The Federal Trade Commission staff has provided its 2020 Annual Financial Acts Enforcement Report to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on its enforcement and related activities regarding the Truth in Lending Act, Consumer Leasing Act, and Electronic Fund Transfer Act. The report highlights the FTC’s enforcement actions related to automobile purchases and financing, payday lending, […]
by Jeff Sovern Last week, I suggested that the CFPB adopt a new arbitration rule. Yesterday, Ballard Spahr's Mark Levin commented on my proposal, in a blog post titled Professor Sovern’s opt-in arbitration proposal is neither new nor supportable. This post responds to some of Mr. Levin's arguments. Mr. Levin wrote that my suggestion would […]
Here. Excerpt: * * With no announcement, the company recently changed its terms of service to allow customers to file lawsuits. Already, it faces at least three proposed class actions, including one brought May 18 alleging the company’s Alexa-powered Echo devices recorded people without permission. The retail giant made the change after plaintiffs’ lawyers flooded […]
Here, in an article by Kate Berry. The article is behind a paywall but should soon be available on Lexis if it isn't already.
Paolina C. Medina of Texas A&M University and Jose L. Negrin of the Banco de Mexico have written The Hidden Role of Contract Terms: Evidence from Credit Card Minimum Payments in Mexico, Management Science (2021). Here is the abstract: This paper argues that thresholds in financial contracts act as implicit nudges in consumers’ decisions. Exploiting […]
The American Economic Association has a report on the study here. The actual paper, Is No News (Perceived As) Bad News? An Experimental Investigation of Information Disclosure by Ginger Zhe Jin, Michael Luca, & Daniel Martin, is here. Here's the abstract: This paper uses laboratory experiments to directly test a central prediction of disclosure theory: that […]
by Jeff Sovern I have a suggestion for the CFPB relating to arbitration. Many readers will know this background, but for those who don't: in 2010, Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Act, which in section 1028 directed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to study arbitration. The statute also authorized the Bureau to regulate consumer financial arbitration […]
Many of our readers are consumer lawyers. Many of them handle complex, aggregated litigation, so they may be interested in Collected Wisdom on Selecting Leaders and Managing MDLs by law professor Elizabeth Burch and U.S. district judge Stephen Bough. Here is the abstract: Today, nearly one out of every two new suits filed in federal […]
by Jeff Sovern Here. [Disclosure: the website is put up by AAJ, which gave St. John's a grant to fund some of my research back in 2015]
by Jeff Sovern Blankenstein's essay appears in the National Review. Bureau-watchers may recall that Blankenstein served as an associate director at the Bureau during the Trump administration but left after a rebellion over blog posts he had written a decade earlier questioning whether use of the n-word is racist, among other things. Here's the opening […]