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Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
President Trump is no friend of consumer arbitration. As longtime readers of the blog know, during his first term, Trump signed the Congressional Review Act resolution blocking the CFPB’s arbitration rule from going into effect. So it is intriguing to see Trump sue JPMorgan Chase over the bank’s debanking him when his contract with the […]
Myriam E. Gilles, now of Northwestern, has written Arbitration In Name Only. Here’s the abstract: Modern arbitration clauses hide a dirty secret: many aren’t arbitration at all. They masquerade as mutual commitments to fair and efficient private dispute resolution but, in truth, are mere imitations of genuine arbitration provisions. Some reserve for the drafter the power […]
Here (behind paywall but you get one article for free, and it should also turn up on Lexis soon). Excerpt: We are angry because government officials have shot an American without justification. We are angry because Americans of color have been profiled. * * * We are angry because creating fear seems itself to be […]
Here in a Maryland Daily Record editorial (behind a paywall but available on Lexis). Here’s an excerpt (disclosure: I am on the editorial board): Some consumers, enticed by BNPL, become overcommitted and can’t meet their financial obligations. You might think BNPL providers would suffer when consumers are in that situation, but the BNPL companies have […]
Mark Elliott Budnitz of Georgia State has written Big Tech and Consumer Payments: The Good, the Bad, and the Unintended Consequences, 37 Loy. Consumer L. Rev. 116 (2025). Here’s the abstract: “Each stage of the American banking industry history demonstrates the interlinkage of finance and technology…” Our era is no exception. The financial services industry […]
Daniel J. Solove of George Washington has written Enforcing Privacy Law: Why Private Litigation Is Essential. Here’s the abstract: Enforcement is an essential dimension for effective privacy and data protection laws—and it is probably the most important one. No matter how many privacy laws are enacted and how strong the laws are, if enforcement falls short, […]
Here. Here’s an excerpt from the story (not the report itself) about an omitted section: The college pricing section focuses on the role universities themselves play in the student loan crisis. The sticker price for college tuition has risen at more than double the rate of inflation since the year 2000. Most students don’t pay […]
Here. Excerpt: The level of changes to this year’s report seem to go far beyond the agency’s standard editing process, said Mike Pierce, who served as the senior adviser to the student loan ombudsman at CFPB from 2011-2018. “I can’t ever think of a set of circumstances or something quite like this [that] happened in […]

