Showing posts filed under: FTC Beat by Nicole Kardell
Higher Ed False Claims Act Suits – Pass or Fail?
Career Education Corporation, like a host of other for-profit education companies, has found itself spinning on the courthouse revolving door. The latest legal challenge for CEC: a False Claims Act suit filed in federal court in New Jersey on May 16. The lawsuit alleges that CEC defrauded the federal government by (1) falsifying job placement… Read More
Investigating For-Profit Edu: Are Government Agents Going To Start Tripping Over Each Other?
Things look a bit bleak for the for-profit education industry: it seems like every other day a new federal or state agency is launching an investigation or proposing new regulations. The latest news is that a coalition of 32 state attorneys general, along with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is expanding a probe into lending… Read More
Can ‘Disparate Impact’ Become the Basis for a Fair-Lending Claim?
As part of its aggressive program to protect consumers in financial matters, the Consumer Protection Financial Bureau (CFPB) has announced that it is prepared to adopt a controversial “disparate impact” theory of liability against lenders. A case that the U.S. Supreme Court may accept would have a major impact on whether the CFPB is actually… Read More
POM Loses a Round in Its Advertising Dispute With FTC, But Battle Continues
POM Wonderful LLC recently received a setback in its longstanding dispute with the Federal Trade Commission. On Sept. 30, 2012, U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts in the District of Columbia dismissed the juice maker’s declaratory judgment action against the FTC. The judge’s ruling, though, does not put an end to the POM-FTC battle, which is… Read More
In Time for Bikini Season, Kardashians Face Lawsuit Over Endorsement of Diet Aids
Kim Kardashian, the reality star, is accustomed to the public eye, but now she faces a lawsuit that may not bring her good publicity at all. Along with her sisters Khloe and Kourtney, Kim has been named as a defendant earlier this year in a class action over QuickTrim, a dietary supplement that they have… Read More
Why POM Wonderful Can Celebrate FTC Judge’s Ruling in Advertising Case
Pomegranate juice maker POM Wonderful has declared victory against the FTC . . . in spite of an administrative law judge’s ruling that upholds many claims in the agency’s complaint. But the California company has good reason to celebrate: certain FTC standards, the ones that POM cried foul on, were rejected by the court. The… Read More
In Nutella Advertising Case, Whom Is the System Protecting?
The world is full of surprises, like the fact that Nutella chocolate spread is loaded with saturated fat and sugar and is not itself healthy. Ferrero USA, Inc., the company that makes Nutella, learned the hard way that many American parents could not survive (nor perhaps could their children) without the aid and intervention of… Read More
Developers of New Apps Need to Consider Privacy Issues
There’s been much talk of Google’s upcoming streamlined privacy policy. Now come new demands for cleaner, user-friendly data collection and usage disclosures in the mobile app world. Two recent events highlight changes that online advertisers and app developers need to prepare for: (1) a letter from Congressmen Henry Waxman and G.K. Butterfield to Apple regarding… Read More
HCG Marketers Face Hot Pursuit by FDA, FTC
Putting a snag in New Year’s resolutions for pound-shedding, the FDA and the FTC recently sent out warning letters to several companies that sell HCG-based diet products online. (These companies include Nutri-Fusion Systems LLC, Natural Medical Supply, HCG Platinum, LLC, theoriginalhcgdrops.com, HCG Diet Direct, LLC, and Hcg-miracleweightloss.com.) The warning letters, which came at the outset… Read More
Inside the Privacy Event Keynoted By FTC Chair Leibowitz
Federal Trade Commission Chairman Jon Leibowitz delivered the keynote speech at a forum on Internet privacy on Oct. 11, 2011. He was part of a panel that discussed the protection of consumer data and the tracking of online consumer behavior. The Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society also released a study the same… Read More
IFRAH Law
