Creola Johnson of Ohio State has written America's First Consumer Financial Watchdog Is on a Leash: Can the CFPB Use Its Authority to Declare Payday-Loan Practices Unfair, Abusive, and Deceptive? 61 Catholic University Law Review (2012). Here's the abstract: To stop payday lenders from skirting state laws, this Article asserts that the CFPB should exercise […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Florencia Marotta-Wurgler of NYU and Robert Brendan Taylor of Kirkland & Ellis have written Set in Stone? Change and Innovation in Consumer Standard Form Contracts for the Seventh Annual Conference on Empirical Studies. Here's the abstract: This article studies the rate, direction, and determinants of change in consumer standard form contracting. We examine what changed […]
David Horton of UC Davis has written Federal Arbitration Act Preemption, Purposivism, and State Public Policy, 101 Georgetown law Journal (2013). Here's the abstract: The relationship between the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) and state public policy has long been unsettled. According to some judges, scholars, and litigants, the FAA precludes courts from invalidating arbitration clauses […]
by Jeff Sovern Yesterday I blogged about senatorial votes on consumer protection (a more succinct version of the special report can be found in the American Banker). During the period we studied–2009 to 2012–Congress voted on two major consumer protection bills, the Credit CARD Act of 2009 and the Dodd-Frank Act. But other votes were […]
by Jeff Sovern Now that the election is over, the post is back! Read the American Banker op-ed on the study here. My student, Andrew Lipkowitz, and I recently reviewed the votes of the members of the United States Senate going back to 2009 on consumer issues. I'm reporting some of the findings today and […]
Ira Rubinstein of NYU's Information Law Institut has written Big Data: The End of Privacy or a New Beginning? Here's the abstract: “Big data” refers to novel ways in which organizations, including government and businesses, combine diverse digital data sets and then use statistics and other data mining techniques to extract from them both hidden […]
Lea Krivinskas Shepard of Loyola Chicago has written Toward a Stronger Financial History Antidiscrimination Norm, 53 Boston College Law Review (2012). Here's the abstract: This Article examines a topic at the intersection of consumer protection and antidiscrimination law: the use by employers and licensing organizations of applicants’ credit reports and financial histories in the hiring […]
by Jeff Sovern One of the big changes in the CFPB's proposed mortgage disclosure forms is the de-emphasis of the APR. The APR has historically been one of the most central Truth in Lending disclosures. For example, for closed-end loans, it must be clear and conspicuous and appear in the "Federal Box" under 12 C.F.R. […]
by Jeff Sovern Burrell v. DFS Services, LLC, 753 F.Supp.2d 438 (D.N.J. 2010) is a couple years old now but we haven't blogged about it before and the problem it describes has not been fixed so it still merits atttention. Burrell was victimized by an identity thief and complained about it to the creditors rather […]
Victor Stango of UC Davis Graduate School of Management has written Are Payday Lending Markets Competitive? Regulation (Fall 2012) at 26. Here's the abstract: The rapid and widespread growth of the payday loan market has sparked considerable controversy, in part regarding the “high” prices charged for these loans. This article presents several new pieces of […]