On May 21, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had settled charges against payment processor Allied Wallet along with its CEO and owner, Ahmad Khawaja, and two other officers – Mohammad Diab and Amy Rountree. The charges stemmed from the FTC’s claim that the defendants knowingly processed payments for merchants that were engaged in
Telephone Consumer Protection Act claim defendants and fans of civil procedure have cause to celebrate as another district court limits the scope of potential class members against out-of-state defendants.
On May 10, the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois struck non-residents of Illinois from a putative class in a
Today the Federal Register published the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking regarding updates to the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The notice in the Federal Register triggers the end date of the comment period. Businesses, consumers, and other interested parties now have until August 19, 2019 to submit comments on
The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, ruled yesterday that the same False Claims Act statute of limitations period applies whether an action is brought and pursued by a private person, known as a “relator,” or by the government. The opinion focuses on the plain language of the statute and
A bipartisan group of attorneys general from thirty-eight states have signed on to a letter backing the Secure and Fair Enforcement (“SAFE”) Banking Act – H.R. 1595 – as it moves toward the floor of the House of Representatives.
Thirty-three states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam have legalized marijuana for medical
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released on May 7 a 538-page Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (the Rule) that would update the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The Rule would be the first major update to the FDCPA since its enactment in 1977 and gives much-needed clarification on the bounds of federally-regulated activities of
Earlier this week, the Fourth Circuit struck down a provision of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) that exempted government-backed debts from the statute’s prohibition on automated calls to cellular telephones. According to the Court in American Association of Political Consultants, Inc., et al v. FCC, the debt-collection exemption does not pass strict scrutiny
The Eastern District of Pennsylvania concluded that an admitted professional litigant stated a claim under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act when he received the defendant’s telemarketing calls on his cell phone. The determinative factor was lack of allegations and evidence that the plaintiff used the phone for the sole purpose of bringing TCPA lawsuits. A
On April 10, Priority Payout Corporation, a payment processing company and the successor of InterBill Ltd., agreed to settle charges with the Federal Trade Commission regarding violations of a 2009 Final Judgment and Order for Permanent Injunction and Other Equitable Relief (the “2009 Order”). The 2019 settlement with the FTC bans