When the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decided ACA International v. Federal Communications Commission[1] in March 2018, many viewed the decision as a potential swan song for the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. Experts predicted the FCC, buoyed by Chairman Ajit Pai, would step in quickly to reform existing regulatory guidance interpreting
A recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Federal Claims has made it more likely that an ambitious overhaul of the federal student loan servicing industry will be forthcoming.
As background, the U.S. Department of Education has announced plans to make sweeping changes to the student loan industry by requiring that its loan servicers be
CVS Pharmacy has agreed to pay $15 million to settle long-running claims asserted by a nationwide class of consumers who allegedly received unsolicited flu shot reminder calls. The parties filed a motion for preliminary approval of the class settlement this week in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
The underlying
On July 9, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals entered a non-precedential opinion upholding a district court’s ruling that a third-party collection agency could not invoke a creditor’s mandatory arbitration agreement against a plaintiff that brought claims against the collection agency for violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act on the facts before the
In a recent decision, the California Supreme Court held that plaintiffs do not need to demonstrate a plan for identifying and notifying class members in order to certify a class, as long as they can point to “objective characteristics and common transaction facts” that will allow the court to ascertain the class in the future.
On July 24, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed new, comprehensive robocall reform. Passed by a vote of 429-3, the Stopping Bad Robocalls Act (“SBRA”) would give the Federal Communications Commission novel methods to enforce existing anti-robocall laws in addition to allowing the FCC to go after violators more strictly. Beyond giving the FCC the
On July 24, the Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint against Cambridge Analytica, alleging that the company deceived consumers by falsely claiming it did not collect any personally identifiable information from Facebook users. The FTC alleges that Cambridge Analytica in fact collected users’ Facebook User ID—which can include users’ real names—as well as other
On August 6, 2019, Troutman Sanders attorneys, Virginia Flynn and Chad Fuller, will lead a webinar by Federal Bar Association entitled, “Unsolicited Calls or Text Messages: TCPA Litigation–What Attorneys Need to Know.” The webinar will begin at 1:00 p.m. Eastern and the run time is two hours.
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), a
Aspiring plaintiffs continue to litigate the issue of an attorney’s role in sending debt collection letters. Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, a debt collector may not use false or misleading representations in the collection of a debt. 15 U.S.C. § 1692(e). In Bencomo v. Forster & Garbus LLP, et al., No.
On July 25, the Federal Trade Commission published a request for public comment on its implementation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) through the COPPA Rule.
COPPA regulates how websites and online services collect data and personal information from children. The FTC’s COPPA Rule requires that such operators who collect personal information from