Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

160+ law professors urge CFPB to issue new arbitration rule

Reuters’s Allson Frankel has the story here, and also reports on industry opposition. The original petition, as well as the comments, can be read here. Here’s an excerpt from the law professor comment (disclosure: I served on the drafting committee): Multiple studies have demonstrated that consumers do not understand arbitration clauses. In contrast, no study […]

Burge article on uniform laws’ impact on crypto as a payment mechanism

Mark Edwin Burge of Texas A&M has written After FTX: Can the Original Bitcoin Use Case Be Saved?, 72 Kansas Law Review, (2023). Here is the abstract: Bitcoin and the other cryptocurrencies spawned by the innovation of blockchain programming have exploded in prominence, both in gains of massive market value and in dramatic market losses, […]

CFPB appeals Chamber of Commerce district court ruling that discrimination is not unfair

More about the lower court opinion here. Given the Fifth Circuit’s politics, I’m not sure things will fare any better there, but hope is the thing with feathers. Even the Fifth Circuit must reach the correct decision sometimes.

Mark Budnitz discusses the effects of payments developments on low-income consumers at the Ballard Spahr Consumer Finance Monitor podcast

Here. The discussion draws on Professor Budnitz’s article, New Developments in Payment Systems and Services Affecting Low-Income Consumers: Challenges and Opportunities, Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy (2023).

After consumer advocacy groups file petition with CFPB calling for new arbitration rule, CFPB says it will carefully consider the proposal, open a public docket and take comments from the public

Bloomberg Law’s Evan Weinberger has the story here (may be behind paywall), including a link to the petition. Weinberger later posted on what used to be called Twitter the CFPB’s response to his request for comment. The petition relies heavily on Roseanna Sommers’ study, which we discussed here.