Consumer Protection

  • May 21, 2024

    Attys Accused Of Botching NC Suit By Missing Filing Deadline

    The parents of two children who died in a car fire are suing their former attorneys in North Carolina federal court for malpractice, alleging they dropped the ball on filing the pair's wrongful death claims against a seat belt manufacturer before the deadline passed.

  • May 21, 2024

    NJ AG Starts Antitrust Section To Protect 'Fair Competition'

    New Jersey will establish an Antitrust Litigation and Competition Enforcement Section, a new, permanent, stand-alone section within the Division of Law, to solidify the state's ability to enforce antitrust laws and ensure fair competition, the state announced Tuesday.

  • May 21, 2024

    DOJ, VW Ask 9th Circ. To Void Jones Day Docs Release Order

    The U.S. Department of Justice and Volkswagen have told the Ninth Circuit that forcing them to release confidential Volkswagen documents that were part of a Jones Day investigation into the automaker's 2015 emissions-cheating scandal would have far-reaching, chilling implications for federal criminal prosecutions.

  • May 21, 2024

    Altria Unit Fights Bids To Toss Illegal Vape Sale Suit

    Altria Group Inc. subsidiary NJOY LLC is fighting a pair of bids to dismiss its suit seeking to block illegal sales of flavored vapes, saying it has shown both how it has been harmed by their sale and how preventing the sales would redress its injuries.

  • May 21, 2024

    Strategic Hiring Was The New Normal For BigLaw In 2023

    The 400 largest law firms by headcount in the U.S. grew more slowly in 2023 than in the previous two years, while Kirkland & Ellis LLP surpassed the 3,000-attorney threshold, according to the latest Law360 ranking.

  • May 21, 2024

    The Law360 400: Tracking The Largest US Law Firms

    The legal market expanded more tentatively in 2023 than in previous years amid a slowdown in demand for legal services, especially in transactions, an area that has been sluggish but is expected to quicken in the near future.

  • May 21, 2024

    FCC Aims To Shut Down Scam Robocall Campaign

    The Federal Communications Commission is telling a Chicago-based voice service provider to immediately stop originating millions of illegal robocalls marketing purported debt consolidation or face sanctions.

  • May 20, 2024

    Kraft Hit With False Ad Suit Over Citric Acid In Mac & Cheese

    The Kraft Heinz Food Co. was hit with a proposed class action by a customer who alleges that the company falsely labels its Kraft Mac & Cheese products as containing no preservatives despite citric acid being part of the ingredients list.

  • May 20, 2024

    Bungie Takes Aim At Cheat Code Sellers In Copyright Trial

    Video game studio Bungie kicked off a Seattle copyright trial on Monday by telling federal jurors a group of cheat code sellers deleted financial records and other data and even fabricated a fake press release about the sale of their website to throw Bungie and its attorneys off their scent.

  • May 20, 2024

    Snap Hit With Wrongful Death Suit Over 13-Year-Old's Suicide

    The mother of a 13-year-old boy hit Snapchat's parent company Snap Inc. with a wrongful death suit in South Carolina federal court on Friday, alleging that her son died by suicide after a predator extorted him by posing under a fake name on the social media company's platform.

  • May 20, 2024

    Colo. Gov. Voices 'Reservations' In Signing AI Bias Bill

    Colorado's governor has approved the nation's first framework to clamp down on algorithmic discrimination in certain artificial intelligence technologies, although he expressed several "reservations" about the measure that he urged the Legislature to address before the law takes effect in 2026. 

  • May 20, 2024

    TD Bank Customers' $32.2M Overdraft Fee Deal Gets Initial OK

    A New Jersey federal judge has given the first green light to a nearly $22 million settlement, plus more than $10 million in overdraft forgiveness, in a suit alleging TD Bank charged improper overdraft fees in debit card transactions.

  • May 20, 2024

    CoStar, Hotel Giants Defend Benchmarking In Price-Fixing Suit

    CoStar Group Inc. and a contingent of big-name hotels have asked a Washington federal judge to toss an antitrust lawsuit claiming the hotel operators share industry analytics to inflate luxury hotel room prices, arguing the proposed class action is riddled with legal defects.

  • May 20, 2024

    CFPB Fines Debt Relief Co. $400K For Charging Illegal Fees

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Monday ordered Western Benefits Group to pay a $400,000 civil money penalty and permanently cease operations after finding that the company charged illegal advanced fees for student loan debt relief services and falsely told consumers the advanced fees would be applied toward paying down their debt.

