July 2016

Federal courts continue to interpret and analyze the Supreme Court’s decision in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins Recently, a federal judge in New York permitted a lawsuit against Hearst Communications, Inc., to move forward after considering supplemental briefing on Article III standing.  

Plaintiffs Suzanne Boelter and Josephine Edwards subscribe to magazines published by Hearst.  Plaintiffs

In 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit against CashCall, Inc., a marketplace lender, alleging that it violated the Consumer Financial Protection Act’s (“CFPA”) prohibition on unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts and practices (“UDAAP”) by making usury loans in violation of the state laws in which the consumers were located.

On

The FTC announced that it has reached a settlement with Herbalife that includes a $200 million payment to compensate consumers.  In addition to the payment, the settlement agreement has an unusual provision requiring a complete restructuring of Herbalife’s existing business model. 

In its complaint against the company, the FTC alleges that Herbalife claimed that people

On July 28, at a public hearing in Sacramento, California, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released an outline of new rules targeting third-party debt-collection operations.  The new rules seek to curb “excessive or disruptive” communication by restricting collectors from calling debtors numerous times a day, require debt collection companies to have “more and better

On July 26, a Northern District of California judge certified a class of applicants who claimed that S2Verify, a background check company, included obsolete criminal information on their background reports in violation of the Fair Credit Reporting Act.  In certifying the class, the Court found that the alleged harm was sufficient under the U.S. Supreme

In Long v. Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation, the named plaintiffs applied for positions as bus operators with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (“SEPTA”).  SEPTA allegedly extended each of the plaintiffs a conditional offer of employment, which was contingent upon a background check.  In each instance, the plaintiffs disclosed the existence of a drug conviction to

On May 16, the Supreme Court in Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins found that the Ninth Circuit had not adequately addressed whether the named plaintiff had sufficiently alleged a “concrete” injury in connection with his putative FCRA class action against Spokeo, Inc.  In Spokeo, the plaintiff (Robins) sued the “people search engine” for alleged violations of

Microsoft prevailed in its appeal to the Second Circuit from an order denying its motion to quash a warrant seeking a Microsoft user’s email stored on the company’s servers in Ireland.  The ruling sets important precedent limiting the extraterritorial reach of the federal government in seeking to compel disclosure of private company data under the

In a letter dated July 21, Senators Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and  Jeffrey Merkley (D-Ore.), on behalf of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs (the “Committee”), asked the heads of several federal agencies to provide the Committee with information concerning their understanding of the role of fintech in the consumer financial services

On July 14, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had entered into a final consent order with Ohio auto dealers Progressive Chevrolet Company and Progressive Motors Inc. (collectively, the “Progressive Dealers”), which the FTC had “charged with deceiving consumers by using advertising that touted low monthly car lease payments and down payments but failed