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Consumer Protection
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May 16, 2024
Apple Exec Must Produce All Docs On 27% App Fee Decision
A California federal judge presiding over a high-stakes antitrust hearing over Apple's compliance with a court-ordered ban on App Store anti-steering rules ordered a company executive Thursday to hand over all of his communications and notes on Apple's decision to impose a new 27% fee after her injunction.
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May 16, 2024
Senate Passes Bill To Block SEC Crypto Accounting Guidance
The U.S. Senate voted Thursday to send a bill overturning the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's controversial crypto accounting guidance to the president's desk, though without the necessary votes to override the White House's planned veto.
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May 16, 2024
FDIC's Gruenberg Scolded By Senators Over Agency Culture
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg on Thursday faced a second round of congressional reprimand from both sides of the political aisle over his agency's workplace misconduct scandal, but Senate Democrats seemed ready to let Gruenberg clean up the mess himself and continue his tenure.
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May 16, 2024
Gilead, Teva Want 17 HIV Drug Antitrust Appeals Consolidated
Gilead Sciences Inc. and Teva Pharmaceuticals are asking the Ninth Circuit to consolidate 17 appeals contesting their win in a case alleging they delayed generic versions of HIV medications, saying the three groups of buyers are raising largely the same issues but refuse to commit to combining their briefs.
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May 16, 2024
SEC Adopts Rules For Uncovering, Reporting Data Breaches
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced the adoption of cybersecurity rules Thursday that will require investment advisers and broker-dealers to put procedures in place for detecting data breaches and for notifying customers when their personal information may have been compromised.
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May 16, 2024
GM, LG Ink $150M Deal To End Chevy Bolt Battery Defect Suit
A proposed class of Chevrolet Bolt owners asked a Michigan federal court on Thursday to give the go-ahead for a $150 million deal to end claims against General Motors LLC and LG units over alleged battery defects they say make the cars prone to overheating and fires.
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May 16, 2024
Conn. Justices Snatch Debt Collection Practice Of Law Case
The Connecticut Supreme Court has opted to hear a case that questions whether the state's banking commissioner or its judicial branch has the power to regulate debt collection activities that occur under the purview of law firms, leapfrogging the case over the state's intermediate appellate court and into the state's highest court.
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May 16, 2024
Burger King Franchisee Seeks BIPA Coverage Quick Win
A Burger King franchisee asked an Illinois federal court to rule that due to precedent and policy ambiguities, its umbrella insurer must defend it in a class action claiming it violated Illinois' Biometric Information Privacy Act by nonconsensually collecting fingerprint data.
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May 16, 2024
DC Judge Mulls Dominion's DQ Bid For Pro-Trump Mich. Atty
Lawyers for Dominion Voting Systems pursuing defamation claims against former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne fought Thursday to disqualify the Michigan attorney representing him, insisting to a D.C. federal judge that disqualification is the most appropriate remedy for the lawyer's leak of Dominion's confidential discovery documents.
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May 16, 2024
2nd Circ. Backs Win For Big Banks In Forex-Rigging Suit
The Second Circuit on Thursday backed a ruling in favor of a group of large banks accused of conspiring to manipulate the foreign currency exchange market in euros and dollars, agreeing with a lower court that the plaintiffs hadn't made qualifying transactions or shown how prices were distorted.
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May 16, 2024
Weighted Baby Swaddle 'Inherently Dangerous,' Suit Alleges
A Massachusetts company has been hit with a proposed class action over its allegedly "inherently dangerous" weighted baby blankets and swaddling wraps, a product category suspected in multiple infant deaths and under investigation by the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
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May 16, 2024
Top Linklaters Attys See PE Rebound In Run-Up To Elections
After a subtle uptick in private equity deal values in the first quarter, the global chair of Linklaters LLP's corporate department in New York, George Casey, and one of its top PE dealmakers in London, Alex Woodward, believe the pace of transactions is picking up and the market is primed for a comeback.
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May 16, 2024
Justices Say CFPB Is Constitutionally Funded
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is constitutionally funded, rejecting a payday lender-backed challenge that threatened to incapacitate the agency and throw a wrench in the Biden administration's financial regulatory agenda.
