Chamber of Commerce’s Forum Shopping Pays Off in Discrimination/Unfairness Case

As Adam Pulver noted earlier, the Chamber of Commerce won its challenge at the district court level to the CFPB’s determination that discrimination is unfair within the meaning of the CFPB’s UDAAP statute. It is, of course, no coincidence that the Chamber filed the case in Texas, where it was heard by Judge J. Campbell […]

Texas Judge Holds That Discrimination is Not Unfair and Vacates CFPB Rule

On Friday, a Texas district judge held that the CFPB’s authority to prohibit “unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts or practices” does not authorize the agency to regulate discrimination as one such practice, invoking the major questions doctrine. As such, in a win for the Chamber of Commerce, he vacated the CFPB’s March 2022 update to […]

Fourth Circuit Allows Long-Running PDR TCPA Case About “Free” Book to Continue

Some cases are destined to continue forever, and the case of Carlton & Harris Chiropractic v. PDR Network may be one of them, given the Fourth Circuit’s decision yesterday- its third encounter with the case since it was filed back in 2015. As Judge Harris explains, the basic facts are that the plaintiff, “a chiropractic […]

Loan Shark Granted Clemency by Trump Enjoined from Lending Activity

According to the New York Attorney General, before reporting to prison in 2020, Jonathan Braun was a prolific predatory lender, notorious for charging borrowers extreme interest rates and threatening those who fell behind–collecting $77 million in payments from small-business owners via merchant cash advances. In 2019, Braun was sentenced to 10 years in prison in […]

Racist emails surface in DOJ redlining case against American Bank of Oklahoma

The DOJ press release is here. The emails are disturbing (see for yourself below) and are reminiscent of the Trident case. The case resulted in a consent order though, as is usual in such cases, the bank neither admitted nor denied the complaint’s substantive allegations. What makes this even more upsetting is that bank trade […]

Supreme Court AMG Decision Has No Impact on Contempt Awards, Eleventh Circuit Holds

In 2008, a federal district court, in an action brought under section 13(b) of the FTC Act, issued a permanent injunction against three dietary supplement companies and affiliates, finding that they had engaged in misleading and materially false marketing with respect to certain weight loss supplements. In 2017, the district court granted the FTC’s motion […]

Virginia Again Upgrades Its Anti-SLAPP Law

After years of being a happy haven for outrageous libel tourism, providing a steady source of income for certain lawyers and a source of intimidation for many speakers, Virginia has been slowly upgrading its anti-SLAPP law. The changes may even be applicable to diversity cases pending in federal court. A few years ago, Virginia created […]

FTC and States to ban Roomster from using fake reviews

The Federal Trade Commission will permanently ban Roomster Corp. and its owners from buying or incentivizing consumer reviews as part of a settlement over charges that they bought fake reviews to entice consumers to pay for access to living arrangement listings that they claimed were verified, authentic, and available but often turned out to be […]

CFPB reaches multi-billion dollar settlement with credit repair companies

This week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau entered into a proposed settlement with a ring of corporate entities operating some of the largest credit repair brands in the country, including Lexington Law and CreditRepair.com. The agreement follows a court ruling that the companies collected illegal advance fees for credit repair services through telemarketing in violation […]