I have no inside information about CFPB director-nominee Brian Johnson’s prospects for confirmation, but unless at least one Republican senator on the Senate Banking Committee votes against his confirmation, he will move to a vote by the entire Senate even if every Committee Democrat votes against him. Two Republican members of the Committee–Senators Tillis and […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Here. Funny how whenever someone argues for creation of a private claim for consumers, you hear opponents complain that the private claims will flood the courts but you never hear anyone say that these debt cases are flooding the courts. I wonder how much taxpayers are contributing to debt collection at this point.
Retired Chief Judge Susan G. Braden, formerly of the United States Court of Federal Claims, has written Quo Vadis—Federal Trade Commission? She argues that the Department of Justice should absorb the FTC. The paper was written before the Court decided Trump v. Slaughter but it anticipated the result. This proposal reminds me of how the […]
Online and in person at GW Law on August 3 from 9:00 to 12:30 with an all-star lineup of speakers. Registration is free. More information here.
Mark Bartholomew of Buffalo and Samuel Becher of the City University of Hong Kong have written a short opinion piece for the Regulatory Review: Consumer Protection Law Was Not Built for Robot Shoppers. Here are the first and last paragraphs: Imagine waking up to find that, while you slept, an artificial intelligence (AI) shopping agent […]
It’s not the biggest issue at the CFPB, but I really miss the old days of transparency. It’s hard to have any accountability if you don’t know what’s going on–or these days, not going on. This week, for the first time since he took over, Acting CFPB Director Vought will testify before Congress about the […]
We received the following call for abstracts: We are pleased to announce the Ninth Annual Consumer Law Scholars Conference will be held in Berkeley on Thursday and Friday, March 4-5, 2027! Please save the date! The purpose of the CLSC is to support in-progress scholarship, foster a community of consumer law scholars, and build connections with scholars in other disciplines who […]
Alexi Pfeffer-Gillet of Washington and Lee has written From Mutual Aid to Batched Plaintiffs: Arbitration’s Collective Roots and Procedural Future, 76 Emory Law Journal (2026). Here’s the abstract: Arbitration is spinning out of control. The seemingly innocuous private alternative to court has for decades been the primary battleground for consumers and employees with widespread claims […]
Until recently, the CFPB had regional offices around the country, and of course, some employees were assigned to these offices. But according to Bloomberg Law’s Evan Weinberger, the Bureau has told the employees who worked at these offices that if they wanted to keep their jobs, they had only two weeks to decide whether they […]