by Jeff Sovern During a recent hearing by the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Information Privacy Center and an adjunct at Georgetown, pointed out that we still didn't know who was behind the Equifax breach. He noted that people would have been deeply upset […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Ryan Sandler and Charles J. Romeo, both of the CFPB have written The Effect of Debt Collection Laws on Access to Credit. Here's the abstract: Debt collection by third party collection agencies is an important part of the market for consumer credit, but has been little studied in the economics literature. Regulations on debt collection practices […]
by Jeff Sovern The CFPB has posted online Interim Director Mulvaney's calendar for December and January. I can't tell how complete it is, but it has only a fraction of the number of items that former Director Cordray's calendar (also online at the same site) had for the months I randomly selected. Either Mulvaney is […]
by Jeff Sovern On Monday, I posted a link to Todd Zywicki's WSJ op-ed in which he accused Cordray's CFPB of pummeling consumers and wrote that "The pain was especially acute for low- and middle-income consumers who lost access to credit cards, faced higher bank fees and reduced access to free checking, and found it […]
by Jeff Sovern A student forwarded me the following email (I've omitted identifying information to protect the student's confidentiality): Good afternoon, Thank you for your interest in the CFPB’s Honors Attorney Program. Unfortunately we will not be extending offers for the program this year. Please keep the Bureau in mind as you plan your future […]
by Jeff Sovern George Mason's Todd Zywicki has an op-ed in the WSJ, The CFPB Could Be a Force for Good, in which he lays out his vision for what the CFPB should do and attacks what it did under Cordray. Zywicki is the only academic whose name has been bruited about as a potential Trump […]
Elise M. Nelson of Freshfields Bruckhaus and Joshua D. Wright of George Mason have written Judicial Cost-Benefit Analysis Meets Economics: Evidence from State Unfair and Deceptive Practices Laws, 81 Antitrust Law Journal (2017). Here is the abstract: Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC Act) prohibits "unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce." […]
Here, by Kate Berry (behind a paywall). The most potent weapon is, of course, the Bureau's UDAAP powers. Excerpt: [The Bureau's] vision statement unveiled as part of the new strategic plan dropped any reference to so-called UDAAP claims, suggesting that the agency will not use the Dodd-Frank authority as the same kind of blunt enforcement […]
by Jeff Sovern In a blog post Tuesday, I asked Am I the only one who thinks it's weird for a temporary and part-time CFPB director to create a five-year strategic plan? But as Barbara S. Mishkin pointed out in the Consumer Finance Monitor, the CFPB is obliged to issue a strategic plan this month by […]
by Jeff Sovern Mike posted earlier today about Berkeley's new Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice, funded by a major gift from Elizabeth Cabraser and to be headed at least for now by Ted Mermin, a terrific choice. Berkeley also has Chris Hoofnagle, a prolific writer on privacy and consumer law. With this gift, Berkeley joins Georgetown […]