Peter Conti-Brown of Penn’s Wharton School and the Brookings Institution and Brian D. Feinstein, also of Wharton have written Banking on a Curve: How to Restore the Community Reinvestment Act, Harvard Business Law Review, Forthcoming. Here’s the abstract: The federal government’s primary financial-regulatory tool for combating wealth inequality is broken. Intended to push banks towards deeper engagement […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
From the announcement: The American Law Institute’s Council voted today to approve the launch of a Principles of the Law project that will address a serious challenge facing state courts: the adjudication of high-volume, high-stakes, low-dollar-value civil claims. The project will be led by Reporter David Freeman Engstrom of Stanford Law School. These types of […]
Here. Behind a paywall, but also available on Lexis. Excerpt: * * *The Fifth Circuit is claiming the CFPB wields broader regulatory authority than the Fed, a full-fledged bank regulator that engages in rulemaking and enforcement, operates the payment systems that are the backbone of the economy, and regulates monetary policy and employment. This is […]
by Jeff Sovern Here, in the NY Daily News. My latest op-ed. Excerpt: You might not expect that in the year 2022, businesses would go to court asserting a right to discriminate. Yet that is essentially what the Chamber of Commerce and various banking groups did last month when they sued the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The […]
That's the takeaway from Evan Weinberger's Bloomberg Law report, CFPB Funding Decision Is Grist for Agency Enforcement Fights. Excerpt: At least two companies targeted in CFPB enforcement actions have already pointed to the ruling to ask other courts to dismiss the actions on constitutional grounds. Others will wield the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth […]
Here. Definitely worth a read.
Mark A. Lemley of Stanford has written The Benefit of the Bargain. Here's the abstract: Contract law has lost its way. Designed as a way to allow people to agree, it has over time become a means for large businesses to unilaterally impose terms and conditions on others. In large part that is a function of […]
We received the following Call for Papers: The AALS Section of Financial Institutions & Consumer Financial Services will host the first AALS FinReg Conference on November 4, 2022, in person, at the Antonin Scalia Law School, in Arlington, Virginia. This annual workshop brings together scholars focused on financial regulation to present their scholarly works. We […]
by Jeff Sovern As we have previously discussed, the CFPB takes the position when supervising banks that discrimination is unfair within the meaning of the Consumer Financial Protection Act. As reported by Bloomberg's Evan Weinberger, the Chamber of Commerce, the American Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers Association, and others have now sued the CFPB in […]
Nikita Aggarwal of UCLA, D. Bondy Valdovinos Kaye of the University of Leeds, and Christopher K. Odinet of Iowa have written #Fintok and Financial Regulation, forthcoming in the Arizona State Law Journal. Here's the abstract: Social media platforms are becoming an increasingly important site for consumer finance. This phenomenon is referred to as “FinTok,” a reference […]