Here, by Emmanuel Martinez and Lauren Kirchner and headlined "The Secret Bias Hidden in Mortgage-Approval Algorithms." Excerpt: An investigation by The Markup has found that lenders in 2019 were more likely to deny home loans to people of color than to White people with similar financial characteristics—even when we controlled for newly available financial factors that the […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Samuel Becher of Victoria University of Wellington and Uri Benoliel of Ramat Gan Law School have written Dark Contracts. Here is the abstract: Millions of consumers are routinely subject to non-transparent consumer contracts. Such contracts undermine fundamental contract law notions. They leave consumers uninformed and disempowered. They also encourage unethical behavior and undercut the ability of […]
Charlotte Tschider of Loyola of Chicago has written Meaningful Choice: A History of Consent and Alternatives to the Consent Myth, 22 N.C. J.L. & Tech. 617 (2021). Here is the abstract: Although the first legal conceptions of commercial privacy were identified in Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis’s foundational 1890 article, The Right to Privacy, conceptually, […]
Adam S. Zimmerman of Loyola of Los Angeles has written The Class Appeal, 89 University of Chicago Law Review (Forthcoming 2022). Here's the abstract: For a wide variety of claims against the government, the federal courthouse doors are closed to all but those brought by powerful, organized interests. This is because hundreds of laws—colloquially known […]
Here, by Amelia Pollard. Excerpt: Conservative pro-business groups have hit upon a new tactic to protect its members’ interests: outright purchasing of grassroots support. Late last week, David Chami, an Arizona attorney who specializes in consumer protection, received an email from Drew Johnson, who identified himself as working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Johnson […]
by Jeff Sovern I have started submitting my article, Six Scandals: Why We Need Consumer Protection Laws Instead of Just Markets, to law reviews and in hopes of winning the law review lottery, decided to try my luck at the Harvard Law Review and Yale Law Journal (as if, as my students said about twenty […]
Here. Excerpt: Cryptocurrency startup Solidus Labs has hired the former director of the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) as its top regulatory official, she told Reuters. * * * Founded in 2017 by former Goldman Sachs employees, New York-based Solidus Labs provides cryptocurrency trading surveillance and risk monitoring tools. Its backers include private equity […]
Vijay Raghavan of Brooklyn has written Consumer Law's Equity Gap, Utah Law Review (forthcoming 2022). Here is the abstract: This article is about the views that shape and constrain the development of consumer law. Consider the market for short-term, high-cost loans. Policymakers tend to justify intervening in these markets on inefficiency grounds (consumers exhibit present bias) […]
Here (behind paywall but available on Lexis), by Kate Berry. The headline has the summary: "Harsher rules, more enforcement." Excerpt: "The CFPB has been extraordinarily active under acting Director Dave Uejio, who is not acting like a typical acting director," said Jeff Naimon, a partner at the Buckley law firm. "He knows how things work and how […]
by Jeff Sovern Bloomberg Law has the story here (possibly behind pay wall). The first was California, and the second was Virginia. Others are likely to follow. The more states that enact privacy laws, the more businesses are likely to complain that they are encountering compliance difficulties and expense complying with the different laws. They […]