Here, in The Intercept. Excerpt:
Trump has sent out his lead attack dog to overturn the arbitration rule — a former bank lawyer who has used the very tactic the CFPB wants to prevent. [Dayen describes how Wells Fargo attempted to use arbitration to deflect a class action in Gutierrez v. Wells Fargo.]
* * *
Banks have a lot riding on the CFPB rule. Luckily for Wells Fargo, a former senior attorney of theirs is now a top federal regulator. In fact, Keith Noreika worked on that class-action defense in Gutierrez v. Wells Fargo before becoming the acting chair of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. [As we have reported, Norieka has expressed concerns about the arbitration rule]
* * *
On Tuesday, Sherrod Brown, ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, wrote to Noreika about his objections. Brown noted that the CFPB made its rule and the research behind it publicly available for two years, and collaborated with safety and soundness regulators throughout the rule-making process. OCC never raised any objections in that time, even after Noreika was named acting chair. * * *
Brown also cited a case study in the CFPB’s 2015 arbitration report, * * * The CFPB found that consumers benefited from class actions in the overdraft case, while those barred saw little restitution.
“It is especially surprising that you are not familiar with these outcomes,” Brown wrote. “Previously, as an attorney in private practice, you represented Wells Fargo in just such a case, and attempted to quash a class action brought by consumers harmed in exactly the same way by invoking Wells Fargo’s forced arbitration clause.”
