by Jeff Sovern Story here. The joke is courtesy of my brother-in-law, Ray Conley.
Category Archives: Unfair & Deceptive Acts & Practices (UDAP), including Discrimination
The SBPC issued a report, DISCRIMINATION IS "UNFAIR": Interpreting UDA(A)P to Prohibit Discrimination. Here's the Executive Summary: This Article explores a theory that discrimination is a type of “unfair” practice covered by federal and state laws prohibiting unfair, deceptive (and sometimes abusive) acts and practices (“UDA(A)Ps”). An “unfair” practice is defined by statute as something […]
by Jeff Sovern Last year we blogged about the CFPB's disappointing abusiveness policy statement. But things are different this year and the Bureau has wisely rescinded the Policy Statement, saying that it "was inconsistent with the Bureau’s duty to enforce Congress’s standard and rescinding it will better serve the CFPB’s objective to protect consumers from […]
Shmuel I. Becher of Victoria University of Wellington, Yuval Feldman of Bar-Ilan University, and Meirav Furth of UCLA have written Seductive Oral Deals. Here's the abstract: Legal scholars have devoted considerable attention to contractual design that exploits consumers’ vulnerabilities (“the paper deal”). For example, scholars have cautioned against the inclusion of one-sided, exploitative, or unenforceable […]
Amy Widman of Rutgers has written Protecting Consumer Protection: Filling the Federal Enforcement Gap, 69 Buffalo Law Review __ (2021) (Forthcoming). Here is the abstract: Since 2014, when a first-of-its-kind empirical study looked at how public enforcers use their authority under UDAP laws, the enforcement landscape has changed. Most notably, the Trump Administration has weakened […]
by Jeff Sovern On Friday, the CFPB issued a Policy Statement on Abusive Acts or Practices. The Policy Statement is disappointing in several respects. First, it is intended to address a problem that has never been shown to exist. The Bureau explained that the Policy Statement is designed to ensure that “uncertainty does not impede or […]
Here, in The Conversation, by Anthony Dukes, Professor of Marketing, University of Southern California and Yi Zhu, Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Minnesota. Excerpt: Many complaint processes are actually designed to help companies retain profits by limiting the number of customers who can successfully resolve their complaints. Only by insisting to talk to a manager or […]
Yonathan A. Arbel of Alabama and Roy Shapira of the Stigler Center, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, have written Theory of the Nudnik: The Future of Consumer Activism and What We Can Do to Stop it, forthcoming in the Vanderbilt Law Review. Here's the abstract: How do consumers hold sellers accountable and enforce market […]
by Jeff Sovern From Politico's Morning Money Newsletter: KRANINGER PROMISES CLARITY — Our Victoria Guida: “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger said … her agency will soon provide more clarity on what constitutes an ‘abusive practice’ by sellers of financial products, tackling an issue that has dogged policymakers since the financial crisis. … More broadly, […]