Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

Misconstruing Whistleblower Immunity Under The Defend Trade Secrets Act, Peter S. Menell

Peter Menell

In crafting the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA), Congress went beyond the federalization of state trade secret protection to tackle a broader social justice problem: the misuse of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) to discourage reporting of illegal activity in a variety of areas. The past few decades have witnessed devastating government contracting abuses, regulatory violations, and deceptive financial schemes that have hurt the public and cost taxpayers and investors billions of dollars. Congress recognized that immunizing whistleblowers from the cost and risk of trade secret liability for providing information to the Government could spur law enforcement. But could this …

Private Import Safety Regulation And Transnational New Governance, Errol E. Meidinger

Errol Meidinger

Published as Chapter 12 in Import Safety: Regulatory Governance in the Global Economy, Cary Coglianese, Adam M. Finkel & David Zaring, eds.

This paper examines the role of ‘private’ (non-governmental) regulatory programs in assuring the safety of imported products. Focusing particularly on food safety it argues that private regulatory institutions have great capacity to control safety hazards and to implement dynamic systems for detecting and correcting nascent risks. However, to establish the accountability and legitimacy relationships necessary for long-term effectiveness, private safety regulatory programs must devise new ways of incorporating and responding to the interests of developing country producers, laborers, …

Ispy: Threats To Individual And Institutional Privacy In The Digital World, Lori Andrews

Lori B. Andrews

Businesses Are People Too? Anomalies In Widening The Ambits Of "Consumer" Under Consumer Credit Law, Francina Cantatore, Brenda Marshall

Francina Cantatore

The Government’s Green Paper on National Credit reform canvasses the possibility of affording small businesses the same degree of protection as consumers under consumer credit legislation. Such a step will enable manufacturing businesses with fewer than 100 employees, and other businesses with fewer than 20 employees, to be treated as “consumers” with all the concomitant privileges that this classification implies, including the ability to rely on hardship provisions when unable to pay their debts. Small businesses already benefit from hardship provisions under compulsory external dispute resolution (EDR) scheme Rules imposed on consumer credit providers, with some anomalous results. The definition …

Businesses Are People Too? Anomalies In Widening The Ambits Of "Consumer" Under Consumer Credit Law, Francina Cantatore, Brenda Marshall

Francina Cantatore

The Government’s Green Paper on National Credit reform canvasses the possibility of affording small businesses the same degree of protection as consumers under consumer credit legislation. Such a step will enable manufacturing businesses with fewer than 100 employees, and other businesses with fewer than 20 employees, to be treated as “consumers” with all the concomitant privileges that this classification implies, including the ability to rely on hardship provisions when unable to pay their debts. Small businesses already benefit from hardship provisions under compulsory external dispute resolution (EDR) scheme Rules imposed on consumer credit providers, with some anomalous results. The definition …

La Responsabilisation De L'Economie: What The United States Can Learn From The New French Law On Consumer Overindebtedness, Jason J. Kilborn

Jason Kilborn

This Article on the French law continues a study of European consumer debt-relief systems, which the author began previously in an article on the German system. With rapid legal and practical developments in consumer debt-relief law, Europe provides an excellent comparative legal laboratory for observing the potential benefits and pitfalls of consumer bankruptcy reforms. In particular, French and German experiences with long-term payment plans shed useful light on the great debate raging in the United States over similar plans.

What We Buy When We "Buy Now", Aaron Perzanowski, Chris Jay Hoofnagle

Chris Jay Hoofnagle