Briefs and Comments

Center and Partners Celebrate California Supreme Court’s Repudiation of Arbitrary Time Limit Curtailing Consumers’ Ability to Set Aside Void Judgments

November 19, 2024

The Berkeley Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice welcomes the California Supreme Court's unanimous decision in California Capitol Insurance Co. v....

Center Urges California Courts to Reject Restrictive Standing Requirement: Chai v. Velocity Investments

July 19, 2024

The Center and ten other organizations serving low-income consumers filed an amicus brief urging the California Court of Appeal not to import restrictive federal standing law into California’s state courts and instead to reassert California courts’ role as courts of general jurisdiction open to all litigants with a valid cause to assert.

Over the past several decades, federal courts have made it increasingly difficult for potential plaintiffs to...

Center Welcomes FTC's Auto-Renewal Rule

October 17, 2024

The Berkeley Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice applauds the Federal Trade Commission for finalizing its landmark "Click to Cancel" rule. The final regulation will rein in predatory...

Center's Brief in the Driver's Seat at Oral Arguments on the CARS Rule!

October 14, 2024

In case you missed it -- the Center's amicus brief on behalf of economists was along for the ride at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals last week. At the oral arguments in National Association of Automobile Dealers v. FTC, the judges and advocates repeatedly referenced our brief, which lent an independent economic analysis in support of the FTC's Combatting Auto Retail Scams (...

Center Files Amicus Brief Supporting Price Transparency in Small Business Lending

September 24, 2024

The Center filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of a California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) regulation requiring sales-based financing providers to disclose their APRs, finance charges, and loan terms to borrowers – typically small businesses and solo entrepreneurs.

The Center’s brief notes that in recent years online lending companies have been providing new “sales-based...

Center and Partners File Briefs on False Advertising and Consumer Privacy

July 18, 2024
It's been a hotter-than-normal summer here in Berkeley, and we're not just talking about the weather! This past month, the Center teamed up with our friends (of-the-court and otherwise!) at Truth In Advertising, Inc. (TINA) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to file amicus briefs in the Fifth and Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals on two hot topics for consumers: False Advertising By Tax Preparation Software In one brief, we weighed in with Truth In...

US Supreme Court Rules Unanimously That the Federal Government Can Be Held Accountable for Credit Reporting Violations

February 9, 2024

It’s not often these days that consumer advocates can cheer a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court, but that’s what we’re doing today after the Court held unanimously on Thursday, in USDA Rural Development Rural Housing Service Inc. v. Kirtz, that consumers may sue the federal government if it provides false or inaccurate information to credit reporting agencies.

The Center, along with the National Consumer Law Center,...

Center Files Amicus Brief Endorsing The Economic Analysis Undergirding the FTC’s CARS Rule.

June 4, 2024

If you’ve ever purchased a car, you know that it is one of the most complicated, frustrating, and opaque consumer transactions—and one that is rife with junk fees and deceptive sales tactics. The Federal Trade Commission recently issued a landmark regulation, the Combating Auto Retail Scams (CARS) Rule, to tackle these problems and to mandate transparency and fairness in the vehicle buying process. And as the Center explained in an...

Appellate Court Rejects Challenge To Critical Program For Student Borrowers

May 24, 2024

With help from the Center and our partner the Student Borrower Protection Center, last week student loan borrowers scored a major victory preserving the Department of Education’s Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) and Public Service Loan Forgiveness programs. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out a challenge to these programs, which benefit borrowers who have endured years, even decades, of mismanagement of their student loans.

The Center and SBPC filed an...

CFPB Preserved! Center Hails SCOTUS Decision Upholding CFPB’s Independent Funding Mechanism

May 16, 2024

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the independent funding structure of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), ensuring that an agency that has returned more than $20 billion in wrongly-taken money to American consumers in the past dozen years will be able to continue doing the work it was designed to do.

The Court’s ruling rejected a challenge by the payday loan industry to the Bureau’s funding structure. Under the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, the Bureau requests its annual funding not from Congress — like...