from contact lists and even from photos. […]
This ProPublica article by Jesse Eisinger explains that, during the depths of the Great Recession, Freddie Mac would not lower consumers' interest rates because it wanted to keep its profits high. Here's an excerpt: Freddie Mac, the taxpayer-owned mortgage giant, made it harder for millions of Americans to refinance their high-interest-rate mortgages for fear it […]
Recently, we've posted about the degree to which the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) should look out for the interests of the businesses it regulates (in a guest post by Rob Bramson) and the CFPB's assertion of jurisdiction over lawyers' activities in some situations (in a post noting the American Bar Association's opposition). Now, in […]
Shay Lavie of Harvard has written The Malleability of Collective Litigation, forthcoming in the Notre Dame Law Review. Here is the abstract: In Wal-Mart v. Dukes (131 S.Ct. 2541 [2011]), Wal-Mart avoided class action because employment decisions were made by local supervisors. However, it was Wal-Mart who chose to delegate discretion; by doing so, it […]
Spurred by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent ombudsman report on student loan debt (about which we posted), the New York Times has penned this editorial about the subject, focusing in part on private student loans (which amount to a mere $150 billion of the outstanding $1 trillion in student loan debt). The Times suggests […]
Yesterday, we posted about the government's fraud suit against Bank of America. Today's Washington Post has this coverage, which quotes a former regulator who says that the suit is not big enough to deter future fraudulent conduct and who ties deterrence to the threat of jail time for bank executives: “This is an act of […]
Today the United States filed a civil complaint for more than $1 billion against Bank of America, alleging that its component Countrywide engaged in a massive scheme to sell defective mortgage loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from 2007 to 2009. According to the lawsuit, "In order to increase the speed at which it […]
More information here. Abstracts are due December 7. (HT: Kathleen Engel)
Read about it in this National Law Journal article. Here's an excerpt: Big banks, little banks, credit card companies, student lenders – it seems like just about every player in the financial services industry has complained about the power of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Now it's the lawyers' turn. On October 24, the CFPB […]