by Jeff Sovern Every six months, the CFPB director testifies before the Senate Banking Committee and the House Financial Services Committee. Each committee member gets five minutes to question the director, a process that collectively takes hours and this last time covered a wide variety of topics, including topics over which the CFPB lacks power, […]
Author Archives: Jeff Sovern
Here’s the job posting: Director of the CLASS Network – Center for Consumer Law & Economic Justice Do you want to work every day to advance the rights of low-income consumers? Do you want to help create a national network of law school programs dedicated to building equity and economic justice? Well, then, perhaps this […]
We received the following Call for Papers: On April 6, 2022, in addition to announcing an extension of the federal student loan payment pause, the White House announced that the U.S. Department of Education is taking steps to give a fresh start to millions of struggling borrowers who are currently in default on their federal […]
by Jeff Sovern Recently the CFPB announced that in conducting supervisory operations, it takes the position that discrimination is unfair and so violates the Consumer Financial Protection Act. You might think this is pretty straightforward: most of us would think odious discrimination is unfair. Discrimination easily qualifies as unfair under the statutory requirements of unfairness, […]
by Jeff Sovern Remember how Republicans complained how the CFPB was an unaccountable agency because its director could be fired only for cause? And then the Supreme Court ruled in Seila Law that the "for cause" removal limit was unconstitutional so that the president could fire the director without a showing of cause? You might […]
Here. The first episode features a conversation with Abbye Atkinson, professor at Berkeley Law, about her article, Borrowing Equality, published in the Columbia Law Review, and the relationship among credit, debt, social relationships, inequality, and what should be done to pave the way for a better world for borrowers. The podcast will broadcast conversations with […]
Brent W. Ambrose of Pennsylvania State, James Conklin of Georgia, N. Edward Coulson of California, Irvine – Paul Merage School of Business, Moussa Diop of USC, and Luis A. Lopez of the University of Illinois at Chicago have written Does Appraiser and Borrower Race Affect Valuation? Here’s the abstract: Following concerns about undervaluation of minority-owned […]
The Conversation has an interesting piece titled Store credit cards generate corporate profits and disgruntled workers, by a pair of sociology professors, Joya Misra and Kyla Walters. Excerpt: Major apparel companies also sell credit, often with very high fees, like The Gap’s 21.7% starting interest rate, and US$27 to $37 late payment charge. In 2019, […]
Meirav Furth of UCLA and Tel-Aviv University has written Retail Race Discrimination. Here's the abstract: This Article investigates everyday race discrimination while shopping in clothing stores of different price ranges. It reports on an original field experiment which examines the combined effects of race and gender on consumers’ shopping experiences and outcomes. Nineteen testers—Black and white […]