Food & Beverage Litigation & Regulatory Update

Category: Legal Literature

  • SHB Attorneys Discuss Preemption Ruling in Nutrient-Content Class Action

    Shook, Hardy & Bacon Global Product Liability attorneys Frank Cruz-Alvarez and Talia Zucker have co-authored an article about a recent federal court ruling that rejected The Hershey Company’s preemption-based challenge to a putative class action alleging that the nutrient content claims on its product labels violate the law. Additional information about Khasin v. The Hershey…

  • State GE Labeling Requirements Could Be Legally Vulnerable

    University of Arkansas School of Law LL.M. Candidate Lauren Handel has considered whether food-labeling provisions, such as those that would have been required under California’s Proposition 37 (Prop. 37), which voters defeated this week, are vulnerable to constitutional or preemption challenges. Had it been enacted, Prop. 37 would have required most food companies to label their products…

  • FTC Accepts FDA-Compliant Advertising for Foods

    University of Wyoming College of Law Professor Mary Dee Pridgen has updated a treatise titled Consumer Protection and the Law to reflect recent developments in Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforcement of its 1995 policy statement on food advertising. As she notes, although FTC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have overlapping authority to police…

  • SHB’s Phil Goldberg Comments on Pet-Injury Litigation Involving Non-Economic Damages

    Shook, Hardy & Bacon Public Policy Partner Phil Goldberg has co-authored, with the current chair of the New Jersey State Bar Association’s Animal Law Committee, a commentary titled “Barking Up the Wrong Tree,” published in the September 17, 2012, issue of the New Jersey Law Journal. The commentary discusses a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling…

  • House Bill Would Amend New Menu Nutrition Disclosure Requirements

    Representative John Carter (R-Texas) has introduced a bill (H.R. 6174) that would change the nutrition disclosure requirements for chain restaurants and other food outlets enacted in the Affordable Care Act that was recently upheld as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Under the proposal, (i) delivery and take-out restaurants would be able to post calorie…

  • Andrew Torrance, “Planted Obsolescence: Synagriculture and the Law,” Idaho L. Rev., 2012

    University of Kansas School of Law Professor Andrew Torrance discusses in this article the promises of synthetic biology, which takes genetic engineering (GE) one step further by designing organisms from scratch, and its potential perils. Dubbed “synagriculture,” the new technology is apparently being developed by those dedicated to sharing, spreading and pooling innovative biotechnologies and…

  • Becker-Posner Blog Tackles Bloomberg’s Proposal to Ban Super-Sized Sugary Drinks

    University of Chicago Economics Professor Gary Becker and Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Justice Richard Posner have posted comments on their blog about New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposed ban on sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces. Becker concludes that “even when consumer decisions are not in their self-interest, it is questionable whether that provides sufficient…

  • FDA Regulation of Nanotechnology (ABA 2012)

    Part II of the American Bar Association’s (ABA’s) Nanotechnology Project, this recently released book comprehensively considers, by product category, how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviews nanotechnology-based products. Shook, Hardy & Bacon Agribusiness & Food Safety Attorney James Andreasen was among those practitioners contributing to the work. Among the chapters are “Color Additives,” “Food…