NBC News Story About How Potential SCOTUS Nominee Brett Kavanaugh “could reverse a century of financial regulation”

by Jeff Sovern Here.  Kavanaugh, of course, took the position in PHH that the CFPB is unconstitutional as currently structured.  Whether other potential nominees would have felt differently if they had decided PHH is unknown.

Conservative Kraninger Critic’s Op-Ed

by Jeff Sovern I don't often agree with J.W. Verret of George Mason, who formerly served as chief economist and counsel to Jeb Hensarling's House Financial Services Committee. But his warnings on CFPB director-nominee Kathy Kraninger deserve attention. Now he has written an op-ed for the National Review, Kathy Kraninger Is the Wrong Choice to Lead […]

California Supreme Court Reverses Order Compelling Yelp to Comply with Order Compelling User to Remove a Defamatory Review

by Paul Alan Levy In Hassell v. Bird, the California Supreme Court held this morning, by a narrow margin of four votes to three, that section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects Yelp against an injunction compelling it to comply with an injunction that had previously been issued against a Yelp user who had […]

Paper on the Use of Proxies to Determine Race/Ethnicity in Assessing Fair Lending

Yan Zhang of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has written Assessing Fair Lending Risks Using Race/Ethnicity Proxies, 64 Management Science (January 2018). Here is the abstract: Fair lending analysis of non-mortgage credit products often involves proxying for race/ethnicity since such information is not required to be reported. Using mortgage data, this paper […]

Not even consumer law professors routinely read consumer contracts and disclosures.

by Jeff Sovern When I surveyed consumer law professors about the content of their courses, I also asked them whether they read consumer contracts and mandated disclosures in their personal lives.  Here is an excerpt, but the article has more: Not one professor reported always reading contracts or disclosures. In contrast, 57% said they rarely or […]

My Latest Op-Ed: Mick Mulvaney turned the CFPB from a forceful consumer watchdog into a do-nothing government cog

Here.  Excerpt: Kraininger’s supporters have noted that she acquired considerable managerial experience as an associate director at the Office of Management and Budget and deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security. That may help her with management issues, but it’s hard to see how it will help her make decisions about which cases to bring […]

“8 States Impose New Rules on Equifax After Data Breach”

The New York Times reports that Equifax has agreed to a consent order with eight state financial regulators in response to the breach that allowed hackers to steal sensitive personal information on more than 147 million people last year. The order describes specific steps that Equifax must take, including conducting security audits at least once […]

Survey Results for the Content of Consumer Law Classes III

by Jeff Sovern I posted on SSRN the results of the survey I previously blogged about, The Content of Consumer Law Classes III.  This follows similar surveys in 2008 and 2010 (I bet you can guess what their titles are).  The abstract for the new version reads as follows: This paper reports on a 2018 survey of law […]