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State AGs Expand Consumer Work as Prices Rise
State attorneys general are filing more multistate consumer cases as federal enforcement retreats, with 46 states recently winning a $45 million CashApp settlement.
Since President Donald Trump has gutted much of the federal government's consumer protection work, state attorneys general are increasingly left to fight high prices and investigate businesses themselves.
The change follows Trump's dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency Congress created after the Great Recession; earlier this month, acting CFPB Director Russell Vought told the Senate the agency had been "weaponized."
Thirty-Three states and Washington, D.C., convinced a jury that Ticketmaster operated as a monopoly, while 46 states recently won a $45 million settlement with Block Inc. regarding its peer-to-peer payment service, CashApp.
Once secondary enforcers, states are increasingly defining regulations around pricing transparency and subscription service fees, meaning businesses now face evolving, sometimes contradictory rules across states, according to Ashley Taylor of Troutman Pepper Locke.
Experts note that state AGs cannot fully replace the breadth of work once undertaken by the federal government, though affordability remains a top political concern as AGs address high housing, grocery, and fuel prices.