Here. Excerpt from Jeff Bater's report: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took only three enforcement actions in the third quarter of 2018 and is on pace for the lowest yearly total in its seven years of existence. The bureau levied $1.6 million in penalties in the three-month period ending in September, compared to $7.3 million […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
by Jeff Sovern Acting CFPB director Mick Mulvaney famously wrote that he would not push the envelope. He explained: That entire governing philosophy of pushing the envelope frightens me a little. We are government employees, and we work for the people. That means everyone: those who use credit cards and those who provide the credit; […]
Todd J. Zywicki of George Mason has written The Behavioral Economics of Behavioral Law & Economics, Journal of Behavioral Economics (2019, Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: Behavioral Law & Economics (BLE) has loudly proclaimed its victory over traditional law & economics methodologies. Nowhere has this proclamation been so loud or self-certain as with respect to claims […]
by Jeff Sovern Years ago, I heard the puppet Lambchop (Shari Lewis) sing The Song That Never Ends: This is the song that never endsYes, it just goes on and on my friends.Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was.And they continue singing it forever just because,This is the song that doesn’t end. […]
by Jeff Sovern Regular readers of this blog know that I collect instances of people agreeing to contracts without reading them. Among my examples: Chief Justice Roberts, Judge Posner, Hillary Clinton, and consumer law professors. Now I think we can add FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips to the list, though his remarks are ambiguous enough that […]
Dee Pridgen is seeking a coauthor/collaborator for her two treatises published by Thomson Reuters, Consumer Protection and the Law and Consumer Credit and the Law. These books have been updated yearly for 30 years and are available both in print and on Westlaw. Her current coauthor, Richard Alderman, Professor Emeritus of the University of Houston […]
by Jeff Sovern The CFPB has announced the new members of its Consumer Advisory Board: the new board has fewer members than the old one–meaning fewer viewpoints are represented–and the members will serve for shorter terms, making it harder for them to accumulate relevant experience with board service. I wonder if this is just an […]
Andrea Chandrasekher and David Horton, both of California, Davis, have written Arbitration Nation: Data from Four Providers, 109 California Law Review. Here's the abstract: Forced arbitration has long been controversial. In the 1980s, the Supreme Court expanded the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), sparking debate about whether private dispute resolution is an elegant alternative to litigation or a rigged […]
by Jeff Sovern Remember all the posturing in the congressional hearings and elsewhere after the Equifax breach that affected more than 140 million consumers? But a year later, little has changed, at least in Washington (litigation is still pending). Wouldn't it be nice if the members of Congress who expressed outrage actually did something to […]
We have received the following call for papers appearing below. This one looks especially exciting for consumer law scholars: it's at an elite law school and has an impressive roster of organizers. The Berkeley Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice, its director Ted Mermin, and co-organizers Abbye Atkinson, Kathleen Engel, Rory Van Loo, and […]