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Consumer Protection
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May 22, 2024
Uvalde Families Ink $2M Deal With City Over School Shooting
The families of 19 victims of the deadly May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School announced Wednesday that they've reached a presuit settlement with the city of Uvalde, Texas, that includes $2 million in payments to the families and commitments to better train police officers in their shooting responses.
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May 22, 2024
WeChat Users Must Arbitrate Privacy Row, Calif. Panel Says
California appellate justices said Monday that WeChat users must arbitrate their proposed class action accusing Tencent of using politically motivated practices to censor their communications, saying plaintiffs can't argue they never agreed to terms of service with the arbitration provision while also basing their complaint on those same terms of service.
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May 22, 2024
Major County Sheriffs Seek FCC's OK For Axon Cameras
Sheriffs from the largest U.S. counties called on the Federal Communications Commission to waive technical rules to allow law enforcement to use three new Axon camera devices.
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May 22, 2024
SC Gov. Signs Earned Wage Access Bill Into Law
South Carolina has become the fifth state to approve a new law governing so-called earned wage access products, which provide workers with cash advances, as the Palmetto State joins Nevada, Missouri, Wisconsin and Kansas in regulating the products.
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May 22, 2024
Rakoff Punts Terraform Args Amid Big-Dollar Settlement Talk
A hearing on whether Terraform Labs and its creator Do Kwon must pay billions of dollars in penalties after being found liable for fraud by a Manhattan jury was delayed Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff, who said the sides are actively pursuing a settlement.
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May 22, 2024
Lead Blood Test Maker To Plead Guilty, Pay $42M Over Defects
Medical device maker Magellan Diagnostics has agreed to pay at least $42 million and plead guilty to hiding a defect in its blood testing devices for lead that caused inaccurately low results for tens of thousands of children and others, Massachusetts federal prosecutors said.
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May 22, 2024
Mich. Judge Gives Final OK To Engineering Co. $8M Flint Deal
A Michigan federal judge has granted final approval of an $8 million settlement between a civil engineering company and Flint, Michigan, residents, putting to rest claims the company failed to warn them of likely lead contamination that triggered a drinking water crisis in the city.
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May 22, 2024
CFPB Says Some Credit Card Standards Apply To BNPL Firms
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Wednesday that shoppers using buy-now, pay-later products are covered by some of the same federal safeguards as those that apply to traditional credit cards, issuing the agency's first-ever guidance directed at this fintech-heavy field of financing.
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May 21, 2024
Hawaii Wins $916M From Bristol-Myers, Sanofi Over Plavix
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Sanofi owe more than $916 million to the state of Hawaii for not warning patients of East Asian or Pacific Island ancestry of potential health risks associated with their blood thinner Plavix, a state judge ruled Tuesday, following a trip to the state's highest court.
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May 21, 2024
Minn. Poised To Join State Data Privacy Law Patchwork
Minnesota is on the brink of becoming the latest state to enact comprehensive data privacy legislation, after the legislature sent to the governor's desk a measure that would give consumers more control over how companies use their personal information, including for profiling purposes, and require businesses to appoint a lead privacy official.
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May 21, 2024
Pacific Seafood Beats Crab Price-Fixing Claims, For Now
A California federal magistrate judge on Tuesday dismissed a proposed class action claiming Pacific Seafood fixed the price paid to fishers for Dungeness crab in the Pacific Northwest but will allow the fisherman who filed the suit the opportunity to amend most of his claims.
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May 21, 2024
Bungie's Code Copying Claims Questioned At Seattle Trial
A top product security engineer at Bungie told a Seattle federal jury on Tuesday that a hacker accused of exploiting a popular game to make cheat software likely never had access to the game's source code and acknowledged the game company hasn't seen the cheat code that it claims amounts to copyright infringement.
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May 21, 2024
Realtors Want Rethink After DOJ Antitrust Probe Allowed
The National Association of Realtors has asked the D.C. Circuit for a rehearing after the appeals court found the U.S. Department of Justice can reopen an antitrust investigation into the trade group despite an earlier agency settlement over the association's rules.
