Here, in SCOTUSblog. Sounds like the justices are leaning towards finding for the debt buyers, but oral arguments can be a treacherous guide to the final result.
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
by Jeff Sovern I finally finished listening to the House Financial Service's Committee's April 5 hearing: a more than five-hour long interrogation of CFPB Director Richard Cordray. I am torn between thinking every American should listen to some of it–to see how awful some members of Congress are–and thinking no one should have to listen to […]
Here. Quoting now: “Gary Cohn gave Richard Cordray, the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an ultimatum over dinner a few weeks ago: Go the easy way, or go the hard way. “Cohn, President Donald Trump’s top economic adviser, had heard the rumors that Cordray wanted to run for governor in Ohio. He left […]
Here. It's the "On Money" column by Gary Rivlin. Excerpt: Three days after Donald Trump was sworn in as president, the United States government fined a couple of Citigroup subsidiaries $28.8 million for giving the runaround to tens of thousands of borrowers who were trying to avoid foreclosure on their homes. One week later, it […]
Law360's Evan Weinberger reports here (behind paywall). The case will decide whether debt buyers that don't have debt collection as their principal purpose, because, as in Santander's case, the debt buying unit is part of a multipurpose financial institution, are covered by the FDCPA. If the debt buyer wins, will we see debt buyers join with […]
Brian Melzer of Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and Aaron Schroeder of the CFPB have written Loan Contracting in the Presence of Usury Limits: Evidence from Automobile Lending. Here is the abstract: We study the effects of interest rate ceilings on the market for automobile loans. We find that loan contracting and the organization of […]
by Jeff Sovern During the George W. Bush administration, then-Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, a former bank lobbyist and lawyer, aggressively protected banks by claiming that state anti-predatory lending laws were preempted as to national banks (remember the predatory lending that contributed to the Great Recession?), among other things. So this is a position […]
James Gibson of Richmond has written Boilerplate's False Dichotomy, Georgetown Law Journal, Forthcoming. Here is the abstract: The argument against enforcing boilerplate contracts (i.e., contracts that no one reads) seems clear. Indeed, if this were a court case, we would say that the jury is in; the evidence against boilerplate is overwhelming. Yet the judge […]
Here (behind paywall). Excerpt: [T]wo state lawsuits filed by the attorneys general in Illinois and Washington, [allege] that Sallie Mae engaged in predatory lending, extending billions of dollars in private loans to students . . .that never should have been made in the first place. * * * New details unsealed last month in the […]
Here. Excerpt: [T]his bill doesn’t fix what’s ailing the system. Instead, it seeks to eliminate group litigation altogether. If it becomes law, the bill could prevent consumers from litigating together the next time a company like Volkswagen masks its emissions and thwart General Motors’ victims from joining forces to recover if their car ignition turns […]