by Jeff Sovern On a party line vote of 31-21, the House Appropriations Committee passed the Financial Services Appropriation bill. Section 930 of the bill repeals the CFPB's authority to regulate arbitration. Section 926 would subject the CFPB to the congressional appropriations process, thereby making it more accountable to lobbyists. Section 927 would gut the […]
Category Archives: Class Actions
by Jeff Sovern My latest, here. Excerpt: The Wells Fargo case shows the difference between arbitration and class actions: the difference between getting nothing and getting something. * * * Critics of the rule claim that class actions are just giveaways to lawyers. It’s true that not all class actions work as well as the Wells […]
In the SF Chronicle. The indefatigable Ted teaches consumer law at Berkeley. Here is his conclusion: So why did Director Cordray [issue the Arbitration Rule despite opposition from the powerful financial lobby]? Maybe he believes that the American people know a sharp practice when they see one, and that they won’t stand for the undoing […]
by Jeff Sovern Yesterday, according to The Hill, Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, announced that he would seek to block the CFPB's Arbitration Rule using the Congressional Review Act, saying: “The Bureau’s new rule on arbitration clauses ignores the consumer benefits of arbitration and treats Arkansans like helpless children, incapable of making business decisions in […]
by Jeff Sovern Here's what David Lazurus says in his LA Times column, Banks and credit card companies can't try to stop you from joining a class action lawsuit — for now: Consumer advocates — who for months have been gearing up for this fight — tell me they have little doubt the House will […]
David Freeman Engstrom of Stanford has written Jacobins at Justice: The (Failed) Class Action Revolution of 1978 and the Puzzle of American Procedural Political Economy, 165 University of Pennsylvania Law Review (2017). Here is the abstract: In 1978, top DOJ officials in the Carter Administration floated a revolutionary proposal that would have remade the consumer class […]
by Jeff Sovern Different, that is, from arbitrations over the unauthorized accounts, about which we have reported (Wells has agreed to set aside its arbitration clause in the unauthorized account dispute and settle the claims in a class action; court approval is pending but seems likely). Ira's piece, titled Courts, Regulators Must Stop Wells Fargo’s […]
by Jeff Sovern We posted yesterday about the House Appropriations Bill. I haven't studied the bill, but on a quick look, it contains a number of objectionable provisions from the Financial Choice Act (already passed by the House), including repeal of the CFPB's power to regulate arbitration and payday lenders and to block conduct on […]
by Jeff Sovern Here. The 22 words consists of the following statement, to appear on Facebook's help page: “We use tools to identify and store links shared in messages, including a count of the number of times links are shared.” As a general matter, I am skeptical of settlements that provide only a disclosure on […]