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May 21, 2024
Full 5th Circ. Urged To Rethink Blocking Student Loan Rule
The U.S. Department of Education has asked the full Fifth Circuit to reconsider a recent preliminary injunction a three-judge panel ordered blocking changes to a program providing student loan forgiveness to borrowers defrauded by higher education institutions. It said the panel wrongly held that the department doesn't have the authority to determine whether a borrower has a valid defense to repayment.
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May 21, 2024
Banks Urged To Vote Out Exxon Leaders Who Sued Investors
A group of state and city financial officials sent letters to some of the biggest banks and asset managers Tuesday urging them to vote against Exxon Mobil Corp.'s CEO and lead independent director at an upcoming annual meeting because of the company's lawsuit against a pair of environmentally minded activist investors.
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May 21, 2024
Molson Coors' Mimosas More Water Than Wine, Suit Says
Two consumers hit Molson Coors Beverage Co. with a proposed class action Monday in Missouri federal court, alleging that the company's mimosa drinks are misbranded because they are not made with sparkling wine but rather made with sparkling water and sugar and contain only small amounts of orange juice.
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May 21, 2024
NTIA Explores Gov't Support For 6G Development
The U.S. Department of Commerce is looking for input on how the government can aid in the development of 6G technology.
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May 21, 2024
Conn. Bank Hit With Suit Over 'Crippling' Overdraft Fees
Connecticut-based Ion Bank is the latest financial institution to face a putative class action alleging it violated its agreements with customers by imposing overdraft fees on certain transactions.
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May 21, 2024
SEC Fines KeyBank Broker-Dealer Over Reg BI Failures
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday ordered Key Investment Services LLC to pay more than $200,000 for allegedly failing to address conflicts of interest with Regulation Best Interest.
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May 21, 2024
X Corp., Hate Speech Watchdog Settle Atty Fees Bid
A California federal judge Tuesday signed off on an agreement that X Corp. and the Center for Countering Digital Hate reached to resolve the nonprofit organization's bid for $300,000 in attorney fees following a successful defense against the Elon Musk-led social media platform's claims that the center used improper tactics to write one of its articles.
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May 21, 2024
Apple Tees Up Bid To Toss DOJ IPhone Monopoly Suit
Apple argued that it has the right to choose how it does business in a preview Tuesday of its upcoming explanations for why a New Jersey federal judge should dismiss the Justice Department lawsuit accusing the iPhone maker of restricting third-party app access to monopolize the smartphone market.
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May 21, 2024
Uniswap Warns SEC There's 'More To Lose' In Potential Suit
The company behind decentralized finance platform Uniswap on Tuesday warned the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the regulator "has more to lose than gain" from bringing an enforcement action against it since its proposed case implicates pending rulemaking and its authority to regulate transactions on crypto platforms.
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May 21, 2024
Counties Not 'Persons' In Texas Opioid MDL Appeal
A Texas appeals panel found Tuesday that counties are not considered "persons" under the state's common law and therefore are not subject to the Texas Medical Liability Act's requirement that they serve expert reports to pharmacy defendants in the state's opioid multidistrict litigation.
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May 21, 2024
FTC Chair Khan Says Corporate Concentration Creates Fear
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan said Tuesday that corporate concentration creates fear for many Americans, including small businesses that rely on digital gatekeepers like Google and Amazon.
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May 21, 2024
Circuit Split Could Still Derail FCC Subsidies, High Court Told
Free market groups urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to review their challenge to the Federal Communications Commission's subsidy programs, saying the Fifth Circuit could create a circuit split "at any time" by rejecting the fee-based system.
Expert Analysis
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Conn. Loan Law Tweaks May Have 3 Major Effects On Lenders
Recently proposed minor amendments to Connecticut’s consumer protection laws could nonetheless mean major and unexpected changes to state consumer financial services regulations that dictate how lenders and their customer-facing service providers handle fee payments, mortgage servicer licensing and private student loans, says Jonathan Joshua at Joshua Law Firm.
