In the Baltimore Sun (also available on Lexis) titled “Marylanders deserve to know what tariffs are costing them.” The op-ed, which I wrote, specifically addresses Maryland but the arguments apply to other states too. Here are two paragraphs (the essay had previously noted that the White House had attacked Amazon’s consideration of tariff disclosures as […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
I’m trying to get a handle on just how vulnerable law schools are to an adversarial presidential administration. Here’s my list of potential vulnerabilities so far: Federal grants. Because few, if any, law schools receive substantial federal grants, this lever is not very effective against law schools—directly. But see item 5 below. Foreign Students. Law […]
So Bonnie Eslinger reports in Law360’s American Arbitration Assoc. Accused Of Pro-Corp. Monopoly. The plaintiffs claim violations of state and federal antitrust laws. Here are the first two paragraphs of the complaint: This case is about the predatorial behavior of an arbitration association in its attempt to race to the bottom of the barrel of […]
Here. Finally the NYT runs an op-ed about the CFPB! And it’s a good one. Here are the first two paragraphs: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is turning into the Corporate Financial Protection Bureau. President Trump’s C.F.P.B. has not only ceased to pursue its mandate; it has taken the unprecedented step of unwinding prior victories […]
Here, at Penn’s Regulatory Review. The entire piece merits reading, and is short, but here’s my favorite paragraph: The primary reason the CFPB gave for pulling the guidance documents back is its “current policy to avoid issuing guidance except where necessary and where compliance burdens would be reduced rather than increased.” In a very real sense, this […]
David Horton of California, Davis has written Do Arbitrators Follow the Law? Evidence from Clause Construction, 126 Colum. L. Rev. Forum — (forthcoming 2025). Here’s the abstract: Courts and scholars have long disagreed about whether arbitrators follow the law. In the past three decades, the stakes in this debate have soared as the U.S. Supreme Court […]
Here, in Law360. Judges Rao and Katsas, both Trump appointees, expressed concerns about whether the administration had taken final action, required for court review under § 704 of the APA, and what an injunction requiring the Bureau to fulfill its statutory mandate would look like. The third judge, Judge Pillard, an Obama appointee, seemed less […]
That’s the lesson from NCLC lawyer Lauren Saunders’s essay, A $1,000 Taxi? That’s What Consumer Protections Are For at OtherWords.org. Here’s a striking paragraph: I’m a consumer lawyer. I know that federal law requires the bank to investigate disputes about incorrect charges and to correct errors. I even wrote a long letter full of legalese and got my […]
Here in the American Banker (behind a paywall but should be available on Lexis). The article includes some troubling observations, including that despite a Paoletta memo claiming that the Bureau under Trump will focus on consumer fraud, the dismissed cases include at least one case involving deceptive marketing. The article does mention some cases that […]
Oren Bar-Gill of Harvard, Omri Ben-Shahar of Chicago, and Florencia Marotta-Wurgler of NYU have written A Companion Guide to the Restatement of Consumer Contracts. Here’s the abstract: This short Essay, written by the Reporters of the recently published Restatement of Consumer Contracts, is intended as a companion to the Restatement. It highlights three areas, where the […]