Talia B Gillis, a doctoral student at Harvard, has written Putting Disclosure to the Test: Toward Better Evidence-Based Policy. Here is the abstract: Financial disclosures no longer enjoy the immunity from criticism they once had. While disclosures remain the hallmark of numerous areas of regulation, there is increasing skepticism as to whether disclosures are understood […]
Category Archives: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
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 […]
Just one day after a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing focusing on the constitutional challenge to the CFPB in State National Bank of Big Spring v. Lew, the D.C. Circuit has issued an opinion allowing that challenge to go forward on the merits and reversing the district court's dismissal on standing grounds. I testified in defense […]
Here. But what is Trump's position on the CFPB?
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 […]
CNBC has the story here. Three of the top four are the big three credit bureaus. The Consumer Bankers Association is dismissive of the findings. Quoting now from Marketplace: “They're basically in the shaming of banks business by providing what I call a ‘David Letterman Top 10 List’ of complaints,” says Richard Hunt, president of […]
Jacob Hale Russell of Stanford has written Misbehavioral Law and Economics: Separating and Pooling in Responses to Consumer Financial Mistakes. Here is the abstract: Consumers’ choices in financial contracts do not always tell us what they really want. Put differently, revealed preferences are sometimes unreliable indicators of actual preferences. For instance, consider two consumers who […]
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 […]
Here. (HT: Gregory Gauthier)
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 […]

