Samuel Becher of the Victoria University of Wellington and Tal Zarsky of the University of Haifa have written Big Mistake(s), forthcoming in the Florida Law Review. Here’s the abstract: The digital age has brought the imbalance of power between prominent firms and individual consumers to the forefront. Despite their proclamations of upholding democratic values and […]
Category Archives: Consumer Law Scholarship
Andrea J. Boyack of Missouri has written Abuse of Contract: Boilerplate Erasure of Consumer Counterparty Rights, Iowa Law Review, Forthcoming. Here’s the abstract: Contract law and the new Restatement of the Law of Consumer Contracts generally treats the entirety of the company’s boilerplate as presumptively binding. Entrusting the content of consumer contracts to companies creates a […]
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Law Scholarship, Unfair & Deceptive Acts & Practices (UDAP), including Discrimination
Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Use of Unfairness to Regulate Discriminatory Conduct: A Discussion of the Consumer and Industry Perspectives
Here. I spoke about my recent article, Is Discrimination Unfair?, on the podcast.
A. Oloyede, I. Ajibade, C. Obunadike, A. Phillips, O. Shittu, E. Taiwo, all of Austin Peay State University, and S. Kizor-Akaraiwe of the University of Washington have written A Review of Cybersecurity as an Effective Tool for Fighting Identity Theft across United States, 12 International Journal on Cybernetics and Informatics, No.5, (October 2023). Here is […]
Richard Frankel of Drexel has written Fighting Mass Arbitration: An Empirical Study of the Corporate Response to Mass Arbitration and Its Implications for the Federal Arbitration Act. Here’s the abstract: Over the last forty years, corporations have increasingly inserted mandatory arbitration provisions into their consumer and employment contracts. Most prominently, and with the Supreme Court’s blessing, […]
The National Center for Access to Justice at Fordham Law School has posted a report and online resource that ranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia on their adoption of policies promoting fairness in consumer debt litigation. The report notes that debt-collection lawsuits inundate courts across the country. Because many suits go unanswered, […]
Andrea Chandrasekher of UC-Davis has a history of writing important papers on important subjects. She has done so again, with The “Good” Starbucks: Consumer Redlining in Large American Chain Stores. Here’s the abstract: Racial discrimination in the retail realm has been well-documented in the academic literature. However, past studies have focused on retail redlining, a discriminatory […]
Last fall, the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint alleging that Amazon Marketplace unfairly highlights its own products on its website to encourage consumers to select the Amazon brand over competitors’ products. The Regulatory Review reports today on a study that questions that conclusion. The study’s authors explain how evaluating the fairness of product placement […]
Carlie Malone and Paige Marta Skiba, both of Vanderbilt, have written Installment Loans. Here’s the abstract: Installment loans have increasingly replaced traditional payday loans in the short-term, small-dollar credit market. Installment loans, often offered by the same lenders who provide payday loans, have larger principal amounts, longer repayment periods, and lower interest rates relative to payday […]
Carrie Floyd of Michigan has written New Tech, Old Problem: The Rise of Virtual Rent-to-Own Agreements, forthcoming at 65 Boston College Law Review 3 (2024). Here is the abstract: This Article explores how fintech has disrupted the traditional rent-to-own (RTO) industry, giving rise to new, virtual RTO agreements (VirTOs). These VirTOs have enabled the RTO […]