My Latest Law Review Article: Free-Market Failure: The Wells Fargo Arbitration Clause Example

by Jeff Sovern It's for an arbitration symposium at Rutgers and is available for download here.  I would love to hear comments!  Here's the abstract: In September 2016, regulators charged Wells Fargo with opening millions of unauthorized accounts on behalf of its customers. When some of those customers filed class actions against Wells, the bank initially […]

Federal preemption (or not) and the regulation of driverless cars

Sarah Light has written about the concept of Advisory Nonpreemption, using regulation of driverless cars as an example. Here's the abstract: We are living in an era of dramatic and unpredictable technological and business innovation. Federal agencies have been at the forefront of updating substantive legal rules to meet new challenges not originally contemplated by Congress. […]

Dalie Jimenez and Others Developing Self-Help Kits for Consumers with Debt Problems

Report here. Excerpt: One of Jiménez’s biggest undertakings to date is the Financial Distress Research Project, an initiative she supervises with James Greiner and Lois Lupica, law professors at Harvard and the University of Maine law schools respectively. The goal of the enterprise – a signature project of the Access to Justice Lab at Harvard […]

House Financial Services Committee By Party Vote Passes Choice Bill To Cripple CFPB

The HIll report is here. Excerpt: The CHOICE Act also places major restraints on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an agency created by Dodd-Frank that the GOP has long called unaccountable, abusive and redundant. The bill renames the CFPB the Consumer Law Enforcement Agency and reduces its power to enforce pre-existing consumer protection laws. […]

What Would Stop Illegal Student Loan Schemes if the Choice Act is Enacted?

by Jeff Sovern Rohit Chopra senior fellow at the Consumer Federation of America and formerly student loan ombudsman at the CFPB, testified last week on the Choice Act and listed a few of student loan cases that could not have been brought under the Choice Act.  Here is his list: While many know of Wells Fargo’s […]