In April 2023, the Federal Trade Commission announced that that it would be banning noncompete agreements in order to promote competition. Although this historic announcement was meant to change the entire landscape of the employment industry within the U.S., the FTC’s push to ban these agreements raised much skepticism from Read More
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it settled charges against New York-based registered transfer agent Equiniti Trust Company LLC, , for failing to assure that client securities and funds were protected against theft or misuse. Those failures led to the loss of more than $6.6 million of client funds Read More
After an 8-yearlong battle, the insurance giant Humana agreed to pay $90 million to settle claims that it violated the False Claims Act when it submitted fraudulent bids for Medicare prescription drugs contracts. The allegations claim that by misrepresenting the value of its Part D drug plan, also known as Read More
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced that they collected $474 million in fines from broker-dealers and investment advisers for widespread and longstanding failures by the firms and their employees to maintain and preserve text messages and other electronic communications. The SEC announced that the Read More
As a result of the Federal Trade Commission’s investigation, the Department of Justice sued TikTok and its parent company ByteDance with flagrantly violating a children’s privacy law—the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act—and also alleged they infringed an existing FTC 2019 consent order against TikTok for violating COPPA. The complaint alleges Read More
The Department of Justice launched a new initiative to crack down on corporate crime: the Corporate Whistleblower Awards Program. Under this program, whistleblowers can now submit information to DoJ’s Criminal Division about certain types of corporate crime such as bribery and fraud. The program offers monetary awards to those provide Read More
In a landmark trial case, a federal judge ruled that Google violated antitrust law when it spent billions of dollars to have its search engine dominate the industry. The decision, issued after a 10-week bench trial, represents a significant victory for the effort to challenge the dominance of a few Read More
The social media giant, Meta, agreed to settle a lawsuit accusing the company of illegally capturing biometric data from its users without their consent. Meta will pay a historic amount of $1.4 billion over the course of the next five years. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and McKool Smith, which Read More
The Federal Reserve Board took action to address consumer compliance breakdowns by Green Dot, fining the firm $44 million for numerous unfair and deceptive practices and a deficient consumer compliance risk management program. Green Dot violated consumer law in its marketing, selling, and servicing of prepaid debit card products, and Read More
The Federal Trade Commission issued orders to eight companies offering surveillance pricing products and services that incorporate data about consumers’ characteristics and behavior. The orders seek information about the potential impact these practices have on privacy, competition, and consumer protection. The orders are aimed at helping the FTC better understand the dense Read More
