Category Archives: Uncategorized

Poll finds consumer support for financial regulation

The Philadelphia Tribune report on a new poll that, a decade after the financial crisis, finds that consumers still support financial regulation and related enforcement. Moreover, on payday and car-title lending, "consumer scorn has grown even stronger over the past year for these small-dollar, debt-trap loans that come with triple-digit interest rates." The full article […]

CFPB working on regulation to define “abusive” practices

The Dodd-Frank Act prohibits “unfair, deceptive, or abusive” acts and practices by the financial companies regulated under the Act, and gives the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau authority to enforce the prohibition. The Act defines "abusive" as an act or practice that: (1) Materially interferes with the ability of a consumer to understand a term or […]

Citigroup may face fair lending penalty

Reuters reports that the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is considering sanctions against Citigroup for denying minority customers the kinds of mortgage discounts that the bank offered to many other borrowers. Citigroup, while performing a review to ensure it adhered to fair lending standards, reportedly found that some minority borrowers were not getting […]

Trump’s mutually reinforcing wars on science and regulation

Law prof Albert Lin has written President Trump's War on Regulatory Science. Here is the abstract: The Trump administration has taken numerous actions that appear hostile to scientists, scientific research, and scientific data, leading some observers to assert that a war on science is underway. A more precise characterization is that the Trump administration is engaging […]

Kentucky Supreme Court: state law prohibiting employers from conditioning employment on an agreement to arbitrate is not preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act

The Kentucky Supreme Court's unanimous decision is Northern Kentucky Area Development District v. Snyder. The first two paragraphs of the court's opinion summarizes its reasoning: Kentucky Revised Statute (“KRS”) 336.700(2) prohibits employers from conditioning employment on an existing employee’s or prospective employee’s agreement to “waive, arbitrate, or otherwise diminish any existing or future claim, right, or […]

Department of Education will miss the deadline to gut borrower protections this year

In a filing last night, the Department of Education announced that it will miss a November 1 statutory deadline to publish a rule that rolls back protections for student loan borrowers and students defrauded by for-profit colleges. Those protections, part of what’s known as the Obama-era borrower defense rule, were set to go into effect […]

California effort to limit forced arbitration of sexual harrassment claims vetoed

Citing the U.S. Supreme Court's precedent in favor of arbitration, California Governor Jerry Brown yesterday vetoed a bill that would end the practice of employers requiring workers to use private arbitration instead of the courts to resolve sexual harassment complaints. The bill would not have barred workers from voluntarily opting for arbitration, only barred predispute […]

Florida court holds company’s non-disparagement clause unlawful

We have from time to time blogged about non-disparagement clauses inserted into consumer contracts to try to prevent consumers from complaining publicly about a product or service. Yesterday, a district court in Florida, in a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission against weight-loss supplement marketer Roca Labs, granted the FTC's summary judgment motion in a […]

The car loans that never end: borrower is still paying 27 years later, decades after car repossessed

by Jeff Sovern Years ago, I heard the puppet Lambchop (Shari Lewis) sing The Song That Never Ends: This is the song that never endsYes, it just goes on and on my friends.Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was.And they continue singing it forever just because,This is the song that doesn’t end. […]