: Introduction The Supreme Court has wavered between two approaches to questions of executive power, which are often labeled institutional formalism and realism. Formalism treats... The post Some Realism About Constitutional Remedies appeared first on Harvard Law Review
: Many generative AI tools are relatively easy to access and use. For example, no technical expertise is required to pull up and type a prompt into ChatGPT, and the most basic version is free. This reality has led to a significant amount of “shadow AI” use within organizations; that is, uses of AI that are not formally approved or are even contrary to formal policies. Concerns about shadow AI commonly arise in the context of private companies, with some studies indicating that over 80% of workers report using unapproved tools at work. Much less discussed – and worthy of far . . . [more] The post Shadow AI: A Growing Problem for Canadian Courts appeared first on Slaw
: FleetCor and its CEO will pay $100 million to settle a Federal Trade Commission administrative action alleging that the company charged its customers, who overwhelmingly are small businesses, undisclosed fees in connection with their use of fuel cards that FleetCor falsely promised businesses would save them money. In a complaint first filed in federal court in 2019 , the FTC alleged that FleetCor Technologies Inc., now known as Corpay Inc., and its CEO Ronald Clarke imposed a broad array of unauthorized fees that its customers never knew about and did not agree to pay, totaling hundreds of millions of dollars and harming tens of thousands of customers. In addition, FleetCor charged late fees to customers who had either paid on time or were prevented by FleetCor from paying on time. FleetCor also misrepresented the gas savings, fraud-control features, and fees associated with its fuel cards. “FleetCor deceived its small business customers by promising fuel savings that never materialized, while unfairly cha[...]
: By: Susannah Tredwell , Manager of Library Services at DLA Piper (Canada) LLP and James Bachmann , Instructional Librarian, Law Library, University of British Columbia Since 1988, when CALL/ACBD’s Copyright Committee was first set up, CALL/ACBD has advocated for its members' interests in the area of copyright. While the primary focus of CALL/ACBD’s copyright advocacy over the last few years has been on Crown copyright and primary law, CALL/ACBD has also made submissions about such areas as fair dealing and licencing. CALL/ACBD sees this work as not only supporting the needs of its members but also as serving the interests of access to justice as a whole. Continuing this work, on January 18, 2022 CALL/ACBD, along with Library Futures Institute, will act as an intervener in the Supreme Court of Canada case Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, et al. v. Entertainment Software Association, et al. Kim Nayyer, CALL/ACBD’s President, and Robert Janes of JFK Law will be representing CALL[...]
: From time to time, this blog will highlight initiatives, ideas, or activities coming from members, committees or special interest groups (SIGs). Today: Adapting the SALI Taxonomy to the Canadian Legal Environment , b y Michael McAlpine , Manager, Information, Research & Knowledge at Siskinds (London, Ontario) On September 28 th , the Knowledge Management Special Interest Group of CALL met to discuss and learn about the Legal Matter Specification Standard developed by the SALI Alliance . The SALI Alliance (Standards Advancement for the Legal Industry) is a non-profit organization open to all stakeholders in the legal community. Members include law firms, companies, legal service providers, legal industry associations and academic institutions. Founding sponsors are the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) and the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA). Guest speaker Jim Hannigan spoke about the history of the taxonomy and the current uses of it in the legal industry. Michael McAlpine then discussed the work d[...]
: A Ninth Circuit panel has partially revived (Law360 subscription required) a lawsuit alleging that FDA and USDA nutrient content claim regulations violate First Amendment rights by preventing the inclusion of certain information about fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and poloyols (FODMAPs) on food labels. The lawsuit was initially filed against FDA, USDA, and USDA's Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) in March 2023 after one plaintiff submitted a label to FSIS for approval. FSIS denied the approval, telling the company that it must “remove all references to digestible, gut loving, and fodmap.” According to the plaintiff, FDA had never raised concerns about the claims on labels of FDA-regulated foods. According to the Ninth Circuit, FSIS told the company that it discussed the proposed label with FDA, and FDA agreed that the FODMAP claims were impermissible nutrient content claims. The company modified the label, then filed the lawsuit along with a consumer plaintiff. The plainti[...]
: New data from the Federal Trade Commission reveal that people reported losing a staggering $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025, with reported losses increasing nearly three times since 2020. FTC data also show that people reported imposter scams more than any other fraud category in 2025—nearly one in three fraud reports were about imposter scams. These scams lured consumers through text, phone, email, social media, search engine results and other means. Some of the costliest impersonation scams start with a fake security alert, often from a bank. People are convinced to move money to “protect” it, with their losses often limited only by their available funds. Last year, people reported losing nearly $1 billion to business impersonators with the highest reported losses to bank impersonators—and about $920 million to government impersonators, up from $866 million and $789 million respectively in 2024. The FTC has seen a striking increase in reported fraud losses to all types of fraud—about $16 billion was [...]
: Alexander Mashinsky, the former CEO of cryptocurrency platform Celsius Network Inc. (Celsius), and his business partners, Shlomi Daniel Leon and Hanoch “Nuke” Goldstein, will pay a total of $16.5 million to resolve the Federal Trade Commission’s charges that they deceived users by falsely promising that deposits made to their cryptocurrency platform would be safe and always available. Mashinsky and Leon have also agreed to a ban on marketing or selling products or services that can be used to deposit, exchange, invest or withdraw assets. Similarly, Goldstein has agreed to a ban on marketing or selling retail products or services that can be used to buy, sell, deposit, withdraw, distribute or trade cryptocurrency. In its July 2023 complaint , the FTC alleged that Celsius and its co-founders promised consumers that Celsius was “safer” than a bank or other traditional financial institutions and misrepresented that their deposits were safe because Celsius earned profits at “no risk” to consumers by making secur[...]
: How an “invention promotion” outfit demoted the truth lfair September 13, 2017 | 11:15AM How an “invention promotion” outfit demoted the truth By Lesley Fair It sounds like there was some “inventing” going on at Florida-based invention promotion firm World Patent Marketing, but a Preliminary Injunction in a case brought by the FTC suggests it wasn’t the kind that unsuspecting consumers bargained for when they forked over millions of dollars based on the defendants’ misleading promises about patenting and promoting their products. For FTC watchers, the opinion is a page-turner from start to finish. We’ll focus on just a few of the claims the company “invented.” The defendants’ initial business model involved online ads that induced people to submit their product ideas. Salespeople responded, telling interested consumers that World Patent Marketing’s “review team” was researching the proposal because “the company is so selective with the ideas they choose to work with.” After a bit of a wait, salespeople calle[...]
: We can’t go for that (no can do) lfair July 17, 2017 | 11:38AM We can’t go for that (no can do) By Lesley Fair Of course, phantom debt collection – the practice of pressuring people to pay “debts” they don’t owe – harms consumers. But as an FTC complaint demonstrates, when phantom debt collectors strike, they could affect your company, too. According to the FTC , a Florida-based outfit engaged in a scheme to defraud consumers through the collection of debts people didn’t actually owe or the company didn’t have the authority to collect. The complaint charges that the defendants – Hardco Holding Group, S & H Financial Group, Dequan M. Sicard, and Daryl M. Hall (no, not that Daryl Hall) – violated the FTC Act and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. When contacting consumers, in many instances the defendants allegedly impersonated attorneys and threatened to have people thrown in jail if they didn’t pay up on delinquent payday loans – loans, remember, that many consumers didn’t take out in the first place and de[...]