Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

WaPo: Regulators Probing Banks’ Debt Collection Practices

by Jeff Sovern Here. One surprise is that the regulator in question is the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which is showing still more evidence that it has escaped the clutches of the financial industry, which had captured the OCC in the past.  An excerpt: The OCC’s investigation reflects the agency’s increasing focus […]

Paper on Whether Regulation Curbs Foreclosures

Fernando López Vicente of the Bank of Spain has written The Effect of Foreclosure Regulation: Evidence for the US Mortgage Market at State Level.  Here's the abstact: Do laws to protect borrowers curb foreclosures? This question is addressed by analysing the impact of foreclosure laws on default rates at state level in the US mortgage […]

Ian Ayres & Alan Schwartz Paper: The No Reading Problem in Consumer Contract Law

Two Yale heavyweights, Ian Ayres & Alan Schwartz, have written The No Reading Problem in Consumer Contract Law, forthcoming in the Stanford Law Review. Here is the abstract: Instead of attempting to promote informed consumer assent through quixotic attempts to have consumers read ever-expanding disclosures, this Article argues that consumer protection law should focus on […]

Daniel Schwarcz Paper on Post-Sale Monitoring of Financial Products

Daniel Schwarcz of Minnesota has written Monitoring, Reporting, and Recalling Defective Financial Products, University of Chicago Legal Forum (2013).  Here is the abstract: In recent years, innovations in consumer financial protection have drawn heavily from the law governing the safety of tangible products.   This short essay, prepared for a symposium entitled "Frontiers of Consumer Protection," […]

Politico: What if Senate continues to block Richard Cordray at CFPB?

Here.  An excerpt: As a recess appointee, Cordray can stay in the job only through the end of this  year. But even that timetable will likely not be of much significance. After  Cordray departs, the agency will be run by the next in line and there is little  reason to think the bureau’s agenda would […]

Study on How Judges’ Politics Affects Their Application of the Twombly-Iqbal Pleading Rules

Raymond H. Brescia and Edward J. Ohanian, both of Albany have written The Politics of Procedure: An Empirical Analysis of Motion Practice in Civil Rights Litigation Under the New Plausibility Standard, forthcoming in 46 Akron Law Review (2013).   Here's the abstract: Is civil procedure political?  In May of 2009, the Supreme Court issued its decision […]