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May 15, 2024
Arizona AG Lobs Suits Over 'Deceptive' Amazon Practices
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes on Wednesday filed a pair of suits claiming that Amazon Prime's cancellation process and other features are deceptive, misleading and have led to higher prices for consumers.
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May 15, 2024
Blackbaud Dodges Data Breach Victims' Class Cert. Bid
A South Carolina federal judge has refused to certify several proposed classes consisting of roughly 1.5 billion patients, donors and other individuals whose personal information was allegedly swept up in a 2020 ransomware attack on software provider Blackbaud Inc., finding that the plaintiffs had failed to show that class members could be easily identified.
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May 15, 2024
State Farm Can't Dodge TCPA Suit Over Robocalls
State Farm must face a proposed class action alleging it violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by using a third-party company to make automated telemarketing calls without prior consent, an Illinois federal judge has ruled, saying the suit states a plausible claim of the insurer's vicarious liability for the robocalls.
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May 15, 2024
'Pissed Off,' 'You Need To Go': Reps Rip FDIC's Gruenberg
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Chairman Martin Gruenberg took withering, bipartisan criticism over his agency's workplace misconduct scandal at a House hearing on Wednesday, although no new Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in directly calling for his resignation.
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May 15, 2024
'Excellent' Altria MDL Deal Earns Attys Fees Above Benchmark
A California federal judge on Wednesday awarded $13.65 million in plaintiffs' attorney fees as part of tobacco giant Altria's $45.5 million deal resolving consumer claims in multidistrict litigation alleging the company helped fuel a youth vaping crisis created by e-cigarette maker Juul, saying the "excellent result" merited fees above the normal 25% benchmark.
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May 15, 2024
'Uber Files' Scandal Can't Prop Up Investor Suit, Judge Says
Uber Technologies has beaten back a proposed class action alleging that a trove of leaked internal records harmed shareholders by revealing corporate misconduct, with a California federal judge saying plaintiffs failed to prove that any of Uber's statements about the leak were false.
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May 15, 2024
UnitedHealth Concealed DOJ Merger Investigation, Suit Says
UnitedHealth Group has been hit with a proposed shareholder class action alleging that it failed to disclose that the U.S. Department of Justice had reopened an antitrust investigation into the health insurance giant following its acquisition of a healthcare data company, and that top executives had sold more than $120 million of shares knowing about the investigation before a news report revealed it to the public.
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May 15, 2024
Noncompete Rule Challenge Gets More Backing
A slew of business groups have thrown their support behind a challenge of the Federal Trade Commission's sweeping ban on noncompete clauses for employees, saying the rule relies on "cherrypicked" data to back a policy preferred by the FTC's majority.
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May 15, 2024
House Reauthorizes NTIA, But Agency Takes Heat From GOP
The U.S. House voted late Wednesday to reauthorize the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, hours after Republicans on a key oversight committee blasted the agency for its handling of the government's $42.5 billion broadband deployment effort.
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May 15, 2024
Monsanto Trials Over Wash. School PCBs Could Merge
In the wake of a Washington Court of Appeals ruling resolving key questions in a series of toxic torts against Monsanto, a state Superior Court judge is considering merging plaintiff cohorts into larger groups ahead of trial, looking to curtail years of costly litigation over alleged PCB contamination at a public school site.
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May 15, 2024
Don't Make Network Outage Reporting Mandatory, FCC Told
Telecommunications industry groups are telling the Federal Communications Commission that rules requiring mandatory broadband outage reporting would burden small and rural providers and potentially distract from outage response.
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May 15, 2024
En Banc 9th Circ. Will Mull Jurisdiction In Shopify Privacy Suit
The Ninth Circuit agreed to review en banc a panel's decision dismissing a suit alleging payment processing company Shopify collects shoppers' sensitive information without permission, after the plaintiff argued the full court should hear the case to resolve how to assess personal jurisdiction in online misconduct cases.
Expert Analysis
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For Lawyers, Pessimism Should Be A Job Skill, Not A Life Skill
A pessimistic mindset allows attorneys to be effective advocates for their clients, but it can come with serious costs for their personal well-being, so it’s crucial to exercise strategies that produce flexible optimism and connect lawyers with their core values, says Krista Larson at Stinson.
