Underneath All Are the Contracts
Ralph Nader explains the problem with standard form contracts and introduces faircontracts.org.
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Amato & Nader in the Harvard Law Record on The Strip Mining of Legal Rights
Amato & Nader in the Harvard Law Record on The Strip Mining of Legal RightsThe Harvard Law Record reprinted with permission the piece we wrote for Trial magazine on how fine print contracts strips consumers of their rights. The piece is part of their January 30, 2015 issue on “What Harvard Law Students Need to…
“What your bank owes you: clarity”
“What your bank owes you: clarity” An OpEd by Professor Lauren E. Willis and Citizen Works’ executive director Theresa Amato in the Los Angeles Times discusses the limits of financial literacy education and the resulting need to enforce the laws, ban class action waivers and forced arbitration clauses, and restructure industry incentives. Excerpt: “Trying to…
Ralph Nader Calls on President Obama to Shift Power from the Few to the Many, Mentions Contract Peonage and Fair Contracts
Ralph Nader Calls on President Obama to Shift Power from the Few to the Many Mentions Contract Peonage and Fair Contracts In a December 22, 2014 letter, Ralph Nader urges President Obama to shift power from the few to the many and suggests several frontiers for Obama to consider in his remaining two years…
Fifteen State Attorneys General Send the CFPB a Letter Urging Regulation of Forced Pre-Dispute Arbitration
Fifteen State Attorneys General Send the CFPB a Letter Urging Regulation of Forced Pre-Dispute Arbitration On November 20, fifteen state Attorneys General sent the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau a letter urging the CFPB to use its authority to regulate forced arbitration provisions in consumer financial contracts. They wrote: “Mandatory pre-dispute arbitration is procedurally unfair to…
American Law Institute Meets in Chicago on the Restatement of the Law, Consumer Contracts
American Law Institute (ALI) Meets in Chicago on the Restatement of the Law, Consumer Contracts The Members Consultative Group and the Advisers on the Restatement of the Law for Consumer Contracts met in Chicago on November 14 & 15 to continue its work on a draft. Theresa Amato from Citizen Works/Fair Contracts was elected to ALI…
Spooky: What lurks in the fine print of your credit cards!
Spooky: What lurks in the fine print of your credit cards! It’s Halloween and what lurks in the fine print of your credit card agreements can be downright spooky — and harmful to your consumer rights. Jeanine Skowronski interviews Theresa Amato, Paul Bland, Ira Rheingold, and others in The Hidden Risks in Your Credit Card’s…
The Fine Print in Employment Contracts: Jimmy John’s Wants Workers to Fork Over a Promise Not to Compete
The Fine Print in Employment Contracts: Jimmy John’s Wants Workers to Fork Over a Promise Not to Compete Dave Jamieson at The Huffington Post explains how Jimmy John’s corporate standard hiring packet contract contains a “non-compete” provision that franchisees may use and require employees to sign. Usually these types of restrictive clauses are found in…
Ralph Nader Discusses the Fine Print in “The Incarceration of the American Consumer”
Ralph Nader Discusses the Fine Print in “The Incarceration of the American Consumer” Nader writes: “We need to focus on the incarcerating infrastructure that corporate attorneys build year after year to insulate their corporate paymasters from structural accountability under the rule of law. Take the two main pillars of American law—contracts and torts. For half a…
Alliance for Justice Releases “Lost in the Fine Print” – a short film.
Lost in the Fine Print (2014): Today, the Alliance for Justice releases a short film produced by AFJ President Nan Aron and the Director of Justice Programs, Michelle Schwartz, and moderated by former Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich. The film discusses the devastating consequences of forced arbitration in the fine print. The website where the…
Your Firstborn Child for Free WiFi? A “Herod Clause” in the Fine Print!
Your Firstborn Child for Free WiFi? A “Herod clause” in the Fine Print! Rachel Feltman reports here in the Washington Post and Tom Fox-Brewster of the Guardian has more details here about an experiment a security firm conducted in London. F-Secure was making a point: Six Londoners clicked right through the terms requiring them to give…