Page 6 - July 18, 2024 Bulletin

aRTiCLeS

4% of owners reported that all their borrowing needs were not intends to rule on the merits of the challenge prior on or before
satisfied, up 1 pp from May and the highest reading since August Aug. 30. The rule’s effective date is Sept. 4.
2022. 24% reported all credit needs met (down 5 pp) and 61% said While the FTC does not have regulatory authority over banks,
they were not interested in a loan (up 3 pp). A net 7% reported their it does have authority over bank affiliates. The FTC also claims
last loan was harder to get than in previous attempts (up 1 pp).
authority over bank holding companies.
Read more: https://strgnfibcom.blob.core.windows.net/nfibcom/ The FTC rule would make it illegal for an employer to enter into
SBET-June-2024.pdf
a noncompete agreement with a worker, maintain a noncompete
U.S. Consumers Continue to Rack with a worker or tell workers they are subject to a noncompete.
Noncompete agreements with senior executives finalized before
Up Credit Card Debt the rule’s effective date of Sept. 4 would remain in force under
the rule. Existing noncompete agreements with other workers
Though U.S. consumers paid down $50 billion in credit card debt would not be enforceable after the effective date, under the rule.
during the first quarter of 2024 (8% more than the first quarter of
2023), credit card debt in the U.S. hit a new record high of $1.27 In issuing the injunction, the court held that the FTC lacks
trillion in May 2024, which is 4% higher than last year adjusting authority to create substantive rules – like the noncompete ban
for inflation, according to WalletHub for its recent credit card debt – under its authority to regulate unfair methods of competition.
study. The data for the study came from TransUnion, the Federal The court also held that the rule is arbitrary and capricious
Reserve and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. because it is “unreasonably overbroad without a reasonable
explanation” for its breadth.
With the average credit card annual percentage rate higher than
last year, WalletHub projects that credit card debt will increase Supreme Court Decision Extends
by more than $120 billion by the end of 2024. According to the
study, 46% of Americans are still paying down their credit card Period for Administrative Law
balance from last summer. Nearly one in three people said they Challenges
will have more credit card debt by the end of 2024.
The six-year period allowed for lawsuits against the U.S.
Nearly two out of three people think credit card interest rates government under the Administrative Procedure Act begins
above 23% should be illegal – the average interest rate is currently accruing when an injury begins, not when a regulatory action is
22.76%. Forty-five percent of Americans charge everyday finalized, the Supreme Court has ruled. In a 6-3 decision issued
purchases to credit cards they carry debt on. Nearly one in four on the final day of the court’s 2023-24 term, the court resolved
U.S. consumers are ”very stressed” about their credit card debt a split among different circuit courts in how the statute of
and four out of five people saying that paying their credit card limitations is triggered.
debt is a top priority. Average credit cared debt per household was
$10,479 in the first quarter of this year, a 4.3% increase from the The decision allows Corner Post, a North Dakota convenience
same period in 2023. store, to move forward with its challenge to the debit interchange
fee caps set in 2011 under the Federal Reserve’s Regulation II.
One of the report’s interesting findings was that nearly three in Corner Post opened in 2018 and filed suit in 2021 asserting
five people don’t trust artificial intelligence for information about that Reg II as unlawful under the APA. In her majority opinion,
paying off credit card debt.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett cites case law that “a right accrues
Read more: https://wallethub.com/edu/credit-card-debt- when it comes into existence” and a legal dictionary definition
report/127704 that “a cause of action accrues ‘on [the] date that damage is
sustained and not [the] date when causes are set in motion which
Court Issues Preliminary ultimately produce injury.’”

Injunction Against FTC’s In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson remarked that Corner
Noncompete Ban Post, combined with the Loper Bright Enterprises decision
overruling “Chevron deference,” would “invite and enable a
A federal court has issued a preliminary injunction against the wave of regulatory challenges – decisions that carry with them
Federal Trade Commission’s rule to ban the use of noncompete the possibility that well-established agency rules will be upended
clauses in employee contracts. The injunction stops the rule in ways that were previously unimaginable. . . . Now, every legal
from taking effect with respect to the plaintiffs who filed lawsuits claim conceived of in those last four decades – and before – can
against the rule – tax services firm Ryan LLC and several possibly be brought before courts newly unleashed from the
nonfinancial business trade associations. The court stated that it constraints of any such deference.”

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