Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

False Claims: The Coordinated Exploitation Of The United States Government By The Healthcare Industry, Grady Mcmichen

Journal of Law and Health

The False Claims Act (FCA) has a long-standing history of protecting the United States government from being defrauded by merchants and other parties submitting claims for repayment. Affording Americans who have enrolled in Medicaid and Medicare expansion plans the same protection afforded to the federal government will allow for action to be brought to prevent large hospital networks from engaging in price-fixing behaviors. Implementing this change will have the effect of reducing healthcare prices for all Americans.

Applying the False Claims Act at the price-fixing level will have the largest affect; however, it is still important to iron out procedures …

Increasing Competition In Live Music: The Case For Better Enforcement Of The Live Nation Entertainment Consent Decree, Tj Hunt

Cleveland State Law Review

In 2009, Live Nation and Ticketmaster Entertainment expressed their intent to merge to become Live Nation Entertainment. Before the merger, Ticketmaster Entertainment was the leading live music ticketing and marketing company. Live Nation was the leading producer of live music events. Live Nation also entered the primary ticket sales market and led merchandising at its entertainment venues. Antitrust concerns arose that this newly formed entity would be a near-monopoly in live music. Despite general antitrust concerns and lawsuits from consumers, smaller promoters, seventeen state attorneys general, and the Department of Justice (“DOJ"), Live Nation Entertainment agreed to a consent decree …

Liability Rule Practices Amidst The Property Rule Of Indonesian Capital Market, Adiwarman Adiwarman

Indonesia Law Review

Shareholder protection is the most important legal issue in capital market law. Conflict of interest is one of the corporate actions in the capital market. The property rule requires independent shareholders’ approval for conflicts of interest transactions. The property rule paradigm empowers independent shareholders in the company’s decision-making process. In practice, listed companies violate the property rule and are subject to sanctions, but the rights of shareholders will be reduced due to fines imposed by the capital market authorities. A normative method is used to answer the problem of how does Indonesia enforce the conflict of interest rule in order …

Analysis Of Discriminatory Measures From European Union Renewable Energy Directive Ii To Indonesia As A Palm Oil Producer Country, Enrico Denis Sihotang

Indonesia Law Review

On 21 December 2018, the European Union (EU) issued a regulation titled Renewable Energy Directive II (RED II), where the RED II policy introduced the indirect land use change (ILUC) criteria for palm oil. RED II states that palm oil is classified as a commodity with a “ high ILUC risk” type, and as such, the EU will gradually reduce palm oil consumption and no longer use palm oil by 2030. Indonesia brought this issue to WTO in 2020. Indonesia, through its consultation, argued that the RED II is inconsistent with the few provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs …

The Magic Of Fintech? Insights For A Regulatory Agenda From Analyzing Student Loan Complaints Filed With The Cfpb, Matthew Adam Bruckner, Christopher J. Ryan

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

This Article looks at consumer complaints about student loan lenders and servicers from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) consumer complaint database. Using a novel dataset drawn from 30,678 complaints filed against 212 student loan companies, we analyze consumers’ subjective views about whether traditional or fintech student loan lenders and servicers provide a better customer experience. Overall, we find that consumers initiate far fewer complaints against fintech lenders than traditional lenders. But we find that fintech lenders are 28 times more likely than traditional lenders to receive complaints for making confusing or misleading advertisements. Our data also show that complaints …

Cookies, Pop-Ups And Commercials: How Tech Companies' Privacy Promises Are Preserving Their Data Dominance, Cailley Lapara

Capstones

As antitrust sentiment focused on Big Tech from regulators and consumers grows, companies like Google and Apple and more have announced plans to move away from the behavioral ad business model that brought the companies to the size they are today. This trend is marketed to customers as a way to address their growing concerns over privacy and data collection. It also comes as the companies face sweeping antitrust litigation and legislation that would break up the firms. But the companies' claims of moving towards privacy are sketchy at best, and appear to serve as a way for the companies …

Examining Comity And The Exhaustion Doctrine In Tribal Court Civil Jurisdiction: The Cherokee Nation’S Opioid Litigation, Joëlle Klein

Washington Law Review

The opioid epidemic has devastated communities throughout the United States over the last two decades. Native American and Alaska Native tribes faced disproportionate impacts and suffered the long-lasting consequences that opioid addiction causes families and communities. In response, states and municipalities across the United States sued the distributors and pharmacies responsible for illegally diverting opioids. In April of 2017, the Attorney General for the Cherokee Nation, Todd Hembree, initiated a civil suit against opioid pharmaceutical distributors and retailers: CVS, Walgreens, Wal-Mart (pharmacies), and McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen (distributors). Although other tribes in the United States also brought claims against …

