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Consumer Law

CL&P Blog

The contributors to this blog are a diverse group of lawyers and law professors who practice, teach, or write about consumer law and policy. Although the blog is hosted by Public Citizen's Consumer Justice Project, the views expressed here are solely those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions with which they are affiliated.

Post Frequency: 15.1/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 11:13:04

More on Efforts to Reform Pay-for-Delay Drug Settlements

Posted on July 16, 2009
by Brian Wolfman Last month, I blogged here about FTC Chair Jon Leibowitz's call to eliminate or narrow "pay-for-delay" drug settlements. In pay-for-delay settlements, a brand-name drug company pays a generic company that has challenged the brand-name company's patent to...

Wal-Mart Says It Plans to Rate Products' Environmental Impact

Posted on July 15, 2009
by Brian Wolfman Read this New York Times article about Wal-Mart's plans to rate the environmental impact -- that is, the "greenness" -- of consumer products and business methods. Is this for real? It's a huge job and wildly complex....

Fed Issues Interim Final Rule Implementing Credit CARD Act

Posted on July 15, 2009
by Jeff Sovern The Fed announced today that it is issuing an Interim Final Rule implementing provisions of the Credit CARD Act that take effect in August. The announcement states that the provisions "primarily pertain to advance notices of rate...

Minnesota Attorney General Sues National Arbitration Forum

Posted on July 14, 2009
by Deepak Gupta The Minnesota Attorney General today filed a major lawsuit against the Minnesota-based National Arbitration Forum (NAF), one of the nation's largest and most controversial arbitral forums. NAF is already defending itself against another lawsuit by the City...

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Bob Herbert on the Proposed Consumer Financial Product Agency

Posted on July 14, 2009
Bob Herbert in the Times has an interesting take on the proposed Consumer Financial Product Agency in his column in today's Times, Chutzpah on Steroids. The whole column is worth reading, but here's a sample: There is nothing free or...

Lifestyle Lift Slammed for Phony Fan Sites Purporting to Be From Satisfied Consumers

Posted on July 14, 2009
by Paul Alan Levy Last December, I blogged about deceptive practices used by Lifestyle Lift to mislead consumers using Google?s search to come to supposed complaint sites that were actually its own sites praising its services, and to create sites...

Bloggers and Product Endorsement

Posted on July 13, 2009
by Brian Wolfman Check out this article in yesterday's New York Times about bloggers who receive free products from companies and then blog about them if (they say) they like the products but are silent about them if they don't...

Live Webcast of Sotomayor Senate Confirmation Hearing

Posted on July 13, 2009
In less than a half hour, the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin its live webcast of the confirmation hearings for Judge Sotomayor. The same webpage provides the witness list. The majority and minority will be calling roughly the same number...

NCLC Issues Report on Loan Modification Scams

Posted on July 13, 2009
by Brian Wolfman On Friday, the National Consumer Law Center issued this report on loan modification scams. The beginning of the report's executive summary describes the problem: As the number of foreclosures continues to grow, a new ?industry? has emerged...

InfomercialScams.com is no more ? a sad end for a useful consumer web site

Posted on July 10, 2009
I have been receiving inquiries about the apparent disappearance of two consumer commentary web sites operated by Justin Leonard, whose rights I (and other colleagues at Public Citizen) have defended in the past ? www.infomercialscams.com and www.infomercialratings...

Medical Bankruptcy and Health Care Reform

Posted on July 10, 2009
by Brian Wolfman Several years ago, David Himmelstein, Elizabeth Warren, Deborah Thorne, and Steffie Woolhandler wrote a piece indicating that a large percentage of U.S. bankruptcy filings are prompted by medical debt. They argued for universal health care coverage, and...

Lots of Stuff Posted Online Regarding Judge Sotomayor

Posted on July 10, 2009
by Brian Wolfman We've previously posted here and here about Judge Sotomayor's record in consumer and so-called business cases. A large amount of information on Judge Sotomayor has just been posted on the web, and I thought our readers might...

Barney Frank Introduces CFPA Bill

Posted on July 09, 2009
by Deepak Gupta House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank has formally introduced President Obama's plan for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). The bill adopts the Administration's proposal with a few limited exceptions. Unlike the Administration's draft, the bill...

