Regulation

This Note addresses the ever-growing series of privacy laws being enacted throughout the United States and the danger that the “opt-out” data collection system poses to many populations. There is a disparity in the level of “digital literacy” throughout the United States, and as more consumer data privacy laws emerge and continue to replicate the existing legislation, that disparity deepens.

Patterns among who does and who does not...

Recent years have seen the dramatic growth of Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL), a class of unregulated fintech products that permit consumers to finance purchases by dividing payments into several interest-free installments. BNPL presents novel regulatory challenges because it is primarily marketed to consumers as an interest-free alternative to credit, and its distinctive market structure is characterized by lender–merchant agreements that promote...

Various forces are driving healthcare providers to pursue integration to reduce prices and improve efficiency. Right now, the dominant payment model for healthcare is fee-for-service, in which a patient is charged for each individual service, test, or visit. An alternative model is value-based care, in which the emphasis is on value as opposed to volume. But to provide value-based care, health systems generally must be integrated enough to connect...

Buildings in the United States are responsible for nine percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and improvement of building energy efficiency through strong building energy codes can help achieve signifi­cant emissions reductions and cost savings. But building energy code regula­tion across the country is inconsistent: Some states have statewide codes with ambitious clean energy targets, while others have no statewide codes at all....

The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare the severe public health dan­ger that institutional and congregate care settings pose to people with dis­abilities, older adults, and the care professionals who work in those settings. While the populations residing in congregate care settings are naturally more susceptible to the virus, the COVID-19 crisis in these set­tings could have been far more limited if there had been broader access to home and community-based...

The financial crisis exposed major fault lines in banking and financial markets more broadly. Policymakers responded with far-reaching regulation that created a new agency—the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—and changed the structure and function of these markets.

Consumer advocates cheered reforms as welfare enhancing, while the financial sector declared that consumers would be harmed by interventions. With a decade of data now...

AGENCIES AND ARBITRATION

Daniel T. Deacon*

This Essay examines the roles that federal administrative agencies have begun to play in response to the rise of private arbitration, particularly in the consumer and employment contexts. Such agency actions have included enforcement strategies designed to mimic the effects of private litigation when such litigation may not be possible due to the presence of arbitration agreements. And, in some cases, they have involved regulatory responses, including...