by Jeff Sovern Blankenstein's essay appears in the National Review. Bureau-watchers may recall that Blankenstein served as an associate director at the Bureau during the Trump administration but left after a rebellion over blog posts he had written a decade earlier questioning whether use of the n-word is racist, among other things. Here's the opening […]
Category Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Looks like the conference will include a lot of interesting papers. The agenda is here. More information, including how to register, here.
Craig Cowie of Montana has written Is the CFPB Still on the Beat? The CFPB'S (Non)Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, 82 Mont. L. Rev. 41 (2021). Here's the conclusion: More than ten months into a historic pandemic that has wreaked economic devastation, the CFPB—the primary Federal consumer financial protection regulator that was created in response […]
The SBPC issued a report, DISCRIMINATION IS "UNFAIR": Interpreting UDA(A)P to Prohibit Discrimination. Here's the Executive Summary: This Article explores a theory that discrimination is a type of “unfair” practice covered by federal and state laws prohibiting unfair, deceptive (and sometimes abusive) acts and practices (“UDA(A)Ps”). An “unfair” practice is defined by statute as something […]
by Jeff Sovern So says an indentified financial services lobbyist, quoted in Neil Haggerty's article in The American Banker, Will Senate vote on CFPB chief come down to tiebreaker? (behind paywall but available on Lexis). Here's the relevant excerpt: A financial services lobbyist added that most Republicans likely won't vote to confirm any person nominated by […]
by Jeff Sovern Yesterday, Acting CFPB Director Dave Uejio posted an item to the CFPPB Blog that suggests that the Bureau may rekindle its former payday lending rule in some form. Here's the post in full: The CFPB is acutely aware of consumer harms in the small dollar lending market, and is particularly concerned with […]
by Jeff Sovern Last year we blogged about the CFPB's disappointing abusiveness policy statement. But things are different this year and the Bureau has wisely rescinded the Policy Statement, saying that it "was inconsistent with the Bureau’s duty to enforce Congress’s standard and rescinding it will better serve the CFPB’s objective to protect consumers from […]
by Jeff Sovern Yesterday, the Senate Banking Committee split, 12-12 on the vote to confirm FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra to be the next CFPB director. According to Neil Haggerty's report in the American Banker (behind a paywall but available on Lexis), the Senate can still confirm Chopra but it will first require a motion to […]
by Jeff Sovern You should be able to listen here. The American Banker's Kate Berry has a story here, behind a paywall, unfortunately, but if you have Lexis, you can read it there. Excerpt: [Chopra's] aggressive past statements coupled with the power and high profile that comes with the CFPB job could lead to some […]
Here. Excerpt (footnotes omitted): As then-Professor Elena Kagan explained in her famous article, “Presidential Administration,” it is the overriding tendency of recent presidents to harness executive agencies’ rulemaking and other authorities and use them as extensions of their own policy and political agendas. Given the CFPB’s broad authorities, its ample funding through the Federal Reserve, […]

