Bloomberg reports that a "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau task force that has been criticized in the past for its pro-business leanings stands to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars to offer advice on how to 'harmonize and modernize' federal laws aimed at protecting the public." The full story is here.
Guest Post from Edward Balleisen: Readers of this blog may be interested in a new website, American Predatory Lending (APL), which explores the state-level dynamics of mortgage lending in the run-up to 2008, with an initial focus on North Carolina. Law professors who teach about consumer law and/or banking law will find a range of resources that […]
Law prof Brian Galle has written If Not Now, When: Why Won’t Universities Spend Their Money? In it, he explains why well-heeled universities should not curtail spending during economic downturns. Rather, he says, it makes sense for those schools to spend their money now, protecting the schools' workers and students in the process.
Da Lin and Daniel Schwarcz have written an op-ed, States Must Act To Cut Auto Insurance Rates During COVID-19 for Law360 (free access during the pandemic). They explain "Auto insurers are experiencing a massive windfall as a result of the coronavirus, but they are not returning a fair portion of those gains to consumers. And […]
Pamela Foohey of Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Dalié Jiménez of California, Irvine and Christopher K. Odinet of Oklahoma have written The Folly of Credit As Pandemic Relief 68 UCLA L. Rev. Disc. __ (2020 Forthcoming). Here's the abstract: Within weeks of the coronavirus pandemic appearing in the United States, the American economy came to […]
A new report from Pew describes how debt collection lawsuits have transformed state courts. Among the report's findings: Fewer people are using the courts for civil cases. Debt claims grew to dominate state civil court dockets in recent decades. People sued for debts rarely have legal representation, but those who do tend to have better […]
Shmuel I. Becher of New Zeeland's Victoria University of Wellington has written The Puzzle of Effective Consumer Protection Legislation: Challenges, Key Lessons and Design Principles, in The Law and Economics of Regulation, Mathis & Torr eds (forthcoming Springer, 2021). Here is the abstract: Legislation, even when well-intended, sometimes fails to provide the desired results. By […]
Yesterday, on behalf of a class of student borrowers, the National Consumer Law Center and Student Defense, with the support of the Student Borrower Protection Center, filed a class action lawsuit against the Department of Education and Secretary Betsy DeVos in federal district court in DC. The suit alleges that the Department is illegally garnishing […]
by Jeff Sovern Earlier this month, the CFPB issued a statement saying that during the pandemic, it would not enforce the 30-day deadlines for credit reporting agencies and furnishers to investigate reports of errors in credit reports, as long as they acted in good faith. I noted at the time that that would not appear […]
by Jeff Sovern The article is here. From being a data-driven agency, the Bureau has become a politics-driven agency. No doubt the payday industry was not hurt by spending money at a Trump hotel. The Times also reproduces the memo in question. I hope the House Financial Services Committee quickly convenes a hearing, online or […]