Consumer Protection

  • October 02, 2026

    Class Cert. Denied In Planned Parenthood Tracking Tech Suit

    A California federal judge declined to certify a proposed class of individuals alleging Planned Parenthood Federation of America allowed third parties to intercept their sensitive information via tracking technologies embedded on its website, finding their attempt to bring common evidence amounted to "speculation and conjecture."

  • October 02, 2026

    5 Supreme Court Cases To Watch This Fall

    The U.S. Supreme Court will convene Monday to begin its 2026 October term, which includes several cases that could determine the future of climate change tort litigation, expand religious freedoms and parental rights, and grant states authority to require proof of citizenship when individuals register for presidential elections using state forms. 

  • October 01, 2026

    Calif. Gov. Pushes For More In Signing Bill Limiting CIPA Suits

    California's governor approved legislation Wednesday to block private litigants from bringing lawsuits under one provision of the California Invasion of Privacy Act, while urging the Legislature to keep working on efforts to expand this ban to include additional website tracking claims under the decades-old wiretap statute.  

  • October 01, 2026

    Calif. AG Latest To Subpoena OpenAI Over Hacking Risks

    California Attorney General Rob Bonta revealed Thursday that he has served an investigative subpoena on OpenAI as part of his office's broader probe into cybersecurity risks posed by the company's artificial intelligence models, including a recent incident where its autonomous AI agents hacked third-party platform Hugging Face. 

  • October 01, 2026

    Quince Gets Williams Sonoma's False Ad Suit Axed For Now

    A California federal judge threw out Williams-Sonoma Inc.'s lawsuit accusing online retailer Quince of trying to dupe consumers into believing its goods are the same as Williams Sonoma's products at discounted prices, though the judge gave Williams Sonoma the opportunity to take another stab at its complaint.

  • October 01, 2026

    DuPont, Corteva Accused Of $40B PFAS Asset Shielding

    The company formerly known as DuPont and its parent Corteva Inc. were sued in Indiana state court Thursday by 15 states and Guam alleging a newly completed seeds business spinoff is nothing more than an illegal effort to place $40 billion in assets beyond the reach of creditors pursuing forever chemicals claims.

  • October 01, 2026

    Judge Should Penalize Meta $40B In Latest Trial, NM Argues

    The state of New Mexico asked a judge Thursday to penalize Meta $35 billion to $40 billion for statements that a jury found grossly misrepresented the social media giant's actual data privacy practices, while Meta argued no harm was proven and the damages should be in the $345 million to $3.45 billion range.

  • October 01, 2026

    SEC Fines Ex-NFL Player, Influencers Over 'White-Label' Firms

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has levied industry bars and a total of nearly $600,000 in fines on seven people, including a former professional football player, for allegedly acting as unregistered brokers by operating and marketing white-label platforms purchased from a third party for trading in so-called contracts for differences.

  • October 01, 2026

    Visa, Mastercard Hit With Antitrust Suit Over Post-2019 Fees

    Even though Visa and Mastercard have paid out billions to escape litigation accusing them of plaguing merchants with predatory "swipe fees," the credit titans have not stopped inflating the fees businesses pay every time someone swipes their card, a new lawsuit alleges.

  • October 01, 2026

    SEC Floats Crypto Custody Rule Updates For Funds, Advisers

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday proposed updates to custody rules that would allow investment advisers and funds to hold clients' crypto with state trust companies or safeguard the assets themselves if they can't find a suitable custodian.

  • October 01, 2026

    Amazon Pays $8.25M Over Slowed Delivery In 2 DC ZIP Codes

    Amazon agreed to pay out $8.25 million to resolve allegations it secretly left out certain ZIP codes in the Washington, D.C., area from Prime Delivery services for years while charging those residents the full Prime membership price, Washington, D.C.'s attorney general announced Thursday.

  • October 01, 2026

    Zillow Users Can't Sue Over Microsoft Session Replay Tech

    A Washington federal judge has thrown out a proposed class action claiming Zillow used Microsoft browser tracking software that shared users' website activity with third parties, saying Wednesday that the plaintiffs went against a prior court order by inappropriately tacking two new claims onto the latest version of the lawsuit.

  • October 01, 2026

    Patients' Texas Anesthesia Rollup Suit Trimmed

    A Texas federal judge offered patients a mixed bag Wednesday in a proposed class action accusing U.S. Anesthesia Partners Inc. of anticompetitively buying up anesthesia practices in the state and fixing prices, dismissing claims based on ambulatory surgery center services while preserving allegations based on hospitals.

