by Jeff Sovern More from The Hill here. Excerpt: Trump has tapped tech experts Jeff Eisenach and Mark Jamison, two critics of net neutrality, to head his transition team for the Federal Communications Commission. So far, Trump's appointments in consumer protection positions seem to oppose consumer protection.
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
by Jeff Sovern President-Elect Trump has named former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins his "landing team" member for the CFPB, among other federal agencies. Atkins has a history of opposing regulation and supporting business. Politico has a piece about him titled Trump team member slams unions, activists in favor of businesses. Excerpt: “While Paul is in […]
Former FTC Commissioner Joshua D. Wright of George Mason has written Federalism and the Rise of State Consumer Protection Law in the United States, in The Law and Economics of Federalism, Jonathan Klick, ed., Edward Elgar Publishing, Forthcoming. Here's the abstract: Starting in the 1960s, individual states began to adopt and enforce Consumer Protection Acts […]
by Jeff Sovern The Journal's editorial, behind a paywall, is here. Excerpt: By all rights the [Consumer Financial Protection] bureau should be killed, and we’re told the Trump transition team is considering this and other options. The political problem is that killing the bureau would probably require 60 Senate votes, and Democrats would be able […]
So reports my fellow blogger Deepak Gupta on Twitter. This is in the PHH case in which the panel ruled that the CFPB was unconstitutional unless the President could fire the Bureau's director without cause. The response is due in early December, well before the shift in administrations.
Here (behind paywall). Excerpt: Brandon Wilson is a former armed robber who, after serving roughly a decade in prison, reinvented himself as a successful debt broker. * * * * * * [Wilson] explained it: “Part of the package you get of being my business associate or my friend is that I’m gonna protect you […]
by Jeff Sovern Here is the report in the NY Times (behind a paywall). Wells filed its arbitration motion on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. So Wells is using a secret system for adjudicating claims, agreed to by consumers who didn't understand what arbitration clauses mean, and invoked it at a time when people are less likely […]
by Jeff Sovern John Dugan, a former bank lobbyist, was the Comptroller of the Currency during the George W. Bush Administration. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency was then seen by some as an aggressive protector of banks. Among the reasons: the OCC took the position that state anti-predatory lending laws were preempted by […]
Aditya Bamzai of Virginia argues that he could here. Excerpt: [The] premise [that the president has to let the litigation runs its course] appears to rest on two mistaken assumptions: (1) that the President cannot exercise his removal authority absent an Article III judgment authorizing such removal, especially when a pending case may address the very […]
That's one of the questions addressed by the Wall Street Journal in an article headlined Financial Regulators Scramble to Complete Postcrisis Rules. (behind paywall). Excerpt: “This type of ’midnight rulemaking’ is neither conducive to sound policy nor consistent with principles of democratic accountability,” Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told […]