By Alice Crowe On September 17, 2024, three separate agencies released material that seemed to represent a shift in the way that bank mergers and acquisitions will be reviewed and scrutinized under the Bank Merger Act, creating the potential for new and tougher challenges to be faced by banks.[1] The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)…

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By: Julie Chung The rise in cryptocurrency usage and sales confused the traditional securities and financial space. The Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) typically exercised regulatory oversight to protect investors in the capital markets.[1]Cryptocurrencies have notably dodged financial regulators like the SEC with virtual currencies and sophisticated payment systems structured to avoid financial regulation.[2] Cryptocurrencies…

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By: Laura Pontari Student loans are a heated topic that occupies a significant amount of policy debate in higher education. With borrowers struggling to repay massive loan debts, and public outcry for reformed lending practices, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has faced pressure to respond. Before the pandemic, approximately 1 in 5 borrowers were…

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By: Sandy Lee Algorithmic technology is rapidly reshaping the housing market, particularly through tenant screening. Landlords increasingly rely on tenant-screening algorithms to perform background checks on prospective tenants to streamline the paperwork-intensive rental process and reduce fraud and evictions.[1] While these tools are intended to evaluate tenant risk, they are proving faulty and often creating…

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By: Aissatou Toure Recently, PwC has implemented a mandate requiring its U.K. employees to track their locations during work hours to ensure compliance with the company’s three-day-per-week in-office policy.[1] This new directive has raised significant concerns regarding employee privacy. For context, exploring PwC’s decision in detail and examining the potential implications for privacy rights and,…

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By: Vienna Chan In March 2018, then-President Donald Trump established U.S. import duties of “25% on steel and 10% on aluminum against most countries,” citing foreign steel and aluminum was a threat to U.S. national security.[1] The former Trump Administration declared that cheap metals “flooding into the United States, particularly from China,” would degrade the…

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By: Olivia Woodmansee From 1999 to 2021, the national rate for deaths caused by drug overdose increased by more than sixfold; this increase is in part due to the actions of the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma LP (“Purdue”).[1] Despite knowing of the harmful and addictive effects of opioids, specifically OxyContin, Purdue continued to engage…

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By Elizabeth Carroll On February 28, 2024, President Biden signed Executive Order 14117[1] on “Preventing Access to Americans’ Bulk Sensitive Data and United States Government-Related Data by Countries of Concern.”  The Executive Order delegates authority to the Department of Justice to create regulations that restrict access by “countries of concern” to Americans’ bulk sensitive personal…

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By: Connor Charney Google and Reddit recently finalized a licensing agreement (“the Agreement”) that will allow Google to train its Vertex AI on Reddit’s data.[1] The Agreement is allegedly valued at $60 million annually.[2] While the Agreement’s precise terms and value have not been made public, commentators are quick to label this as an example…

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