State Attorneys General

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Data breaches and ransomware attacks are on the rise. On October 7, Oregon Attorney General Rosenblum announced an increase in data breaches reported to his office. The first nine months of 2021 involved 131 reported breaches, exceeding the 2020 total of 110. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) also announced an increase in ransomware-related activities in the U.S. earlier this year. The first half of 2021 saw $590 million reported ransomware activities, exceeding the 2020 total of $416 million.

On October 18, consumer advocate groups and 19 state attorneys general wrote comment letters, urging banking regulators to denounce “rent-a-bank” arrangements between financial institutions and fintechs or other third-party providers.

The consumer advocates and attorneys general both push regulators to address and denounce financial institutions partnering with nonbanks to engage in high-cost lending otherwise prohibited…

If you use the internet, you have probably encountered at least one of the scams con artists use to bilk victims. There’s “catfishing” and other online dating fraud, where scammers use fake identities to woo victims into sending money. There’s also “grandparent scams,” where typically elderly victims are tricked by those posing as his or…

A federal court in Michigan recently ruled that out-of-state residents have standing to sue under the Michigan Personal Privacy Protection Act (PPPA). In Lin v. Crain Communications, Inc., Case No. 2:19-cv-11889 (E.D. Mich., June 25, 2019), Gary Lin, a Virginia resident, filed a putative class-action lawsuit against Crain Communications, Inc. (Crain), a Michigan-based publishing…

In early March, New York State Attorney General Letitia James and New York City Corporation Counsel John E. Johnson announced a $105 million settlement against a hedge fund manager for tax evasion. The New York authorities were alerted to the potential of fraud in October 2018 by a whistleblower lawsuit brought under New York’s False…

Over the past several years, the Democratic commissioners of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have made clear their dissatisfaction with the agency’s historic treatment of pharmaceutical mergers. Now, it appears that the FTC has launched a process aimed at changing the way in which such transactions are analyzed and ultimately resolved.

Past dissenting statements…

On March 15, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced that the California Office of Administrative Law approved his fourth set of proposed modifications to the California Consumer Privacy Act’s (CCPA) implementing regulations (Fourth Set of Modifications), completing the finalization process.

In announcing the approval of the Fourth Set of Modifications, Attorney General Becerra…

On February 22, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), joined by the attorneys general for Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York (States), filed suit against Libre by Nexus, Inc. (Libre). The suit alleges that Libre, an immigration bond services business, engaged in deceptive and abusive acts or practices in connection with its offer of credit to…

A recent decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia underscores the significance of issues of proof when trying to enforce arbitration agreements. The case is Proctor v. First Premier Corp., No. 1:20-cv-02162-BAH, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6502 (D.D.C. Jan. 13, 2021).

Plaintiff Charnita Proctor sued First Premier Corp. (FPC) for…

On February 4, the New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) released the Cyber Insurance Risk Framework (Framework), which is considered the first guidance by a U.S. regulator on cyber insurance. The Framework is aimed at property and casualty insurers that provide cyber insurance, as well as other insurers that do not write specific cyber…