: Judge orders $13.4 million in contempt action challenging BlueHippo hype lfair May 2, 2016 | 10:52AM Judge orders $13.4 million in contempt action challenging BlueHippo hype By Lesley Fair Animation fans remember the ballet-dancing pink hippos in Fantasia . In Egyptian mythology, the god of disorder was depicted as a red hippo. And many consumers – especially those already in financial distress – were drawn in by national TV and radio ads for BlueHippo, a company that claimed to finance the purchase of computers and other electronics for people with “less than perfect credit, bad credit, no credit.” A $13.4 million ruling by a United States District Judge in an FTC contempt action sends a message to hippos of all hues (and businesses) about the FTC’s commitment to effective order enforcement. In 2008, the FTC sued BlueHippo Funding and BlueHippo Capital for, among other things, not delivering ordered merchandise, failing to make disclosures required by the Truth in Lending Act and Regulation Z, and illegally[...]
: Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson today announced he has appointed Taylor C. Hoogendoorn as Deputy Director of the Bureau of Competition and Katherine White as Deputy Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection. Hoogendoorn is a talented litigator with expertise in a wide range of litigation, including antitrust, tort, contractual, energy, and intellectual property matters. Hoogendoorn joins the FTC after spending time in private practice at a law firm in Houston. He clerked for the Hon. Samuel A. Alito Jr. on the Supreme Court of the United States; the Hon. Gregory G. Katsas on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit; and the Hon. J. Harvie Wilkinson III on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Hoogendoorn holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he won the Morris Tyler Moot Court of Appeals and served on the Yale Law Journal, and a B.B.A. with majors in Economics, Finance, Mathematics, and Business Fellows from Baylor University. While at Baylor, h[...]