Please keep Katie Porter on the House Financial Services Committee

by Jeff Sovern The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Representative Katie Porter may be dropped from the House Financial Services Committee.  As someone who has regularly listened to House Financial Services Committee hearings on consumer matters for years, I believe that would be a huge loss. I cannot think of anyone who has been […]

8 states sue to block the OCC’s ‘True Lender’ Rule

From the States' press release: Attorneys general from New York, California and several other states sued on Tuesday to block the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's recently finalized "true lender" rule, a measure that the states argue is unlawful and stands to facilitate predatory lending. In a complaint filed in New York federal […]

CFPB Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law Issued its Report

by Jeff Sovern The report is here. I played hooky from the AALS Financial Serices & Consumer Financial Services program to listen to the Bureau's simultaneous event to release the report (don't tell Rory Van Loo). I haven't read the voluminous report but some comments on the remarks at the event: I learned that when […]

Article finds benefits from California law requiring disclosure of chemicals causing cancer

Claudia Polsky of Berkeley and Megan Schwarzman of Berkeley's School of Public Health have written The Hidden Success of a Conspicuous Law: Proposition 65 and the Reduction of Toxic Chemical Exposures, 47 Ecology Law Quarterly, (Forthcoming 2021). Here is the abstract: Newcomers to California could be forgiven for thinking they have crossed into treacherous terrain. By virtue […]

CFPB’s Consumer Finance Law Taskforce expected to issue 90-100 recommendations on January 5

by Jeff Sovern The CFPB has posted to its website an announcement that it will hold an event on January 5 to announce the "findings, analyses, and recommendations" of its Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law. Regular blog readers will recall that the Taskforce is not very diverse in a variety of ways. Earlier this […]

Becher & Sibony paper: the law and policy of product obsolescence

Shmuel I. Becher of Victoria University of Wellington and Anne-Lise Sibony of UCLouvain; TILEC have written In Search of a Lasting Lightbulb Moment: The Law and Policy of Product Obsolescence. Here's the abstract: Firms frequently employ various strategies that make products obsolete after a relatively short time or limited usage (“product obsolescence”). Early product obsolescence harms […]

Is there “take-home” liability for an employer’s negligence in causing transmission of Covid-19 (as there is sometimes in the asbestos context)?

That's the question addressed in Employer Liability for 'Take-Home' COVID-19 by Mark Rothstein and Julia Irzyk (forthcoming in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics). Here is the abstract: Workplace exposure to SARS-CoV-2 has been a source of morbidity and mortality from COVID-19, especially for “essential workers,” such as those employed in health care and […]