The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit recently held that a plaintiff lacked Article III standing to sue a consumer reporting agency under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) for allegedly failing to disclose all information in his file. In so ruling, the Sixth Circuit held that the alleged deprivation of information had no consequences for the consumer and imposed no real risk of harm to establish injury in fact. A copy of the opinion in Huff v. TeleCheck Services, Inc. is available at: Link to Opinion. The consumer reporting agency (CRA) advises merchants on whether it should…
Posts tagged as “credit”
On March 26, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice approved House Bill 3143 which amends the state’s Consumer Credit and Protection Act. First, current law provides that a Regulated Consumer Lender License is required for: Making regulated consumer loans; or Taking assignments of or undertaking direct collection of payments from or enforcement of rights against consumers arising from regulated consumer loans (W. Va. Code § 46A-4-101). The amendment excludes from licensing under this section collection agencies that are licensed pursuant to the West Virginia Collection Agency Act. Second, the bill increases the dollar thresholds for certain loans to which maximum finance…
The Circuit Court of the First Judicial Circuit in and for Santa Rosa County, Florida recently rejected a company’s argument that a purchase and sale agreement for the company’s future receivables constituted a “loan” that was unenforceable under New York usury law, because payment to the purchaser of the future receivables was not absolutely guaranteed, but instead contingent, and thus, not a loan subject to the law of usury. A copy of the order in EBF Partners v. Burlow Pharmacy is available at: Link to Order. A business funding entity (“purchaser”) entered into a purchase and sale agreement with a pharmaceutical…
In a recent decision, the Ohio Court of Appeals considered the question whether, for the purpose of determining the applicable statute of limitations, an unsigned credit card agreement constituted a written or oral contract. In Ohio, the statute of limitations is eight years for a written contract and six years for an oral contract. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§ 2305.06, 2305.07. A copy of the opinion in Unifund CCR Partners v. Piaser is available at: Link to Opinion. The Court noted that existing Ohio law was unclear on the written versus oral contract issue, and that previous decisions had determined…
In a 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States held that anti-steering provisions in agreements between a credit card company and merchants wishing to accept the card do not violate federal antitrust law. A copy of the opinion in Ohio v. American Express Co. is available at: Link to Opinion. The defendant credit card company required merchants who wanted to accept the company’s credit cards to agree to an anti-steering contractual provision. Under the company’s business model, and unlike other credit card companies, it earned most of its revenues not from collecting interest from cardholders but from merchant…
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently held that a plaintiff did not allege Article III standing for her claim under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) where there were no specific factual allegations plausibly tying the inclusion of her debit card expiration date on her receipt to her alleged identity theft. Moreover, the Court held, leave to amend would be futile because this action against the National Park Service was barred by sovereign immunity. Accordingly, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the ruling of the district court dismissing the complaint. A copy of the opinion in Daniel…
In a putative class action alleging violations of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently held that: (1) the credit reporting agency’s reporting of short sales was not inaccurate or misleading, even though it knew that a government sponsored enterprise misinterpreted its short sale code as a foreclosure, because FCRA does not make credit reporting agencies liable for the conduct of its subscribers; (2) the credit reporting agency’s consumer disclosures were clear and accurate, and 15 U.S.C. § 1681g did not require the credit reporting agency to disclose its proprietary codes…
The Supreme Court of the United States recently held that a state law penalizing merchants for charging a surcharge for credit card payments did not restrict the amount that a store could collect when a buyer paid by credit card (i.e., a regulation on conduct). Instead, the Court held that the state statute regulated how sellers may communicate their prices, and was therefore a regulation on speech subject to First Amendment scrutiny. As you may recall, in Dana’s R.R. Supply v. AG, 807 F.3d 1235 (11th Cir. 2015), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit held that a…