Author Archives: Jeff Sovern

Times editorial board accuses FTC of using UDAP law to regulate news media editorial judgment

Here. Excerpt: The F.T.C.’s chairman, Andrew Ferguson, appears to be testing a novel theory: that editorial judgment can be regulated as a deceptive trade practice. In this view, a news organization’s slogan — such as “fair and balanced” or “without fear or favor” — is no longer a statement of mission but a marketing claim […]

Hypocrisy on the CFPB

As we have reported in the past, the Dodd-Frank Act requires that the CFPB’s director “shall appear before the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate and the Committee on Financial Services and the Committee on Energy and Commerce of the House of Representatives at semi-annual hearings.” But it appears that Acting Director […]

Fed study on how usury limits affects who gets loans

Rajashri Chakrabarti of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Daniel Garcia of the Columbia Business School, Donald P. Morgan, also of the NY Fed, and Lee Seltzer of the NY Fed have written Less for You, More for Me: Credit Reallocation and Rationing Under Usury Limits. Here’s the abstract: Many states have capped consumer […]

Important interview with the authors of Debt’s Grip

Here, at Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Financial Law Monitor podcast. The authors are Pamela Foohey of Georgia, Robert M. Lawless of Illinois College of Law and Deborah Thorne, Professor of Sociology at the University of Idaho, and the book is about who seeks bankruptcy and what drives them to do so. Warning: you will order the […]

Study of the effectiveness of legal remedies for coerced debt

Angela Littwin of Texas, Adrienne Adams of Michigan State University, and Angie Kennedy, also of Michigan State have written Ineffective Relief for Coerced Debt: The Failure of Divorce and Debtor-Creditor Law to Address Debt Created by Domestic Violence. Here’s the abstract: Coerced debt occurs when the abusive partner in a relationship characterized by domestic violence (DV) […]

Is Trump’s debanking lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase precluded by an arbitration clause?

President Trump is no friend of consumer arbitration. As longtime readers of the blog know, during his first term, Trump signed the Congressional Review Act resolution blocking the CFPB’s arbitration rule from going into effect. So it is intriguing to see Trump sue JPMorgan Chase over the bank’s debanking him when his contract with the […]

Gilles article: Arbitration In Name Only

Myriam E. Gilles, now of Northwestern, has written Arbitration In Name Only. Here’s the abstract: Modern arbitration clauses hide a dirty secret: many aren’t arbitration at all. They masquerade as mutual commitments to fair and efficient private dispute resolution but, in truth, are mere imitations of genuine arbitration provisions. Some reserve for the drafter the power […]