The real outrage isn't Equifax's arbitration clause — it's all the others

Equifax won’t win any prizes for its handling of a massive security breach that potentially exposed the personal information of 143 million people to hackers.

But it was striking that of all the things that outraged consumers, the one that drew the most attention was Equifax’s inclusion of an arbitration clause in its offer of free credit monitoring.

Yes, it was slimy for the company to try to deny people their right to sue or to join class-action lawsuits.

But no, Equifax was by no means alone in pulling such a stunt.

The reality is that many if not most service agreements presented by businesses to consumers contain such a provision, and they get away with it because there’s precious little outrage over this shamelessly unfair practice. read more »

NY Launches Formal Investigation Into Equifax Breach Issues Consumer Alert

Over 8 Million New Yorkers Affected By Equifax Data Breach

NY Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman today issued a consumer alert following the report that Equifax Inc., one of the nation’s three major credit reporting agencies, experienced a massive breach affecting 143 million Americans and over 8 million New Yorkers. Today, as part of a formal investigation into the incident, Attorney General Schneiderman sent a letter to Equifax seeking additional information about the breach. The breach lasted from mid-May through July, when hackers accessed names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers. Approximately 209,000 individuals had their credit card numbers stolen. read more »

Corruption Watch asks US DoJ to probe McKinsey

JOHANNESBURG — The so-called ‘Gupta Curse’ has already taken down the likes of UK PR firm Bell Pottinger, but could bigger companies start to face the same fate in months and years to come? Amid allegations of serious irregularities, US-headquartered McKinsey & Company has found itself having to answer questions about why and how Gupta linked Trillian benefitted from a lucrative Eskom deal. Local civil society body Corruption Watch has subsequently requested US authorities to investigate alleged graft involving McKinsey stemming from the likes of the Gupta email leaks. read more »

Trump meeting with Malaysian prime minister under scrutiny

President Donald Trump is greeting Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak at the White House.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders says the two leaders will discuss maritime security and counter-terrorism among other topics.

Najib's visit to the White House comes under the cloud of a massive corruption scandal involving the 1MDB state fund that he founded. Malaysia's government has said it found no criminal wrongdoing at 1MDB. But the fund has been at the center of investigations in the U.S. and several countries amid allegations of a global embezzlement and money-laundering scheme.

The U.S. Justice Department says people close to Najib stole billions of dollars, and the federal government is working to seize $1.7 billion it says was taken from the fund to buy assets in the U.S. read more »

Regulator summons Standard Chartered over bribery allegations

Standard Chartered has been summoned by the UK financial regulator to a meeting this week over bribery allegations, the Wall Street Journal has reported. The allegations are related to misconduct at an Indonesian power plant builder owned by the bank. read more »