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In an Opinion issued April 27, 2010, the United States Supreme Court held that arbitrators could not allow class arbitration where an arbitration clause is silent as to whether class arbitration is permitted. The decision in Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. Animalfeeds Int’l Corp. is a significant blow to consumers and class […]

The North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper recently revealed the number of consumer complaints filed with his office in 2009 and also identified the top 10 consumer complaints for the year. In 2009, 22,665 consumers filed complaints with the Consumer Protection Division of North Carolina Department of Justice. The largest […]

Late last week, the Federal Reserve Board issued its proposed regulations (to be codified as Regulation Z) governing the final sections of the CARD Act, which will go into effect August 22, 2010. Though the proposed regulations would significantly limit lenders’ imposition of penalty fees and would require periodic evaluation […]

On March 2, 2010, the North Carolina Court of Appeals upheld a securities fraud verdict that Martin & Jones obtained in December 2008. The three appellate judges ruled 3-0 in favor of upholding the Wilson County jury verdict against a man named Rip Rainey who defrauded our senior citizen clients […]

As new regulations governing overdraft fees will soon go into effect, the Federal Reserve Board has compiled a summary of the new rules. The Board’s publication “What You Need To Know: New Overdraft Rules for Debit and ATM Cards” can be assessed at the Federal Reserve Board’s website, www.federalreserve.gov.

Facing increasing pressure from consumer advocates and regulatory authorities, Bank of America (“B of A”) has just announced that it will scrap overdraft fees on debit card purchases this summer. With the new overdraft policy, B of A debit card purchases that would push checking account balances into the red […]

The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act (“CARD Act”) went into effect on February 22, 2010. The CARD Act was intended to rein in perceived abuses by credit card issuers. The law requires card issuers to: (1) provide at least 45 days’ notice to most customers before making significant […]

A class action lawsuit was recently filed against Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bank, alleging predatory overdraft fee practices. The complaint alleges that Fifth Third Bank manipulated customer debit transactions by posting them to customer accounts in the order of largest amount to smallest, instead of when they are received. This was […]

The filing of federal security fraud class action lawsuits was down sharply in 2009 compared to both 2008 and historical averages. According to Securities Class Action Filings – 2009: A Year in Review, an annual report prepared by the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, a total of 169 […]

Americans pay $23.7 billion per year in overdraft fees, most of which are related to small debit card overdrafts that financial institutions could easily deny without imposing any fees. As the Center for Responsible Lending has noted: “These fees hit vulnerable consumers hardest, thrusting them into a cycle of debt […]