by Jeff Sovern The following is the body of an email I sent to the editor of the Consumer Financial Services Law Report (a very useful newsletter on developments in consumer finance): The August 9, 2015 issue of the Consumer Financial Services Law Report includes an advocacy piece by financial industry lawyers Alan S. Kaplinsky and […]
Category Archives: Arbitration
Guest Post by Gregory Gauthier: Late last week, many media outlets drew attention to broadly-worded terms in Spotify’s new privacy policy. Although Spotify’s CEO later explained the intent of the changes to the privacy policy, another change to Spotify’s terms has yet to be explained by Spotify or discussed by the media. The change, which […]
Richard Frankel of Drexel has written Concepcion and Mis-Concepcion: Why Unconscionability Survives the Supreme Court's Arbitration Jurisprudence, 17 Journal of Dispute Resolution. Here is the abstract: States have long relied on the doctrines of unconscionability and public policy to protect individuals against unfair terms in mandatory arbitration provisions. The Supreme Court recently struck a blow […]
by Jeff Sovern Earlier this week, I posted a link to the Ballard Spahr comments, on behalf of various industry trade associations, on the CFPB Arbitration Study . Their thesis is that the Bureau Study indicates that consumers fare better in arbitration than litigation in general and class actions in particular. For example, here is […]
by Jeff Sovern The American Bar Association's Business Law Section Consumer Financial Services Committee held a webinar earlier today in which the topic was listed as "The CFPB Begins Arbitration Rulemaking, But Its Own Study Shows that Arbitration Benefits Consumers." The sole speakers, other than the moderator, were Ballard Spahr's Alan Kaplinsky and Mark Levin. […]
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday weighed in on the “unsettled” question whether a district court should stay a case or dismiss it, when it grants a motion to compel arbitration. The court held that the case should be stayed. The opening paragraph summarizes the issue and the reasoning: In an effort to more […]
This afternoon (at 2pm), I'll be testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Dodd Frank Act. The title for today's hearing gives you a flavor of the sweeping (and fringe) legal theories being advanced by the CFPB's opponents: "The Administrative State v. The Constitution: Dodd-Frank […]
Here. Excerpt: * * * Congressmen Steve Womack (AR-3) and Tom Graves (GA-14) wrote an amendment to an appropriations bill that ignores all the evidence in the [2015 CFPB Arbitration] report. Unsurprisingly, they both have received consistent financial support for years from banking lobbyists. Adopted by voice vote within a matter of minutes, the amendment […]
Guest Post by Professors David Horton & Andrea Cann Chandrasekher: We recently posted our draft article, After the Revolution: An Empirical Study of Consumer Arbitration, 104 Geo. L.J. — (forthcoming 2015) on the Social Science Research Network. On June 22, well-known corporate defense lawyers Alan S. Kaplinsky and Mark J. Levin published a critique of […]
Here. (HT: Gregory Gauthier)