On January 10, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares detailed his 2023 General Assembly session priorities, supporting law enforcement, victim prioritization, and community safety. AG Miyares plans to accomplish his goals — “to crack down on organized retail crime, punish drug dealers peddling lethal fentanyl, support members of the Jewish Community, and protect Virginia consumers from policies designed for Californians” — through bipartisan collaboration with the General Assembly.
Published in Law360 on January 10, 2023. © Copyright 2022, Portfolio Media, Inc., publisher of Law360. Reprinted here with permission.
In late November, the New Mexico attorney general announced a lawsuit[1] in the Santa Fe County First Judicial District Court against Philip Morris USA Inc., R.J. Reynolds and other signatories to the tobacco master settlement agreement alleging their violation of the MSA and various state and common laws due to their withholding of payments to the state.
On January 5, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Celsius founder and former CEO Alex Mashinsky for making repeated misrepresentations about the company’s financial products and asset holdings to investors. AG James describes the now bankrupt crypto-lending platform Celsius as “a cryptocurrency lending platform where investors could deposit their cryptocurrency in return for promises of high yields on those digital assets.”
Just before the new year, Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh announced a $250,000 settlement with Caliber Homes, Inc. to resolve allegations that Caliber attempted to mislead approximately 220,000 consumers into thinking that its mailings actually came from the customers’ current mortgage companies by sending advertisements that displayed the name and mailing address of the consumers’ original mortgage company instead of Caliber’s. AG Frosh alleged that Caliber’s conduct violated Maryland law, which prohibits licensed lenders from advertising under any name or address that is not their own.
On December 29, 2022, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson sued Seattle-area plastic surgery provider Allure Esthetic and its owner for falsely inflating Allure’s online ratings in violation of HIPAA, the Washington State Consumer Protection Act, and the Consumer Review Fairness Act. Specifically, AG Ferguson alleged that Allure and its owner:
On December 27, the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs (the Division) entered a consent order with Yellowstone Capital LLC (Yellowstone) and several related companies to resolve allegations that, in violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act, the company engaged in abusive lending practices in connection with Merchant Cash Advances to small business owners (MCAs). Pursuant to the settlement, Yellowstone must forgive all outstanding balances for customers who entered MCAs, which is estimated to be approximately $21.7 million, and pay more than $5.6 million to the Division for purposes that may include, restitution, attorneys’ fees, costs of investigation and litigation and costs of administering restitution, and penalties up to $250,000. The order also imposes additional requirements regarding Yellowstone’s agreements and collections activity discussed below.
At Hawaii Governor Josh Green’s recommendation, health care executive Anne Lopez (D) assumed the role of the state’s next attorney general on December 5. AG Lopez succeeds Acting AG Holly Shikada and will serve a five-year term, ending in 2026.
Before her AG appointment, AG Lopez served as CEO and general counsel for Hawaii
Since July 2022, the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs (NJDCA) secured six settlements — totaling over $260,000 — with six different New Jersey car dealerships for allegedly violating consumer protection laws by:
As discussed here, on October 19, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Community Financial Services Association of America Ltd. (CFSA) v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) held that the CFPB’s funding mechanism violates the appropriations clause because the CFPB does not receive its funding from annual congressional appropriations like most executive agencies, but
California Attorney General Rob Bonta, in partnership with the Department of Justice, announced two settlements with providers for Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program), following allegations under state and federal false claims acts that the providers submitted fraudulent claims to the government from 2014 through 2016. Consequently, Dignity Health, Twin Cities Community Hospital, and Sierra Vista Regional