The Helicopter State: Misuse Of Parens Patriae Unconstitutionally Precludes Individual And Class Claims, Gabrielle J. Hanna

Washington Law Review

The doctrine of parens patriae allows state attorneys general to represent state citizens in aggregate litigation suits that are, in many ways, similar to class actions and mass-tort actions. Its origins, however, reflect a more modest scope. Parens patriae began as a doctrine allowing the British king to protect those without the ability to protect themselves, including wards and mentally disabled individuals. The rapid expansion of parens patriae standing in the United States may be partly to blame for the relative absence of limiting requirements or even well-developed case law governing parens patriae suits. On the one hand, class actions …

Comments Of The Cordell Institute For Policy In Medicine & Law At Washington University In St. Louis, Neil Richards, Woodrow Hartzog, Jordan Francis

Faculty Scholarship

The Federal Trade Commission—with its broad, independent grant of authority and statutory mandate to identify and prevent unfair and deceptive trade practices—is uniquely situated to prevent and remedy unfair and deceptive data privacy and data security practices. In an increasingly digitized world, data collection, processing, and transfer have become integral to market interactions. Our personal and commercial experiences are now mediated by powerful, information-intensive firms who hold the power to shape what consumers see, how they interact, which options are available to them, and how they make decisions. That power imbalance exposes consumers and leaves them all vulnerable. We all …

Against Secondary Meaning, Jeanne C. Fromer

Notre Dame Law Review

Trademark law premises protection and scope of marks on secondary meaning, which is established when a mark develops sufficient association to consumers with a business as a source of goods or services in addition to the mark’s linguistic primary meaning. In recent years, scholars have proposed that secondary meaning plays an even more central role in trademark law than it already does. Yet enshrining secondary meaning in the law undermines the ultimate goals of trademark law: promoting fair competition and protecting consumers. The dangers of enshrining secondary meaning include the problematic doctrine that has built up to assess it or …

Providing Farmers With The Legal Tools Needed To Keep The Equipment Running: An Update On The Agricultural Right To Repair Movement, Greg Nies, Bruce Elder

Mountain Plains Business Conference

This presentation examines and summarizes the right to repair movement from the perspective of its origins, development, legal basis and – most significantly – its unique manifestation within an agriculture perspective. The agricultural equipment sector is more concentrated and less competitive than many other industries, while the typical farmer remains fiercely independent and self-reliant. This unique situation has led to conflict, forming the basis of the current agricultural right to repair dispute. Accordingly, the current state of the agricultural right to repair movement is examined and explained based on the recent policy, legislation, and litigation efforts employed at federal and …

Why Is A Debt Collector Texting Me? The Modernization Of Debt Collection Practices, Emily Schmidt

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Information Privacy And The Inference Economy, Alicia Solow-Niederman

Northwestern University Law Review

Information privacy is in trouble. Contemporary information privacy protections emphasize individuals’ control over their own personal information. But machine learning, the leading form of artificial intelligence, facilitates an inference economy that pushes this protective approach past its breaking point. Machine learning provides pathways to use data and make probabilistic predictions—inferences—that are inadequately addressed by the current regime. For one, seemingly innocuous or irrelevant data can generate machine learning insights, making it impossible for an individual to anticipate what kinds of data warrant protection. Moreover, it is possible to aggregate myriad individuals’ data within machine learning models, identify patterns, and then …

Wishing To Be Part Of That Court: How The Supreme Court's Decision In Bp P.L.C. V. Mayor Of Baltimore Lets Energy Companies Wander Free And Drown The Shore Up Above, Natalie Poirier

Villanova Environmental Law Journal (1991 - )

No abstract provided.

Why Bigger Is Not Always Better: Dodd-Frank & Its Impact On Small Banks & Businesses, Sarah King

Journal of Civil Rights and Economic Development

(Excerpt)

Imagine that the year is 2006. Along with partners and investors, you have just taken one of the biggest risks of your life and founded a small business. Specifically, your business acts as a broker of financial instruments known as energy derivatives; it matches buyers and sellers of futures, options, and other derivatives, and a portion of the money made from the trade is collected as a fee for your services. For the most part, the business runs smoothly. You’re rarely stressed, your customers are satisfied with your services, and you and your co-workers make good money.

