The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today issued what it's calling a "white paper on intial data findings" on Payday Loans and Deposit Advance Products. The report is chock full of statistics and charts based on what the agency found is actually happening in the payday loan industry. Who is taking out the loans? How often […]
Author Archives: Brian Wolfman
Jeff just told us that House Republicans won't let CFPB head Richard Corday testify before them because, they say, he's not the lawful head of the agency. He did testify today before the Banking Committee of the Democratic-controlled Senate. But there, Republicans went after him for gathering supposedly private data, which Corday says (reasonably, it […]
That's the name of this brief article by law professor Linda Mullinex. Here's the abstract: Commentary and analysis on case law developments in the lower federal courts, approximately one year after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (June 20, 2011). In the wake of the Court’s […]
That's today's ruling in Radcliffe v. Experian, No. 11-56376. Here's the court's synopsis of its unanmious opinion: Several named plaintiffs and objectors appeal the district court’s approval of a class-action settlement. The settlement agreement, like others we have approved in the past, granted incentive awards to the class representatives for their service to the class. […]
That's the topic of this article by Michael Fletcher explaining that large Wall Street investors are spending billions on housing and bidding up prices. Will that lead to another collapse in the market down the road? In some parts of the country this investment may be the cause of alleged recovery in the housing market. […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has already issued a rule governing international money transfers. Apparently, it is looking into doing more, and it wants to hear from consumers about any problems they have had with electronic money transfers. Consumers can go here to submit a money transfer complaint. The agency has identified these potential problem topics: […]
by Brian Wolfman Scott posted earlier on today's Supreme Court decision in the Genesis HealthCare. I want to dissent from the idea that the decision is necessarily "quite bad" for people seeking to vindicate their rights under the Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA). Today's ruling is premised on the assumption that an unaccepted offer from […]
by Brian Wolfman A good bit of important congressional legislation is justified under the Constitution's so-called Spending Clause. Key programs in the environmental, education, and public benefits areas, for instance, are Spending Clause programs. The idea of much of this legislation, put simply, is that the legislation offers money to states to implement joint federal-state […]
by Brian Wolfman The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (CAFA) was sold to Congress in large part on the argument that state courts were abusing the class action–for instance, by certifying class actions that should not have been certified–and harming the interests of law abiding corporations that do business nationally. CAFA sought to remedy […]
A recent post explained that many federal agency health and safety regulations must be sent for review to the Office of Management Budget (OMB), where they can be delayed or die at OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). Sometimes regulations emerge from OIRA looking different from what they looked like when they arrived. […]