The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today issued this report on risky auto loans. The report finds that there is a pronounced trend toward longer, riskier auto loans. And the long-term, more costly loans are — not surprisingly — being take out by consumers with lower credit scores who are less likely than other consumers to be able […]
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by Jeff Sovern So reports the Dallas Morning News. Representative Hensarling is a strong believer in the free market, despite the evidence that it doesn't always work. I hope that this does not mean Hensarling would be the president's nominee to run (ruin?) the CFPB, an agency that Hensarling has been extremely critical of (compare […]
The Hill reports: The director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has written an unusual plea to President Trump, asking him to save the agency's rule on forced arbitration. Richard Cordray wrote what he called a “simple, personal appeal” to Trump, asking him not to sign a resolution from Congress that would kill the CFPB rule. “Many […]
Teaching Consumer Law Conference – Santa Fe, New Mexico, 18 & 19 May 2018 The Center for Consumer Law at the University of Houston Law Center, in cooperation with the University of New Mexico School of Law, is organizing its tenth biennial international teaching consumer law conference. The subject is “Teaching Consumer Law: Where Have […]
From the CFPB: Over the past five years, student loan borrowers across the country have turned to us to submit complaints about the struggles they face when repaying their student loans. We have handled more than 50,000 student loan related complaints describing servicing breakdowns, debt collection hurdles, and “debt relief.” These complaints help us to […]
Note the wording of the headlines in some of the press coverage. This one – Wall Street wins big as Senate votes to roll back regulation allowing consumers to sue their banks — seems right in part. Yes, Congress's decision to kill the CFPB's arbitration rule may be seen as a big win on Wall Street, at […]
The Senate just passed Senate Joint Resolution 47, with Vice President Mike Pence casting the deciding vote, to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's rule barring class-action bans in consumer financial contracts. Republican Senators John Kennedy (R-Louisiana) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) joined all 48 Democratic Senators in voting against the measure. The House already passed the resolution. […]
The Ninth Circuit handed down an excellent decision on October 20, resolving an open question as to whether a class action plaintiff can seek future injunctive relief when she won’t get fooled again. This often arises with retail purchases, where a duped consumer who is on the ball enough to be a class representative is […]
The Treasury Department's report is called Limiting Consumer Choice, Expanding Costly Litigation: An Analysis of the CFPB Arbitration Rule. The first sentence of the report's conclusion (on page 17 of the report) would be laughable if the topic — access to the courts — were not so serious: "The Bureau’s Rule would upend a century of federal […]
Guest post by Emily Martin, General Counsel and Vice President for Workplace Justice. National Women's Law Center Fox News. Sterling Jewelers. Wells Fargo. What do they all have in common? For years, they successfully kept corporate wrongdoing secret, through forced arbitration. Buried in the fine print of employment contracts and consumer agreements, forced arbitration clauses prohibit you […]