Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

Diverging Views On Class Certification In The Insurance Industry: Uniform Valuation Methods For Totaled Vehicles, Celine Makhani

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

This comment explores the legal challenges surrounding how insurance companies calculate the "actual cash value" of totaled vehicles . The author focuses on the controversial use of "negotiation adjustments"—deductions insurers apply based on the assumption that buyers typically negotiate car prices downward—which policyholders argue systematically undervalues their claims. The central conflict of the article is a significant circuit split: while the Ninth Circuit in Jama v. State Farm recently allowed these claims to proceed as class actions, the Fifth Circuit in Sampson v. USAA reached the opposite conclusion, requiring individual proof of harm for each policyholder . Makhani analyzes these …

It's The Night Of The Living Deepfakes: The Threat Of Deepfakes On The Film Industry, Neki Shero

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Crossed Wires: How Current Federal Laws And Regulations Are Inadequate At Protecting Consumers From Sophisticated Wire Fraud Schemes, Emily Brafman

University of Miami Business Law Review

The shift to digital banking has redefined the financial services industry, allowing consumers to conduct everyday transactions, such as wire transfers, at the touch of a button. However, this convenience comes at a steep price: as digital banking becomes the norm, consumers are increasingly exploited by sophisticated cybercriminals, enabled by a legal system that is ill-equipped to handle modern phishing and wire fraud schemes, ultimately draining consumer accounts. Unfortunately, existing protective measures, such as the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (EFTA) and the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), have proven to be outdated and inadequate to address the unique risks posed by …

Regulating Data Monetization, Peter Ormerod

Texas A&M Law Review

Companies today generate hundreds of billions of dollars each year by collecting massive amounts of information about human activity and wringing predictive insights from it. The scale of these influence activities is stunning: your driving habits dictate your car insurance rates, buying the wrong thing will increase your borrowing costs, and the information ecosystem you inhabit is finely tuned for keeping your attention available to the highest bidder.

States have recently enacted new consumer privacy laws that confer on individuals a series of generally applicable rights over their personal information. But this approach has proven ineffective at disciplining firms’ data …

A Tale Of Two Credits: The Post-Nestlé Alien Tort Statute And Carbon Credit Externalities, Stephanie Mao

Northwestern University Law Review

As companies increasingly embrace carbon-neutrality commitments, many rely on the voluntary carbon market to offset their emissions rather than reduce them directly. Regulatory and consumer scrutiny has focused on the widespread use of “phantom” carbon credits, i.e., credits that fail to produce meaningful climate benefits. But less attention has been paid to what this Note terms “colonial” carbon credits: those that may technically reduce emissions but do so at the expense of communities abroad. These projects may contribute to land dispossession, human rights abuses, and threats to public and environmental health. Yet, current regulatory and legal frameworks, with their focus …

Article Iii's Constraints On The Legislative Power, Elizabeth Beske

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

Article III’s heightened concreteness standard for statutory harms takes federal judges deep into legislative terrain, jeopardizing statutory damage provisions and confining Congress to post hoc solutions rather than preemptive strikes. The Supreme Court has insisted that creating a cause of action is a legislative function. At the same time, its recent standing cases instruct lower federal courts to permit suit on statutory injuries only when they find actual harm that bears a tight connection to injuries recognized at common law. This new harm requirement rests uneasily with countless statutes featuring statutory damage provisions that are in place precisely because damages …

The Revival Of Section 5: A Return To The Ftc’S Roots In A Time Of Democratic Crisis, Shaoul Sussman

Fordham Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Revival Of Section 5: A Return To The Ftc’S Roots In A Time Of Democratic Crisis, Shaoul Sussman

Center for Law and the Economy

On November 10, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC or the “Commission”) issued a policy statement on the scope of unfair methods of competition under section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA). This policy statement marked a significant shift, reviving a broad interpretation of the agency’s authority to police anticompetitive conduct. The antitrust defense bar reacted with alarm, arguing that the principles are overly ambiguous and lack guidance. This Essay contends that reaction is misplaced. The statement draws on a rich body of U.S. Supreme Court and circuit court precedent that the antitrust bar seems to have largely …

Playing The Hermès Game: Quota Bags, Antitrust Law, And The Limits Of Consumer Protection In Luxury Markets, Madeleine Chou

William & Mary Business Law Review

Luxury fashion retail has become a behemoth of an industry. Through acquisitions and strong brand recognition, some brands have developed significant market power in the luxury retail space. Chief among these brands is Hermès, a luxury leather retail boutique known for its highly sought after quota bags, like the Birkin and the Kelly. Quota bags are handbags that can generally only be bought by customers who have developed a substantial purchase history and relationship with the brand. Through this sales model, Hermès has created what plaintiffs have alleged to be an antitrust tying scheme, in which the purchase of one …

Birthdate Phaseout, Katharine B. Silbaugh

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the Nicotine Free Generation ("NFG") policy, an emerging endgame strategy for tobacco products that employs a completely novel legal design. Tobacco remains the leading cause of preventable death, killing almost half of its users and imposing $600 billion in social costs each year. We see two basic choices for regulating sales: prohibition or a legal age-gate, such as twenty-one, for retail sales. NFG charts a third way. Recognizing the dire harm of tobacco and the serious consequences of abrupt prohibition, NFG lays the groundwork for a gradual transition to a sales sunset. In place of the twenty-one …

