Category Archives: Class Actions

David Dayen in The Intercept: IN NEW LAWSUIT, CORPORATIONS BAND TOGETHER TO STOP CONSUMERS FROM BANDING TOGETHER

by Jeff Sovern Here.  Lots of irony in this one, as you can tell from the headline.  A sample: Eighteen groups representing thousands of corporations and banks filed the lawsuit against the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last Friday in federal court in Dallas. Oddly, they did not attempt to individually resolve the dispute through an arbitration process, […]

Issacharoff Book Chapter on Class Actions

Samuel Issacharoff of NYU has written Collective Action and Class Action, in THE CLASS ACTION EFFECT: FROM THE LEGISLATOR’S IMAGINATION TO TODAY’S USES AND PRACTICES, (Catherine Piché, ed., Éditions Yvon Blais, 2018 Forthcoming).  Here is the abstract: Over the past 25 years, class actions have emerged as a central feature of Canadian law. The conceptual […]

Though CFPB Found Credit Card Issuers That Dropped Arb Clauses Didn’t Raise Prices, OCC’s Norieka Claims CFPB Arb Rule Will Raise Cost of Lending 25%

by Jeff Sovern The ABA Banking Journal (that's the banking ABA, not the lawyers' ABA) has the story here.  Except: The OCC has conducted a study finding that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s arbitration rule is likely to increase the cost of credit by about 25 percent once lenders factor in the cost of class action litigation, […]

Senate Could Vote on CFPB Arb Rule This Week, Even Today

by Jeff Sovern Why this week?  Deepak Gupta speculated on Twitter: Why is GOP pushing this vote now? Possibly to get ahead of hearings next week at which Equifax and Wells Fargo execs will have to testify. But if that's true, that means that arbitration supporters expect that those hearings will generate opposition to arbitration. […]

More Than 400 Professors From All 50 States Support CFPB Arb Rule; Oppose Blocking It

The letter is here.  Marketwatch has a report headlined 400 college professors say you should be able to sue Equifax and other financial institutions. Excerpt from the report: The professors are sending the letter Monday because it is Sept. 25, the anniversary of when Congress passed the Seventh Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1791, which states: […]

We need regulators—but they are not a substitute for class actions

by Jeff Sovern A frequent claim by class action critics is that we don’t need class actions because we have regulators.  For example. Alan Kaplinsky recently tweeted that class actions were not needed in the wake of the Equifax scandal because the CFPB is expected to act.  But the truth is we need both regulators […]

More and More Republicans Support the CFPB Arbitration Rule

by Jeff Sovern The latest example is an op-ed by Dean Clancy, a former senior Republican official in Congress and the White House, in the American Banker, CFPB arbitration rule is an undeniable win for consumers.  Clancy takes issue, as I did, with a recent American Banker piece by Joseph Cioffi.  Clancy explains: [Cioffi assumes] Individual arbitrations […]

Will Equifax Change the Prospects for Congress Blocking the CFPB Arbitration Rule?

by Jeff Sovern That's the question discussed in Ian McKendry's article in the American Banker, GOP undeterred by Wells, Equifax in seeking arbitration rule repeal. Arbitration advocates hope and predict it won't, as this except shows: "I don't necessarily want to conflate" the Equifax breach "with the arbitration rule," said [Senator Thom] Tillis [R-SC]. The financial […]

Have the Arbitration Sharks Jumped the Shark?

by Jeff Sovern On Saturday, I posted an entry, Kaplinsky & Levin Concede "Consumers rarely pursue individual arbitration" But Miss Mark on Why. Maybe it irritated Alan and Mark, because they then posted Professor Sovern Disagrees with Senator Warren and Concedes that Consumers Do Well in Arbitration But Raises Another Red Herring. I guess I […]