  • October 01, 2026

    AbbVie Gets Humira Antitrust Suit Trimmed, But Not Tossed

    An Illinois federal judge tossed all but one claim in a sheet metal worker health plan's putative class action against AbbVie for allegedly causing artificially inflated prices for the rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira, saying the plan sufficiently alleged AbbVie unlawfully stifled competition in the adalimumab market.

  • October 01, 2026

    MLB Can't Bat Ticket Theft Suit To Arbitration, Judge Says

    A New York federal judge denied a Major League Baseball unit's bid to compel arbitration in a proposed class action over digital security breaches that allegedly led to the disappearance of game tickets from the MLB app, finding it failed to show plaintiffs agreed to terms containing the arbitration clause.

  • October 01, 2026

    Google Beats Online Publishers' AI Overviews Antitrust Suit

    A D.C. federal judge on Wednesday dismissed antitrust suits from Chegg Inc. and Penske Media Corp. against Google, finding that their central claims that the search engine giant coerces publishers into supplying free content for its artificial intelligence products "fail to get out of the starting gate." 

  • October 01, 2026

    Merrill, But Not BofA, Must Face Cash Sweep Rates Suit

    Bank of America escaped account holders' allegations that they were paid unreasonably low interest rates under automatic cash sweep programs, but its wealth management division, Merrill Lynch, must still face most of the proposed class claims, according to a New York federal judge's ruling.

  • October 01, 2026

    Customers Ask 9th Circ. To Halt Paramount-Warner Bros. Deal

    Streaming service customers are asking the Ninth Circuit to step in and stop Paramount Skydance's planned $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery until a court can decide if their antitrust suit challenging the merger will be dismissed.

  • October 01, 2026

    Classes Certified In Ford Diesel Fuel Pump Suit

    A Michigan federal judge has certified classes of truck owners in five states who allege that defective fuel pumps in Ford Motor Co.'s diesel trucks can suddenly fail and cost more than $10,000 in repairs, and, despite trimming some claims, also denied Ford judgment on the core causation issue in the case. 

  • October 01, 2026

    Water Utilities Say EPA Rule Defines Them Too Broadly

    The fate of a federal plan to eliminate the nation's lead drinking-water pipes may come down to a debate over the definition of a public water system.

  • October 01, 2026

    Google Ad Tech MDL Teed Up For Trial Largely Intact

    Gannett, the Daily Mail and a certified class of website publishers scored a major win with a New York federal court ruling largely refusing to let Google scrap antitrust allegations targeting its advertising placement technology business in sprawling multidistrict litigation.

  • October 01, 2026

    DOJ's RealPage Deal Doesn't End States' Antitrust Claims

    A North Carolina federal court has refused to toss antitrust claims from state enforcers accusing RealPage of providing software that allows residential building owners to inflate rents, despite RealPage's settlement in the case with the U.S. Department of Justice.

  • October 01, 2026

    Fla. Doc Says He Opposed Cruise Co.'s Billing, Got Fired

    A doctor has brought a federal whistleblower lawsuit against Norwegian Cruise Lines Holdings Ltd. in Florida federal court, alleging he lost his job after speaking out against what he believed were fraudulent practices to overcharge passengers for medical services that weren't necessary. 

  • October 01, 2026

    Ex-Actavis Exec Escapes Some Drug Price-Fixing Claims

    A Connecticut federal judge has dismissed a swath of claims against a former executive of Actavis and Taro in the generic drug price‑fixing litigation brought by state enforcers, holding that evidence was insufficient to prove he joined several alleged single‑drug conspiracies.

  • October 01, 2026

    CFPB Couldn't Verify Security Of Tech Left In Offices, IG Says

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau left computer equipment sitting in its now-closed regional offices for more than a year and a half without confirming that the hardware, and any sensitive material on it, was locked down, a federal watchdog said Thursday.

Expert Analysis

  • How Policyholders Can Press For Narrower AI Exclusions

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    As artificial intelligence exclusions proliferate across policy types, renewing policyholders should seek to narrow exclusionary language by presenting their insurers with a corporate AI-use register identifying specific tools, use cases and governance policies, says Anthony Crawford at Olshan Frome.

  • Calif. OppFi Suit Outlines Key Criteria For Bank Partnerships

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    A California state court's recent ruling in OppFi v. Hewlett offers fintech-bank partnerships a blueprint for structuring lending programs to withstand future true lender challenges, while signaling that enforcement theories may face added scrutiny under the state's ban on underground regulations, say attorneys at Womble Bond.