Targeting Unfairness, Omolara Bewaji Joseney

Vanderbilt Law Review

Companies often engage in racially targeted marketing practices whereby they target and tailor their advertisements to racially segmented consumer populations. As a result, a targeted racial group of consumers may receive advertisements for a product or service that is intentionally customized to appeal to them (a “pull”) or may be specifically untargeted or excluded from receiving advertisements as members of a nontargeted racial group (a “push”). This Article examines the marketing environment created by these pull-push dynamics as a consumer protection concern. Legal scholarship on targeted advertising has focused either on its risks to privacy due to the growing reliance …

Revisiting The Dk Gandhi Sc Judgment 2024 On The Liability Of Advocates Under The Consumer Protection Law, Jeet Singh Mann

International Journal on Consumer Law and Practice

A Division Bench of the Supreme Court in Bar of Indian Lawyers v DK Gandhi concluded on 14 May 2024 that advocates are covered by a contract of personal service; thereby, no professional negligence or deficiency in service by advocates can be said to arise under the Consumer Protection Act 1986/2019. The said judgment is per incuriam as it ignores fundamentals of the contract of service, the mandate, the scheme of social welfare legislation and consumer protection law, and judgments of larger benches on accountability of professionals, including advocates, for professional negligence. This article critically examines whether advocates are covered …

Exposing Car Dealerships' Final Hidden Sales Con: A Call For The Disclosure Of Interest Rate Markups When "Helping" Buyers With Indirect Financing, John C. Simms

Kentucky Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The Vanishing Enforcer: Consumer Protection In An Era Of Dual Retrenchment, Alisher Juzgenbayev

Northwestern University Law Review

Recent developments, including reductions in the federal workforce, effective suspension of certain enforcement activities, and attempted centralization of independent agency rulemaking in the White House, have significantly weakened administrative agencies. This administrative retrenchment is concerning as private enforcement of a number of consumer protection statutes has been simultaneously curtailed through the Supreme Court’s decisions in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins and TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, which dramatically narrowed plaintiffs’ standing. These decisions rely in part on a vision of strong executive authority, positing that broad private standing conflicts with an Article II framework where a politically accountable President faithfully implements laws …

Civil Liability In Airbnb Transactions And The Legal Gaps In Consumer Protection In Vietnam, Tuan Ngoc Tran

International Journal on Consumer Law and Practice

The rapid growth of the collaborative or sharing economy has posed numerous challenges to traditional legal systems, particularly in relation to short-term accommodation. As a decentralized, intermediary platform, Airbnb raises complex legal issues concerning the allocation of civil liability, enforceability of contracts, and mechanisms for consumer protection. In the context of Vietnamese law, where there is a lack of clear regulatory frameworks to govern digital platforms, consumers risk having their rights infringed without effective legal remedies. The article focuses on three core issues: the legal classification of hosts on Airbnb, the enforceability of clickwrap contracts, and the cross-border enforceability of …

A Congressional Inappropriation?: Troubleshooting Cfpb V. Cfsa Ahead Of The Supreme Court’S Review, William Weingarten

Fordham Law Review Online

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Ass’n of America has emerged as one of the most consequential cases before the U.S. Supreme Court this term. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s judgment below—in Community Financial Services Ass’n of America v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—held the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding structure to be unconstitutional under the Appropriations Clause of the U.S. Constitution. With this holding, the Fifth Circuit created a circuit split with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and became the first federal court of appeals to invalidate …

Against The Drafter: An Empirical And Theoretical Analysis Of The Doctrine Of Contra Proferentem, Farshad Ghodoosi, Tal Kastner

Fordham Law Review

Contra proferentem, the enduring maxim that directs courts to interpret an ambiguity in a contract against its drafter, appears simple on its face. Although it might be best known as a fundamental principle of insurance law, contra proferentem figures in courts’ interpretation of a range of contract types. As an interpretive rule of thumb that parties can easily override with a simple contract provision, the doctrine and its boilerplate antidote seem to offer a straightforward means to facilitate private ordering—a central goal of contract law.

However, neither courts’ application of the doctrine in case law nor contract drafters’ treatment …

Long-Term Consumer Welfare, Rebecca Haw Allensworth

Vanderbilt Law Review

Consumer welfare is not monolithic. Antitrust policy that pursues it as a goal must trade off the various incommensurable values that make up the consumer experience. Perhaps the most important of these-and the most poorly theorized-is the trade-off between consumers' short-term and long-term welfare. Many business practices that might be challenged as exclusionary or unreasonable restraints of trade can benefit consumers on one time horizon while hurting them on another. Often the trade-off is between short-term quality or price effects and long-term consequences for competitive entry and incentives to innovate. These disparate effects are well understood by economists, yet economics …

Outbound Investment Restrictions And International Law’S Challenge, Harlan Grant Cohen

Seattle University Law Review

The Outbound Investment Rule, restricting U.S. investment in certain Chinese advanced technology sectors, has largely been portrayed as an incremental measure, a modest extension to fill loopholes in the existing investment screening regime. But while perhaps the logical next step in the securitization of the economy, the Outbound Investment Rule actually reflects a momentous shift in the relationship between governments and business, one playing out in the United States and around the world and worth attention. Unlike traditional investment screening, the Outbound Investment Rule operates like a sanctions regime, designed not to protect the U.S. economy, but to hamper the …