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Past CCPA Enforcement Sets Path For Compliance Efforts
The California Privacy Protection Agency and the California Attorney General's Office haven't skipped a beat in investigating potential noncompliance with the California Consumer Privacy Act, and six broad issues will continue to dominate the enforcement landscape and inform compliance strategy, say attorneys at Reed Smith.
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7 Takeaways From CFPB Circular On Digital Comparison Tools
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's new guidance regarding digital comparison-shopping platforms for financial services products and services offers fresh insights into the bureau's interpretation of the abusiveness standard and expands on principles underlying its previous guidance on the topic, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.
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Securing A Common Understanding Of Language Used At Trial
Witness examinations in the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald Trump illustrate the importance of building a common understanding of words and phrases and examples as a fact-finding tool at trial, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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How Policymakers Can Preserve The Promise Of Global Trade
Global trade faces increasing challenges but could experience a resurgence if long-held approaches adjust and the U.S. accounts for factors that undermine free trade's continuing viability, such as regional trading blocs and the increasing speed of technological advancement, says David Jividen at White & Case.
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Opinion
Proposed MDL Management Rule Needs Refining
Proponents of the recently proposed Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16.1 believe it may enhance efficiency in multidistrict litigation proceedings if adopted, but there are serious concerns that it could actually hinder plaintiffs' access to justice through the courts — and there are fundamental flaws that deserve our attention, says Ashleigh Raso at Nigh Goldenberg.
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Meta Data Scraping Case Has Lessons For Platforms, AI Cos.
The California federal court ruling that artificial intelligence company Bright Data's scraping of public data from Meta social media sites does not constitute a breach of contract signals that platforms should review their terms of service and AI companies could face broad implications for their training of algorithms, say attorneys at Arnold & Porter.
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Opinion
Judicial Independence Is Imperative This Election Year
As the next election nears, the judges involved in the upcoming trials against former President Donald Trump increasingly face political pressures and threats of violence — revealing the urgent need to safeguard judicial independence and uphold the rule of law, says Benes Aldana at the National Judicial College.
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2nd Circ.'s Binance Locus Test Adds Risk For Blockchain Cos.
The Second Circuit’s recent use of the irrevocable liability test to rule a class action may proceed against decentralized crypto exchange Binance heightens the possibility that other blockchain-based businesses with domestic customers and digital infrastructure will find themselves subject to U.S. securities laws, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.
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Legal Issues When Training AI On Previously Collected Data
Following the Federal Trade Commission's recent guidance about the use of customer data to train artificial intelligence models, companies should carefully think through their terms of service and privacy policies and be cautious when changing them to permit new uses of previously collected data, says James Gatto at Sheppard Mullin.
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Protested CFPB Supervisory Order Reveals Process, Priorities
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s order announcing its first use of special oversight power to place installment lender World Acceptance Corp. under supervision despite resistance from the company provides valuable insight into which products and practices may draw bureau scrutiny, and illuminates important nuances of the risk assessment procedures, say Josh Kotin and Michelle Rogers at Cooley.
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Series
Riding My Peloton Bike Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Using the Peloton platform for cycling, running, rowing and more taught me that fostering a mind-body connection will not only benefit you physically and emotionally, but also inspire stamina, focus, discipline and empathy in your legal career, says Christopher Ward at Polsinelli.
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Class Actions At The Circuit Courts: March Lessons
In this month's review of class action appeals, Mitchell Engel at Shook Hardy discusses four notable circuit court decisions on topics from consumer fraud to employment — and provides key takeaways for counsel on issues including coercive communications with putative class members and Article III standing at the class certification stage.
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Spartan Arbitration Tactics Against Well-Funded Opponents
Like the ancient Spartans who held off a numerically superior Persian army at the Battle of Thermopylae, trial attorneys and clients faced with arbitration against an opponent with a bigger war chest can take a strategic approach to create a pass to victory, say Kostas Katsiris and Benjamin Argyle at Venable.
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3 Litigation Strategies To Combat 'Safetyism'
Amid the rise of safetyism — the idea that every person should be free from the risk of harm or discomfort — among jurors and even judges, defense counsel can mount several tactics from the very start of litigation to counteract these views and blunt the potential for jackpot damages, says Ann Marie Duffy at Hollingsworth.