  • May 20, 2024

    Texas Atty Chided For 'Crappy Strategy' Of Ducking Subpoena

    A transplant surgeon at Memorial Hermann Texas Medical Center accused of tampering with patients' donor acceptance criteria failed to show up to a Houston court hearing — partly thanks to his attorney — in three families' wrongful death case after being subpoenaed, in what a Harris County judge told his attorney was "a crappy strategy."

  • May 20, 2024

    DOJ Says Google Ad Tech Case About Coercion, Not Dealing

    The U.S. Department of Justice urged a Virginia federal judge Friday to preserve its case accusing Google of monopolizing key digital advertising technology, arguing the search giant is misconstruing a case that is really about forcing customers to use its ad exchanges, not about who the company does business with.

  • May 20, 2024

    Ultragenyx Must Face Suit Over Use Of Henrietta Lacks' Cells

    The family of the late Henrietta Lacks, a Black woman whose cells were harvested without her knowledge to create the first immortalized human cell line, can pursue their suit alleging Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical "made a fortune" using her stolen cells to develop gene therapy treatments, a Maryland federal judge ruled Monday.

  • May 20, 2024

    FTC Says Albertsons Execs Deleted Texts In Kroger Case

    Kroger and the Federal Trade Commission are at each other's throats over discovery in the agency's in-house challenge to the grocery giant's $25 billion merger with Albertsons and in district court, with the grocers accusing the agency of "running out the clock" and the FTC accusing the grocers of deleting text messages.

  • May 20, 2024

    Texas' Naive Witness 'Unacceptable' In Google Ad Tech Suit

    A judge overseeing a Texas-led lawsuit accusing Google of anti-competitive conduct in the display advertising market has ordered the attorneys general bringing the litigation to provide an adequate witness who can speak to certain facts about the investigation, calling their failure to do so "puzzling and unacceptable."

  • May 20, 2024

    FCC Told Ad Disclosure Rule Would Violate APA, Free Speech

    Broadcasters are continuing their push to get the Federal Communications Commission to drop the potential inclusion of some political ads and public service announcements from proposed foreign disclosure rules, this time saying that the rule would violate the First Amendment.

  • May 20, 2024

    Kepler Backs SpaceX Push To Revamp 'Big LEO' Band

    Satellite tech company Kepler Communications Inc. has urged the Federal Communications Commission to move forward with a potential new sharing framework for the "Big LEO" band as recently proposed by SpaceX.

  • May 20, 2024

    Alaska Airlines Rips Antitrust Suit Over $1.9B Hawaiian Merger

    Alaska Airlines has told a federal judge that its proposed merger with Hawaiian Airlines would enhance consumer choice and lower fares, rejecting allegations in an antitrust lawsuit that it would diminish service, cut jobs and erase a legacy brand in the Aloha State.

  • May 20, 2024

    Ga. Court Sends Fatal Restaurant Shooting Suit To Trial

    The Georgia Court of Appeals on Monday said a lawsuit against an Atlanta-area restaurant and its security company over a 2016 shooting on the premises should proceed to trial.

  • May 20, 2024

    Agri Stats Can't Pause DOJ Antitrust Suit Discovery

    Agri Stats can't press pause on discovery while the Minnesota federal court overseeing the U.S. Department of Justice's antitrust case against it decides whether to toss the enforcement action accusing the data compiler of helping meat processors swap sensitive business information.

  • May 20, 2024

    Senate Report Ties Automakers To Uyghur Forced Labor

    BMW, Jaguar Land Rover and Volkswagen imported cars and their parts that were manufactured by a Chinese company sanctioned for using forced labor, according to a congressional report released Monday raising concerns about compliance with recent measures to crack down on labor violations.

Expert Analysis

  • How AI May Be Used In Fintech Fraud — And Fraud Detection

    Author Photo

    Recent enforcement actions in the fintech and finance industries show that the government is increasingly pursuing fraud enabled by artificial intelligence — at the same time it’s using AI innovations to enforce regulations and investigate fraud, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.

  • Takeaways From Groundbreaking Data Transfer Order

    Author Photo

    A recent first-of-its-kind executive order and related proposed rulemaking lay the groundwork for important outbound U.S. data protections, but they may have unintended consequences related to the types of data and the subjects within their scope, say attorneys at Kirkland.

  • What Recent Study Shows About AI's Promise For Legal Tasks

    Author Photo

    Amid both skepticism and excitement about the promise of generative artificial intelligence in legal contexts, the first randomized controlled trial studying its impact on basic lawyering tasks shows mixed but promising results, and underscores the need for attorneys to proactively engage with AI, says Daniel Schwarcz at University of Minnesota Law School.

