Catherine Martin Christopher of Texas Tech has written Mobile Banking: The Answer for the Unbanked in America? 65 Catholic University Law Review, (2015 ). Here is the abstract: In the U.S., the poor often lack access to mainstream banking services. Instead, they rely on expensive, poorly regulated alternatives like check cashers, payday lenders, pawn shops, and […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
by Jeff Sovern The Hill has the story with the headline House panel passes bills to ramp up CFPB oversight. For more on why "oversight" will hurt consumers, see here and here.
Here. Here is the Executive Summary: Debt buyers, specialized debt-collection companies, purchase defaulted consumer debt from creditors such as credit card companies for pennies on the dollar. Debt buyers then attempt to collect the debt, often by suing borrowers in court. Unfortunately, because debts are typically sold to debt buyers without fully verifying the accuracy […]
Kevin M. McDonald of VW Credit Inc., and Kenneth J. Rojc of Nisen & Elliott, LLC have written the Business Lawyer's annual survey of consumer auto finance developments, this year called Automotive Finance: The Regulatory Cup Spilleth Over. Here is the abstract: Almost every aspect of the life cycle of retail contract and lease transactions, […]
Florencia Marotta-Wurgler of NYU has written Understanding Privacy Policies: Content, Self-Regulation, and Markets. Here is the abstract: The current regulatory approach to consumer information privacy is based on a “notice and choice” self-regulation model, but commentators disagree on its impact. I conduct a comprehensive empirical analysis of 261 privacy policies across seven markets and measure […]
Howard Beales of George Washington University's School of Business and Timothy J. Muris of George Mason have written FTC Consumer Protection at 100: 1970s Redux or Protecting Markets to Protect Consumers? 83 George Washington Law Review 2157(2015). Here is the abstract: Throughout most of the Federal Trade Commission’s (“FTC” or “Commission”) history, the agency has been […]
Imre S. Szalai of Loyola New Orleans has written DIRECTV, Inc. v. Imburgia: How the Supreme Court Used a Jedi Mind Trick To Turn Arbitration Law Upside Down, 32 Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, 1, (2016 Forthcoming). Here's the abstract: The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) is the primary federal statute governing millions of arbitration […]
by Jeff Sovern A few weeks ago, the New York Times ran an op-ed by Georgetown Law Professor David Cole, titled What Liberals Can Learn From the N.R.A. Consumer advocates who seek to change the law would find the entire piece worth reading, but I was particularly struck by one paragraph (which is self-serving, both when […]
Here. Bad news for lawyers.