The New York Times reports: Low-income people and older Americans would find it more difficult to win lawsuits for injuries caused by medical malpractice or defective drugs or medical devices under a bill drafted by House Republicans as part of their plan to replace the Affordable Care Act. The bill would impose new limits on […]
Brian Melzer of Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and Aaron Schroeder of the CFPB have written Loan Contracting in the Presence of Usury Limits: Evidence from Automobile Lending. Here is the abstract: We study the effects of interest rate ceilings on the market for automobile loans. We find that loan contracting and the organization of […]
by Jeff Sovern During the George W. Bush administration, then-Comptroller of the Currency John Dugan, a former bank lobbyist and lawyer, aggressively protected banks by claiming that state anti-predatory lending laws were preempted as to national banks (remember the predatory lending that contributed to the Great Recession?), among other things. So this is a position […]
James Gibson of Richmond has written Boilerplate's False Dichotomy, Georgetown Law Journal, Forthcoming. Here is the abstract: The argument against enforcing boilerplate contracts (i.e., contracts that no one reads) seems clear. Indeed, if this were a court case, we would say that the jury is in; the evidence against boilerplate is overwhelming. Yet the judge […]
This article by Abha Bharrarai reviews anecdotal evidence and data from Internet searches for flights to the U.S. indicating that, as a result of Trump's travel ban, far fewer people want to travel to the U.S. for tourism, conferences, and other temporary visits. The article suggests that this phenomenon could cause great economic harm to segments of […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity is charged by statute with “providing oversight and enforcement of Federal laws intended to ensure the fair, equitable, and nondiscriminatory access to credit for both individuals and communities.” Today, the CFPB issued its 2016 Fair Lending Report. The report is here.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday issued a proposal to facilitate compliance with the 2015 updates to the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) rule. The proposed changes would help financial institutions comply with the 2015 HMDA Final Rule by clarifying the information they are required to collect and report about their mortgage lending. HMDA, which […]
From a New York Times op-ed today: When you bite into a piece of fruit, it should be a mindless pleasure. Sure, that steroidal-looking strawberry with a toothpaste-white interior doesn’t seem right to begin with. But you shouldn’t have to think about childhood brain development when layering it over your cereal. The Trump administration, in […]
The Washington Post reports that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday withdrew a series of policy memos issued by the Obama administration to strengthen consumer protections for student loan borrowers. The Education Department is in the middle of issuing new contracts to student loan servicing companies that collect payments on behalf of the agency. These […]
An op-ed on the Washington Post's website today uses the United Airlines incident as a starting point to discuss lack of consumer choice in today's world. We are told that this is the era of the empowered consumer: The savvy shopper has oodles of time to browse around, comparing prices among various retailers, perhaps consulting […]