by Jeff Sovern The CFPB has announced the new members of its Consumer Advisory Board: the new board has fewer members than the old one–meaning fewer viewpoints are represented–and the members will serve for shorter terms, making it harder for them to accumulate relevant experience with board service. I wonder if this is just an […]
Student loan debt has jumped from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion in the last 5 years. The Education Department's official default rates voanews seriously understate the share of young borrowers who default, or are not able to repay their loans. In the face of the growing student loan debt crisis, the Administration's corrupt policy is […]
Andrea Chandrasekher and David Horton, both of California, Davis, have written Arbitration Nation: Data from Four Providers, 109 California Law Review. Here's the abstract: Forced arbitration has long been controversial. In the 1980s, the Supreme Court expanded the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), sparking debate about whether private dispute resolution is an elegant alternative to litigation or a rigged […]
The New York Times reports: After the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, started scaling back consumer protections for student borrowers last year, six states and the District of Columbia sped up their own efforts to crack down on abusive lending practices by companies that administer federal loan programs. Now Ms. DeVos is trying to stop them. […]
The Hill reports that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is calling on Congress to come up with a federal privacy standard in order to preempt states from passing their own laws governing data collection. The article is here.
by Jeff Sovern Remember all the posturing in the congressional hearings and elsewhere after the Equifax breach that affected more than 140 million consumers? But a year later, little has changed, at least in Washington (litigation is still pending). Wouldn't it be nice if the members of Congress who expressed outrage actually did something to […]
We have received the following call for papers appearing below. This one looks especially exciting for consumer law scholars: it's at an elite law school and has an impressive roster of organizers. The Berkeley Center for Consumer Law and Economic Justice, its director Ted Mermin, and co-organizers Abbye Atkinson, Kathleen Engel, Rory Van Loo, and […]
In a new article, The Discovery Tax, law prof Brian Fitzpatrick proposes a litigation discovery tax. Generally, the scheme would impose more tax on consumer, civil-rights, and other plaintiffs (because plaintiffs tend to have more to discover from defendants than the other way around). Here is the abstract: The American civil discovery regime is what […]
Reuters is reporting that the CFPB and Santander have reached a settlement regarding allegations that the auto finance lender misled borrowers about the cost of auto loans and related GAP insurance policies. According to the story, Santander has “agreed to pay a fine and strengthen its consumer protections,” but the size of the fine is […]
The Washington Post, addressing the current work of the CFPB and the Department of Education, had editorials yesterday and today pertinent to student loans and higher education: Read "The Trump administration’s scandalous handling of student loans," here. Read "How Betsy DeVos could trigger another financial meltdown," here. The New York Times, addressing proposed changes by […]