by Jeff Sovern During his testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, Acting CFPB Director Mulvaney said that he had met with consumer advocates as much as he has met with industry representatives (or something to that effect; I can't remember the exact words). I've seen reports of Mulvaney meeting with industry groups (see here, […]
Dalié Jiménez of Irvine, Connecticut and Harvard has written Ending Perpetual Debts, 55 Houston Law Review (2018). Here is the abstract: Consumer debts in the United States can effectively live (and grow) forever: most statutes of limitations do not extinguish them; they can morph into relatives’ obligations after the debtor’s death; and they sometimes rise from […]
by Jeff Sovern The Hill has the story here. Among the confirmed commissioners is Rohit Chopra, formerly of the Consumer Federation of America and the CFPB, and a strong consumer advocate. The other commissioners would be wise to follow his lead on consumer protection matters.
The Ars Technica blog reports that "Verizon is forcing users of Yahoo services to waive their class-action rights and agree to resolve disputes through arbitration. Yahoo users who don't agree to the new terms will be cut off from the services, though Verizon hasn't said exactly when the cutoff date is." The blog post is […]
The Wall Street Journal reports that the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has floated the idea of not enforcing lending rules for poor people based on the location of a bank’s physical branches. People familiar with the matter said the OCC privately sought other regulators’ input on eliminating the concept of geographic […]
by Jeff Sovern Earlier this week, Acting BCFP Director John Michael Mulvaney made statements suggesting that he was going to keep complaints to the Bureau secret. Here's the quote, as reported by Rachel Witkowski in The American Banker: “I don’t see anything in here that says I have to make all of this public,” he […]
The Federal Trade Commission has charged the LendingClub Corporation with falsely promising consumers that they would receive a loan with “no hidden fees,” when, in actuality, the company deducted hundreds or even thousands of dollars in hidden up-front fees from the loans. The FTC’s complaint alleges that Lending Club recognized that its hidden fee was a […]
by Jeff Sovern Acting CFPB Director John Michael Mulvaney, known as "Mick," has been making a big deal about the fact that the name of the CFPB, or Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the Dodd-Frank Act is the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection (or BCFP), even asking that the Associated Press change its stylebook accordingly. […]
By Jeff Sovern During next month’s Teaching Consumer Law Conference, I intend to survey the audience about what topics they would like to have in a consumer law casebook, as part of the process of preparing the fifth edition of our consumer law casebook (with Dee Pridgen and Chris Peterson). I plan to ask whether […]
by Jeff Sovern Hudson Cook partner Allen Denson has written an op-ed for the American Banker, Clock's ticking: White House should name a permanent CFPB director, in which he expresses fear that the Democrats will capture the Senate in the fall, with the result that Democrats will have a say, through the confirmation process, on whom the […]