Category Archives: Uncategorized

Norm Silber on what Katrina can teach us about the coronavirus and consumer protection

After Katrina, Norm Silber wrote an article, Debts, Disasters, and Delinquencies: The Case for a Mandatory Force Majeure Provision in Consumer Credit Agreements, and for a Consumer Credit Insurance Fund, 34 New York University Review of Law and Social Change 1 (2010), which has lessons for consumer protection as we grapple with the coronavirus.  Here […]

Why few legislators are interested in Trump’s proposal to suspend the payroll tax

Trump tweeted yesterday that "Only [suspending the payroll tax] will make a big difference!" (my emphasis). Yet Congress appears uninterested. And Trump himself just endorsed Nancy Pelosi's bill, which doesn't touch the payroll tax. For more on why, on policy grounds, Trump didn't get his way, read Why Trump isn’t getting the payroll-tax cut he […]

Congress has overturned Betsy DeVos’s rule drastically limiting student-loan debt relief

Will Trump sign or veto? That topic is addressed in this article by CNN's Katie Lobosco. For other coverage, go here and here. This NYT's piece by Erica Green and Stacy Cowley does a nice job explaining the restrictive DeVos rule. Here's an excerpt from the CNN article: Senate Republicans joined Democrats Wednesday to overturn a […]

Rent-a-banks skirt caps on interest-rates for consumer loans

The Wall Street Journal reports that California passed a new law to cap interest rates—currently at about 37% a year—for some consumer loans. OppLoans, however, is charging 160% on a typical loan in California, using a partnership with a Utah bank to continue selling in the state despite the new rules. OppLoans isn’t the only […]

CFPB says Fifth Third Bank opened fake accounts using customers’ money

The Washington Post reports today that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has filed a lawsuit against Fifth Third Bank, alleging the bank’s employees opened fake accounts for customers in order to meet aggressive sales targets. The federal regulator alleged Monday that the bank knew its employees were opening fake accounts since at least 2008 and […]

9th Circuit decision on FDCPA definition of “debt collector”

A nice win today for attorney Kelly Jones and my colleague Adam Pulver in McAdory v. DNF Associates: Reversing the district court’s dismissal of an action under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and remanding, the Ninth Circuit held that a business that bought and profited from consumer debts, but outsourced direct collection activities, qualified […]

Unsealed court filings show extent to which DoorDash worked with arbitration firm to craft terms favorable to the company

Two weeks ago, Scott wrote about the decision compelling arbitration in cases against DoorDash. His post explained that, after thousands of workers sought arbitration against DoorDash pursuant to the mandatory arbitration agreement in the company's employment contract, DoorDash refused to pay the fees and then tried to change the arbitration clause in the contract to […]

Uncovering the land-deal details that Mulvaney’s lawyers are hiding

Over the past couple of years, there has been a fair amount of controversy about the role played by Trump Administration official Mick Mulvaney in a land deal gone bad and his efforts to manipulate the law to protect himself from losses while dumping the losses on his investors. The controversy came up during his […]