Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

CBS News: Senate Republicans aim to gut debit-card safeguards

Here. This is about the resolution we reported about on Thursday to block the CFPB's prepaid debit cards rule from going into effect.  The resolution has now drawn the support of seven senators. Excerpt: A spokesman for Sen. Mike Lee said that the “CFPB’s prepaid card rule is overly broad” and would increase compliance costs. […]

Ben-Shahar & Strahilevitz Propose that Contracts be Interpreted Based on Surveys

Omri Ben-Shahar and Lior Strahilevitz, both of Chicago, have written Interpreting Contracts via Surveys and Experiments.  Here's the abstract: Interpreting the language of contracts is the most common and least satisfactory task courts perform in contract disputes. This article proposes to take much of this task out of the hands of lawyers and judges, entrusting […]

Miles Kimball: The Philosophical Basis for Consumer Financial Protection as Part of Limited Government

Here. This has been up since December, but I only just saw it. It offers a perspective from an economist.  An excerpt: I can see three principles that can justify consumer financial protection beyond simple contract enforcement:  Duping people is fraud even if they wouldn’t have been duped had they had infinite time and infinite […]

Senator Moves to Block CFPB Prepaid Card Rule Day After CFPB Fines Card Issuers for Harming Consumers

by Jeff Sovern Who needs fiction when we have this?  Information about the resolution, introduced under the Congressional Review Act, and so filibuster-proof, is here.  It's sponsor is GOP Senator David Perdue of Georgia.  The CFPB's press release is here.  Here' s the first paragraph of the press release: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today took action […]

Cooper & Shepherd Paper: Economic and Emprical Analysis of State Consumer Protection Acts

James C. Cooper of George Mason and Joanna Shepherd of Emory have written State Consumer Protection Acts: An Economic and Empirical Analysis.  Here's the abstract: Consumer protection acts (CPAs) developed with the goal to protect American consumers from fraudulent, deceptive and unfair business practices. Initially, Congress, through the FTC Act, sought to define and deter […]

Law360’s Evan Weinberger: If CFPB Loses PHH Case, Trump’s EO Requiring Elimination of Two Regs for Every New Reg Will Apply to CFPB

Here (behind paywall, I think). Excerpt: The White House later confirmed to Reuters that the executive order did not touch independent regulatory agencies. * * * That exclusion means that the Fed, the CFPB and other independent financial regulators, as well as the Dodd-Frank rules, are safe from the executive order for now. * * * […]

CNN: Trump pledges to ‘do a big number’ on Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform

by Jeff Sovern Here.  Trump criticized Dodd-Frank on the campaign trail, but as far as I know still hasn't said very much about which aspects of the statute he would change.  Consequently, it remains unclear what his views of the CFPB are. While he complained about the difficulties small business have in getting loans from […]