Imagine that …

Novel Food Ingredients: Food Safety Law, Animal Testing, And Consumer Perspectives, Taimie Bryant

Marquette Law Review

In recent years, some major food companies have publicly stated that they will no longer test their product ingredients on animals. Yet despite the availability of more reliably predictive non-animal toxicity tests, some companies continue testing novel food ingredients on animals. This Article uses the lens of a particular innovative plant-based food company’s decision to test a novel food ingredient on animals as a means of considering more generally whether any food producer has rational legal reasons for testing on animals. The Article explores FDA requirements, consumer food safety litigation, and judicial evaluation of animal test data, all of which …

An Overview Of The Regulations Of Corporate Social Responsibility (Csr) Labelled Product, Zaid Zaid

Indonesia Law Review

Over the last 5 years, Indonesia has experienced an emergency of illegal products. Most of them are imported products that do not have adequate labeling standards which can adversely affect both domestic or national trade and stakeholders. On the other hand, product labels are one of the most effective ways to detect the legality, safety, and warranty of a product. This article aims to explore and analyze how the role of product labels can protect and cover social interests. In addition, this research also tries to observe how ethics and laws or regulations regulate product labels to provide a moral …

Amicus Curiae Brief Of The Hon. Judith Fitzgerald (Bankruptcy Judge, Ret.), And Law Professors Pamela Foohey, George Kuney, Robert Lawless, Jonathan Lipson, Bruce A. Markell, Nancy Rapoport, Richard Squire, Ray Warner And Jack Williams, In Support Of The Petitioner, Pamela Foohey

Amicus Briefs

Your amici have taught courses on bankruptcy and commercial law, conducted research, and have been frequent speakers and lecturers at seminars and conferences throughout the United States. Each is highly regarded in this field, and each has made substantial contributions to bankruptcy scholarship and jurisprudence.

The question presented to this Court is as follows: “Whether Bankruptcy Code Section 363(m) limits the appellate court’s jurisdiction over any sale order or order deemed integral to a sale order. . . .” (emphasis added). Pet. i. The answer is that § 363(m) does not limit appellate review of the transaction involved in this …

The Feud Of Nemo Plus Iuris Ad Alium Transferre Potest Quam Ipse Habet And Nemo Dat Quad Non Habet (Nemo Dat Rule) Legal Principles Against The Legal Principle Of Good Faith (Bona Fides) In Indonesian Courts, Yonatan Yonatan, Rosa Agustina

Indonesia Law Review

Abstract

A dispute over ownership of land rights between the real Original Owner and a Good Faith Purchaser can be assumed as a dispute over legal principles in the field of civil law, namely: the legal principle of Nemo Plus Iuris Ad Alium Transferre Potest Quam Ipse Habet, and the legal principle of Nemo Dat Quad Non Habet (Nemo Dat Rule) against the legal principle of good faith (bona fides). The legal principle of Nemo Plus Iuris Ad Alium Transferre Potest Quam Ipse Habet and the legal principle of Nemo Dat Quad Non Habet (Nemo Dat Rule) are legal principles …

Commentary On Consumer Protection Act, 2019, Ashok R. Patil

Books

The development of new technology in the form of e-commerce and the increasing integration of global markets and supply chains have changed the way consumers interact with the marketplace. This has given rise to new challenges for the consumer, and the existing consumer protection framework falls short in dealing with them. To address these concerns, the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, seeks to lay down a more robust scheme for consumer protection with the introduction of new measures such as the establishment of a general regulator, providing for a product liability regime, encouraging mediation, and developing appropriate regulations to protect and …

Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence, Luke Stark, Jevan Hutson

Articles

The reanimation of the pseudosciences of physiognomy and phrenology at scale through computer vision and machine learning is a matter of urgent concern. This Article—which contributes to critical data studies, consumer protection law, biometric privacy law, and antidiscrimination law—endeavors to conceptualize and problematize physiognomic artificial intelligence (“AI”) and offer policy recommendations for state and federal lawmakers to forestall its proliferation.

Physiognomic AI, as this Article contends, is the practice of using computer software and related systems to infer or create hierarchies of an individual’s body composition, protected class status, perceived character, capabilities, and future social outcomes based on their physical …

Product Liability Action: A Tooth To Strengthen Consumer Protection, Ashok R. Patil

Articles

As the world shifts to technological advancements, the advent of e-commerce marks its peak, particularly in India, where it has been earmarked as the fastest growing market with an annual growth rate of 51%. While these developments are an important part of globalization, a few challenges come along. Issues like unfair contracts, privacy, data protection, faulty goods, refund or return remained unaddressed as the earlier existing Consumer Protection Act, 1986 did not elucidate on the same. Given the above, the Law Commission of India had recommended that a separate law be enacted for better consumer protection. Based on the recommendations …

The Property Law Of Tokens, Juliet M. Moringiello, Christopher K. Odinet

Faculty Scholarship

Non-fungible tokens—or NFTs, as they are better known—have taken the world by storm. The idea behind an NFT is that by owning a certain thing (specifically, a digital token that is tracked on a blockchain), one can hold property rights in something else (either a real or intangible asset). In the early part of 2021, NFTs for items ranging from a gif of a pop-tart cat with a rainbow tail, to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, to a New York Times column (about NFTs!) have sold for millions of dollars over the internet. Promoters assert that NFTs are the …

