Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

House Financial Services Committee passes bills to subject CFPB to appropriations process, turn CFPB into commission

Claire Williams at the American Banker has the story here (behind a paywall but available on Lexis). The bills now go to the full House but are unlikely to go anywhere in the Senate unless SCOTUS finds the CFPB’s funding to be unconstitutional, in which case it isn’t clear how Congress will respond. The article […]

CFPB official expresses concerns about BNPL dispute resolution

Payments Dive has the story here. Excerpt: “The biggest area we found of potential concern is disputes,” CFPB Program Manager Laura Udis said during a Monday panel discussion at the Nacha Smarter Faster Payments conference in Las Vegas. “We’ve seen that consumer concerns about disputes and billing is a high area of complaint to the […]

Becher and Benoliel article: Hidden Contracts

Samuel Becher of Victoria University of Wellington and Uri Benoliel of the College of Law and Business – Ramat Gan Law School have written Hidden Contracts, forthcoming in Brigham Young University Law Review. Here’s the abstract: Transparency is a promising means for enhancing democratic values, countering corruption, and reducing power abuse. Nonetheless, the potential of transparency […]

David Horton article: Forced Robot Arbitration

David Horton of California, Davis has written Forced Robot Arbitration, forthcoming in 109 Cornell Law Review (2023). Here’s the abstract: Recently, advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have sparked interest in a topic that sounds like science fiction: robot judges. Researchers have harnessed AI to build programs that can predict the outcome of legal disputes. Some […]

Whither Arbitration? Conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute Attorney Calls for Jury Trials in Consumer Protection Cases

I’m finally getting around to listening to the House Financial Services Committee’s hearing March 9, 2023 on the CFPB. One of the witnesses at the hearing was Devin Watkins, an attorney at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute. Mr. Watkins’ testimony includes the following:  The Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution mandates that “In Suits at […]

Industry Lawyers Warn Against Eliminating the CFPB

Joann Needleman and Manny Newburger have an essay in the American Banker, In the fight over the CFPB, everyone could end up a loser. It’s behind a paywall but accessible on Lexis. You can read more about Needleman and Newburger at their linked bios. They write: Opponents of the CFPB risk throwing out the good with […]

Dickinson Article: Privately Policing Dark Patterns

Gregory M. Dickinson of St. Thomas has written Privately Policing Dark Patterns, 57 Ga. L. Rev. (2023 Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: Lawmakers around the country are crafting new laws to target “dark patterns”—user interface designs that trick or coerce users into enabling cell phone location tracking, sharing browsing data, initiating automatic billing, or making […]

Pro Publica reports that health insurer Cigna doctors denied 300,000 claims spending an average of 1.2 seconds per claim

Here. Excerpt: [A doctor’s] claim was just one of roughly 60,000 that [medical director Dr.] Dopke denied in a single month last year, according to internal Cigna records reviewed by ProPublica and The Capitol Forum. The rejection of van Terheyden’s claim was typical for Cigna, one of the country’s largest insurers. The company has built […]