June 2009 NHTSA Recalls

Posted on July 08, 2009
Go here for the June 2009 vehicle and associated product recalls issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

FTC Testifies on Proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency

Posted on July 08, 2009
The Federal Trade Commission today told the U.S. House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection that the FTC will continue to vigorously enforce consumer protection laws as Congress considers the Administration?s proposal to protect consumers of financial services, including...

Public Citizen Releases Statistical Survey of Public Interest Cases in the Latest Supreme Court Term

Posted on July 08, 2009
The Supreme Court's October 2008 Term ended June 29th, when the Court released the final opinions of the Term. In an attempt to quantify the Court's decisions, Public Citizen's Supreme Court Assistance Project has gone beyond its usual Watch List...

Public Citizen Litigation Group Gets a New Director

Posted on July 08, 2009
On July 1, 2009, Allison Zieve became the new director of Public Citizen Litigation Group. Allison replaces Brian Wolfman, who had been with the group for nineteen years, five of them as its director. Brian moves on to the faculty...

Today's House Hearing on the CFPA

Posted on July 08, 2009
You can access here the written testimony from today's House subcommittee hearing on the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency -- including that of Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr, and of Gail Hillebrand on behalf of national consumer groups -- as...

What Happens When Disclosures Contradict What Consumers Believe?

Posted on July 07, 2009
by Jeff Sovern I recently came across a study by Macro International conducted for the Federal Reserve Board in 2008 titled Consumer Testing of Mortgage Broker Disclosures that sheds some light on that question. Macro had consumers read disclosures stating...

Massachusetts Supreme Court Stikes Class Action Ban, Rejects Texas Law

Posted on July 07, 2009
by Deepak Gupta Just before the holiday weekend, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court issued an opinion in Feeney v. Dell, Inc., holding that a statutory right to participate in class action lawsuits may not be be foreclosed by a provision...

The Credit CARD Act and Penalty Fees

Posted on July 06, 2009
by Jeff Sovern One of the many interesting provisions of the Credit CARD Act that has not received much attention is the limits it imposes on penalty fees. At present, such fees are set through contract, subject only to unconscionability...

Consumer Law & Policy Roundup

Posted on July 02, 2009
by Deepak Gupta So much is happening so quickly in the world of consumer law and policy right now that it's hard to keep up, let alone blog about it in our spare time. In this post, I'm taking advantage...

Harvest From the Times: Bank Fees and Debt Derails Legal Career

Posted on July 02, 2009
by Jeff Sovern Some interesting articles in the New York Times today: One article, Bank Fees Rise as Lenders Try to Offset Losses, may shed some light on the claim that banks are raising credit card fees in response to...

Credit Card Issuers Raise Minimum Payments: Is it Because of the Credit CARD Act?

Posted on July 01, 2009
Arthur Delaney of the Huffington Post has the story.

Fallout From Credit CARD Act?

Posted on June 30, 2009
by Jeff Sovern This morning, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette published the following essay I had written: Private Sector Commentary: New credit card law has teeth Tuesday, June 30, 2009 By Jeff Sovern The credit card legislation President Obama signed into law...

White House Proposal Includes Authority to Ban Forced Arbitration

Posted on June 30, 2009
by Deepak Gupta Included in President Obama's proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009 is the following provision giving the new agency the authority to ban pre-dispute mandatory binding arbitration clauses: SEC. 1025. AUTHORITY TO RESTRICT MANDATORY PRE-DISPUTE ARBITRATION...

White House Sends Consumer Financial Protection Bill to Capitol Hill

Posted on June 30, 2009
by Deepak Gupta Today, President Obama sent a bill to Capitol Hill that would create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. You can read the text of the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009 here. The package also includes...

California's 17200: Have rumors of its death been greatly understated?

Posted on June 30, 2009
by Stephen Gardner Yesterday, the California Supreme Court issued an opinion, Arias v. Superior Court, that seems to have gutted any hopes of a representative action under California Business & Professions Code � 17200, holding: [W]e construe the statement in...

Cuomo Case Great News for State Attorneys General

Posted on June 29, 2009
The Supreme Court has issued an opinion striking down the federal banking regulatory preemption of state fair lending enforcement lawsuits. The Court confronted whether ambiguity in the National Bank Act left the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency free...

Should section 230 be broadened to the traditional media?

Posted on June 29, 2009
General Motors? retreat from its effort to use bankruptcy proceedings to shed tort liability represents a great victory for consumers. But the Washington Post reported that, in the course of the consumer campaign to achieve that result, which was pursued...

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