by Jeff Sovern CFPB Monitor is reporting: [T]he House Appropriations Committee has approved an amendment to the FY 2016 Financial Services Appropriations bill that would impose new requirements on the CFPB before it can issue a rule governing arbitration agreements. The amendment, which was introduced by Republican Representatives Steve Womack and Tom Graves, reportedly would […]
Category Archives: Arbitration
David Horton and Andrea Cann Chandrasekher both of California, Davis, have written After the Revolution: An Empirical Study of Consumer Arbitration, 104 Georgetown Law Journal (Forthcoming 2015). Here's the abstract: For decades, mandatory consumer arbitration has been ground zero in the war between the business community and the plaintiffs’ bar. Some courts, scholars, and interest […]
by Jeff Sovern In Mohamed v. Uber, the federal district court for the Northern District of California said no. Opt-out clauses appear in contracts and give the contracting parties the right to opt-out of arbitration to resolve disputes within a certain period of time after entering into the contract, often thirty or sixty days (which […]
Sternlight has been writing about arbitration for years, and has some interesting comments about the Supreme Court's opinion last week in Sharif at the Indisputably blog. An excerpt: The Supreme Court’s most recent Article III decision, Wellness Int’l v. Sharif (2015), raises substantial questions as to the constitutional legitimacy of the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 […]
by Jeff Sovern I don't know anyone who likes getting a shot. One of my daughters, as a small girl, would hide under chairs at the pediatrician's office to avoid them, which by the way, was not an effective strategy. But most of us are willing to get stuck with needles if the payoff is large […]
by Jeff Sovern Marc James Ayers of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP has posted an item, Can the CFPB really prohibit pre-dispute arbitration agreements? in which he wrote: [S]hould the CFPB independently decide to adopt regulations limiting or prohibiting the use of pre-dispute arbitration agreements relating to consumer finance, that regulation could be seen as an […]
Shauhin A. Talesh of Irvine has written Institutional and Political Sources of Legislative Change: Explaining How Private Organizations Influence the Form and Content of Consumer Protection Legislation, 39 Law and Social Inquiry 973 (2014 ). Here's the abstract: This article explores how private organizations influence the content and meaning of consumer protection legislation. I examine […]
by Jeff Sovern Last Friday, I posted a comment on Alan Kaplinsky’s remarks, quoted in the Bloomberg Business story, Bank Customers May Get Their Day in Court, about the CFPB arbitration report. Alan replied in a post captioned “Sovern v. Kaplinsky.” Here I offer a rebuttal. In my original post, I expressed the view that […]
by Jeff Sovern BloombergBusiness columnist Carter Dougherty has a story, Bank Customers May Get Their Day in Court, about the CFPB arbitration report. Dougherty writes: In its report, the CFPB noted that there were just 52 arbitration claims under $1,000 in 2010 and 2011, and consumers won relief in just four of them. Says [Deepak] […]