  • AG Watch: Va. Auto Renewal Law Clears Enforcement Path

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    The most consequential aspect of recent amendments to Virginia's automatic renewal law is the enforcement authority it creates, giving the attorney general a clear statutory pathway to pursue cases involving subscription-related compliance failures under the Virginia Consumer Protection Act, says Chuck Slemp at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Opinion

    After Monsanto, Defense Bar Must Build Case Against Lohr

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Monsanto v. Durnell has helped to demolish the foundation for its problematic 1996 ruling in Medtronic v. Lohr — so now defense counsel should lay the groundwork for the high court to overturn Lohr, say attorneys at Blank Rome.

  • Justices' FTC Ruling Weakens Qui Tam's Constitutional Base

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    The U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Trump v. Slaughter, expanding presidential control over those exercising executive power, suggests that courts may be receptive to arguments challenging the constitutional foundations of the False Claims Act’s qui tam mechanism, says Daniel Passeser at Wiggin.

  • FTC-Deere Deal Tells Cautionary Tale On Repair Access Limits

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    A recent proposed Federal Trade Commission antitrust settlement in Illinois federal court requires Deere & Co. to provide access to repair services previously available only to authorized dealers, and companies that limit access to aftermarket resources should ensure they can substantiate the reasoning behind any restrictions, say attorneys at Freshfields.

  • What Cos. Must Know About EPA Water Monitoring Proposal

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    The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's newly proposed rule that would require public water systems to monitor for 30 unregulated drinking water contaminants does not impose new obligations on companies, but the data collected could affect future policy, investigations and litigation, says Ayodeji Ayolola at Gordon Rees.

  • Series

    Being A Sommelier Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Being a sommelier has quietly shaped how I practice law by changing the way I think, communicate and connect with people, and offers a constant reminder that expertise is about making your knowledge useful and accessible to others, says Kara Du at Sheppard.

  • Card Grading Merger Suit Tests Antitrust In Niche Market

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    Rasmussen v. Collectors Holdings, a class action pending in California federal court challenging the effects of a trading card grading company merger, reflects the elevation of trading cards from hobby collectibles to niche investment markets susceptible to classic antitrust injury theories, say attorneys at Kean Miller.

  • Deposit Contracts Do Heavy Lifting As Fraud Moves Upstream

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    As courts increasingly find that upstream parties are best positioned to detect red flags in fraud disputes, most recently in Yangtze v. Ohio Valley Trackwork, companies should tighten treasury and deposit agreement verification protocols, indemnity terms, and insurance coordination to reduce exposure, says Nadine Dorsht at Stinson.

  • 3 Private Suits Test Influencer Ads As FTC Stays On Sidelines

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    Three lawsuits filed so far this year illustrate how influencer campaigns are facing growing scrutiny from private plaintiffs, despite the Federal Trade Commission not bringing an influencer marketing enforcement action since revising its endorsement guides to address the topic in 2023, but brands can take concrete steps to reduce the risks, says Gonzalo Mon at Kelley Drye.

  • Fed Report Underscores Focus On Nonbank, CRE Risks

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    The Federal Reserve Board's latest supervision and regulation report highlights that broad systemic stability will not insulate individual institutions from rigorous supervisory challenges regarding concentrated commercial real estate portfolios and nonbank partnerships, says Daniel Meade at Hogan Lovells.

  • CIPA Tech Tracking Suits Highlight Uncertain Legal Ground

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    Alexandra Samofalova at Spencer Fane discusses the state of California Invasion of Privacy Act website tracking litigation, why credible defendants choose to settle and how the businesses best positioned to face this uncertain legal landscape are the ones treating data practices as a legal compliance matter to address today.

  • AI, Prediction Markets Lead Securities Developments In 2026

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    Securities class actions tied to artificial intelligence and the battle over prediction market regulation both raise novel questions that courts are only beginning to address and that will continue to resonate throughout the second half of the year, say attorneys at Skadden.

  • Key Compliance Insights From Calif.'s Volvo Diesel Deal

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    While the future of California's vehicle emissions standards under the Clean Air Act is uncertain, the state's recent settlement with Volvo over diesel emissions hinges on the truthfulness of manufacturer representations to state regulators, and offers important lessons for companies on compliance and recordkeeping, says Thierry Montoya at FBT Gibbons.

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