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The Multifaceted State AG Response To New Technologies
In response to the growth of technologies like artificial intelligence, biometric data collection and cryptocurrencies across consumer-facing industries, state attorneys general are proactively launching enforcement and regulatory initiatives — including bipartisan investigations and new state AI legislation, say Ketan Bhirud and Emily Yu at Cozen O'Connor.
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5th Circ. Clarifies What Is And Isn't A 'New Use' Of PFAS
The Fifth Circuit's March 21 decision in Inhance Technologies v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, preventing the EPA from regulating existing uses of PFAS under "significant new use" provisions of the Toxic Substances Control Act, provides industry with much-needed clarity, say Joseph Schaeffer and Sloane Wildman at Babst Calland.
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Handling Customer Complaints In Bank-Fintech Partnerships
As regulators mine consumer complaint databases for their next investigative targets, it is critical that fintech and bank partners adopt a well-defined and monitored process for ensuring proper complaint handling, including by demonstrating proficiency and following interagency guidance, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.
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Trump's NY Civil Fraud Trial Spotlights Long-Criticized Law
A New York court’s recent decision holding former President Donald Trump liable for fraud brought old criticisms of the state law used against him back into the limelight — including its strikingly broad scope and its major departures from the traditional elements of common law fraud, say Mark Kelley and Lois Ahn at MoloLamken.
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What NAR Settlement Means For Agent Commission Rates
If approved, a joint settlement agreement between the National Association of Realtors and a class of home sellers will likely take the onus off home sellers to compensate buyers' agents, affecting considerations for all parties to real estate transactions, say attorneys at Jones Foster.
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Opinion
New Mexico Fire Victims Deserve Justice From Federal Gov't
Two years after the largest fire in New Mexico's history — a disaster caused by the U.S. government's mismanagement of prescribed burns — the Federal Emergency Management Agency must remedy its grossly inadequate relief efforts and flawed legal interpretations that have left victims of the fire still waiting for justice, says former New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas.
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Opinion
Requiring Leave To File Amicus Briefs Is A Bad Idea
A proposal to amend the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure that would require parties to get court permission before filing federal amicus briefs would eliminate the long-standing practice of consent filing and thereby make the process less open and democratic, says Lawrence Ebner at the Atlantic Legal Foundation and DRI Center.
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4 Ways To Motivate Junior Attorneys To Bring Their Best
As Gen Z and younger millennial attorneys increasingly express dissatisfaction with their work and head for the exits, the lawyers who manage them must understand and attend to their needs and priorities to boost engagement and increase retention, says Stacey Schwartz at Katten.
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Decoding The FTC's Latest Location Data Crackdown
Following the Federal Trade Commission's groundbreaking settlements in its recent enforcement actions against X-Mode Social and InMarket Media for deceptive and unfair practices with regards to consumer location data, companies should implement policies with three crucial elements for regulatory compliance and maintaining consumer trust, says Hannah Ji-Otto at Baker Donelson.
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Series
Illinois Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q1
In the first quarter of 2024, Illinois lawmakers proposed a stack of bills aimed at modernizing money transmission, digital assets and banking laws, with a particular focus on improving consumer protections and better defining the state’s authority to regulate digital services, say James Morrissey and Mark Svalina at Vedder Price.
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Series
Calif. Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q1
The first quarter of the year brought the usual onslaught of new regulatory developments in California — including a crackdown on junk fees imposed by small business lenders, a big step forward for online notarizations and a ban on predatory listing agreements, says Alex Grigorians at Hanson Bridgett.
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Tipsters May Be Key To Financial Regulators' ESG Efforts
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are looking to whistleblowers to assist their climate and ESG task forces, suggesting insider information could be central to the agencies' enforcement efforts against corporate greenwashing, false investment claims and climate disclosure violations, says John Crutchlow at Youman & Caputo.
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Series
Serving As A Sheriff's Deputy Made Me A Better Lawyer
Skills developed during my work as a reserve deputy — where there was a need to always be prepared, decisive and articulate — transferred to my practice as an intellectual property litigator, and my experience taught me that clients often appreciate and relate to the desire to participate in extracurricular activities, says Michael Friedland at Friedland Cianfrani.
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Opinion
The SEC Is Engaging In Regulation By Destruction
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent use of regulation by enforcement against digital assets indicates it's more interested in causing harm to crypto companies than providing guidance to the markets or protecting investors, says J.W. Verret at George Mason University.