  • Innodata Suit Highlights 'AI Washing' Liability Risk For Cos.

    Author Photo

    A class action against software company Innodata over so-called AI washing, one of the first of its kind, underscores the litigation and enforcement risks that can arise from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's novel theory about misleading artificial intelligence capabilities, say attorneys at Bracewell.

  • The Epic Antitrust Cases And Challenges Of Injunctive Relief

    Author Photo

    The Epic cases against Apple and Google offer a window into the courts' considerable challenges in Big Tech litigation and establishing injunctive relief that enhances competition and benefits consumers, say Kelly Lear Nordby and Jon Tomlin at Ankura Consulting.

  • Banks Should Continue To Prep For CFPB Data Rule Rollout

    Author Photo

    Consumer Financial Protection Bureau-supervised banks should not expect industry pressure to delay the rollout of proposed Section 1033 open banking rules, which regulate how consumer financial information flows between financial institutions, and prepare their required data access portals and compliance procedures now, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.

  • How Calif. Video Recording Ruling May Affect Insured Exams

    Author Photo

    A recent California appellate decision, Myasnyankin v. Nationwide, allowing policyholders to video record all parties to an insurance examination under oath, has changed the rules of the road for EUOs and potentially opened Pandora's box for future disputes, say John Edson and Preston Bennett at Sheppard Mullin.

  • 5 Things Trial Attorneys Can Learn From Good Teachers

    Author Photo

    Jennifer Cuculich at IMS Legal Strategies recounts lessons she learned during her time as a math teacher that can help trial attorneys connect with jurors, from the importance of framing core issues to the incorporation of different learning styles.

  • Fintech 'Prenups': Planning For A Card Program Breakup

    Author Photo

    After a year of economic downturns, some banks and their fintech partners are realizing they may have rushed to the altar without a good prenup, but planning ahead can curb both foreseeable and unexpected issues in the event of a termination of a bank-fintech card-issuing agreement, say Andrew Grant at Ketsal and Richard Malish at Community Federal Savings Bank.

  • Legal Considerations For Circular Economy Strategies

    Author Photo

    As circular economy goals — generating revenue at multiple points in a product's life cycle — become nearly ubiquitous in corporate sustainability practices, companies should reassess existing strategies by focusing on government incentives, regulations, and reporting and disclosure requirements, say Rachel Saltzman and Erin Grisby at Hunton.

  • 3 Notification Pitfalls To Avoid With Arbitration Provisions

    Author Photo

    In Lipsett v. Popular Bank, the Second Circuit found that a bank's arbitration provision was unenforceable due to insufficient notice to a customer that he was bound by the agreement, highlighting the importance of adequate communication of arbitration provisions, and customers' options for opting out, say attorneys at Covington.

  • Tips For Orgs Facing AI Data Privacy Compliance Challenges

    Author Photo

    Regulators around the world are actively seeking to enforce data privacy and consumer protection laws against companies providing artificial intelligence-related services, raising complex compliance questions in areas like transparency, data minimization, lawfulness of processing, data subject rights and higher risk activities, say attorneys at Hogan Lovells.

  • What's At Play In Rising Lanham Act Cases At The ITC

    Author Photo

    Amid an uptick in Lanham Act claims involving false advertising related to medical devices at the U.S. International Trade Commission, Brian Busey and Maryrose McLaughlin at MoFo discuss recent ITC complaints from Eli Lilly and R.J. Reynolds, Lanham Act claim limits under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, and the issues practitioners face in this realm.

  • Preempting Bottled Water Microplastics Fraud Claims

    Author Photo

    Food products like bottled water are increasingly likely to be targets of consumer fraud complaints due to alleged microplastics contamination — but depending on the labeling or advertising at issue, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act can provide a powerful preemption defense, say Tariq Naeem and Brenda Sweet at Tucker Ellis.

  • Enforcement Risk Amid Increased Consumer Data Use

    Author Photo

    While no state has introduced a private right of action for noncompliance with a comprehensive consumer privacy law — except for the California Consumer Privacy Act's data breach provision — organizations and retailers face risk from enforcement actions by state attorneys general and privacy regulators, say attorneys at Dentons.

Want to publish in Law360?


Submit an idea

Have a news tip?


Contact us here
Can't find the article you're looking for? Click here to search the Consumer Protection archive.
Hello! I'm Law360's automated support bot.

How can I help you today?

For example, you can type:
  • I forgot my password
  • I took a free trial but didn't get a verification email
  • How do I sign up for a newsletter?
Ask a question!