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 […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. * * * […]
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 […]
So speculates Joseph Rubin in the American Banker here (free content). Here is the paragraph with the speculation: The Washington rumor mill has already focused on potential CFPB successors preferred by the Trump administration, such as Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, and George Mason University professor Todd Zywicki. Both are critics of the CFPB, and would likely […]
Here. Excerpt: "OneWest Bank did not 'robo-sign' documents," Mnuchin wrote in response to questions from individual senators, "and as the only bank to successfully complete the Independent Foreclosure Review required by federal banking regulators to investigate allegations of 'robo-signing,' I am proud of our institution's extremely low error rate." But a Dispatch analysis of nearly […]