Amazon As A Seller Of Marketplace Goods Under Article 2, Tanya J. Monestier

Journal Articles

You have probably purchased goods on Amazon. Did you know that if the goods you purchased on Amazon turn out to be defective and cause serious personal injury, Amazon is probably not liable for them? Did you know that even though you placed an order on Amazon, gave payment to Amazon, and received the goods in an Amazon box, there is a good chance that the goods are not “sold by” Amazon—but are instead sold by a third-party seller? Did you know that Amazon tries to avoid liability for goods sold on its platform on the technicality that it does …

Hair On Fire: Why Companies Are Less Likely To Feel The Burn Under The Doj’S Newest Change To Antitrust Enforcement, Caroline M. Whitener

Pepperdine Law Review

In July 2019, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division announced that in an effort to help companies avoid “‘hair on fire’ experiences,” Division prosecutors are now, despite previous hesitancy, encouraged to offer prosecution alternatives in the form of deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) and non-prosecution agreements (NPAs) to corporate antitrust violators. Alternative prosecution agreements, such as DPAs and NPAs, are contracts between the government and corporate wrongdoers that allow companies to delay or entirely avoid prosecution, provided the company adheres to the contract terms. Additionally, as a part of the policy change, DOJ antitrust prosecutors must evaluate a corporation’s preexisting …

Consumer Protection Of Persons With Disabilities Amidst The Covid-19, James Keith C. Heffron

Center for Business Research and Development

The Persons with Disabilities (PWD) sector was one of the most overlooked and affected sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. As consumers, PWDs have suffered difficult challenges in the access of essential goods and services, including healthcare, and these challenges have been unduly aggravated because of the crisis. The article exposes and examines the negative impact of the crisis on the consumer rights and behavior of PWDs with a special focus on the novel barriers brought about by the pandemic on their right to access. The current pre-pandemic legislation is not adequate to protect PWDs from these novel barriers as there …

Advising 101 For The Growing Field Of Social Media Influencers, Stasia Skalbania

Washington Law Review

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) protects consumers from unfair and deceptive business practices. In 2019, the FTC released the “Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers Guide” (herein referred to as the “2019 Influencer Guide”). The 2019 Influencer Guide outlines advertisers’ and endorsers’ specific responsibilities relating to the advertising and marketing of products on social media platforms. Despite the extensive information provided within the 2019 Influencer Guide, there is still great confusion regarding endorsement disclosure requirements, and many brands and influencers are not in compliance with FTC recommendations. This Comment provides guidance to brands and social media influencers on how to …

Racial Capitalism In The Civil Courts, Lauren Sudeall, Tonya L. Brito, Kathryn A. Sabbeth, Jessica K. Steinberg

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Essay explores how civil courts function as sites of racial capitalism. The racial capitalism conceptual framework posits that capitalism requires racial inequality and relies on racialized systems of expropriation to produce capital. While often associated with traditional economic systems, racial capitalism applies equally to nonmarket settings, including civil courts.

The lens of racial capitalism enriches access to justice scholarship by explaining how and why state civil courts subordinate racialized groups and individuals. Civil cases are often framed as voluntary disputes among private parties, yet many racially and economically marginalized litigants enter the civil legal system involuntarily, and the state …

Discrimination On Wheels: How Big Data Uses License Plate Surveillance To Put The Brakes On Disadvantaged Drivers, Nicole K. Mcconlogue

Law Faculty Scholarship

As scholarly discourse increasingly raises concerns about the negative societal effects of “fintech,” “dirty data,” and “technochauvinism,” a growing technology provides an instructive illustration of all three of these problems. Surveillance software companies are using automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology to develop predictive analytical tools. In turn, software companies market those tools to auto financers and insurers as a risk assessment input to evaluate consumers seeking to buy a car. Proponents of this technology might argue that more information about consumer travel habits will result in more accurate and individualized risk predictions, potentially increasing vehicle ownership among marginalized groups. …

Biometric Data Collection And Big Tech: Imposing Ethical Constraints On Entities That Harvest Biometric Data, Ian Ducey

Seattle Journal of Technology, Environmental, & Innovation Law

Amazon can tell when you are sleeping, when you are awake, and when you are stressed, and they can do it before you may recognize it yourself. At least it will be able to if you decide to buy their newest wearable health monitoring technology. In 2020, Amazon joined Google’s Fitbit and Apple’s Apple Watch in the wearable technology market with the Amazon Halo. A wristband outfitted with a variety of sensors designed to help manage and record health identifiers, including body fat percentage, step tracking, sleep tracking, and now emotional responses. Many companies have begun developing and exploring the …