Court partially vacates NJ law requiring multilingual credit-file disclosures

In 2019, New Jersey amended its state fair credit reporting act to require national credit reporting agencies to provide, upon request, credit file disclosures to New Jersey consumers in certain languages other than English. An industry association sued, alleging the statute was preempted by the federal fair credit reporting act, and violated the First Amendment. […]

Washingtonian Article on the Rise (and Fall?) of Ambiguous Restaurant Fees

Available here, the article explains the history of additional fees added by D.C. restaurants, the rationales given by supporters and defenders, and the status of enforcement and litigation efforts.

Consumer Finance Monitor Podcast: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Use of Unfairness to Regulate Discriminatory Conduct: A Discussion of the Consumer and Industry Perspectives

Here. I spoke about my recent article, Is Discrimination Unfair?, on the podcast.

Does the industry now support paternalism?

Policy battles over consumer protection often hinge on what’s better for consumers. That’s because consumer advocates often call for reforms that will aid consumers while the industry, which presumably doesn’t want to oppose proposals based simply on the position that they will cut into industry profits, instead attacks the claim that the reforms will actually […]

Study finds cybersecurity doesn’t have significant impact on identity theft

A. Oloyede, I. Ajibade, C. Obunadike, A. Phillips, O. Shittu, E. Taiwo, all of Austin Peay State University, and S. Kizor-Akaraiwe of the University of Washington have written A Review of Cybersecurity as an Effective Tool for Fighting Identity Theft across United States, 12 International Journal on Cybernetics and Informatics, No.5, (October 2023). Here is […]

California Judge Threatens to Hold Student Loan Servicers in Contempt

In 2019, a group of former for-profit college students brought a class action against the Department of Education, based on the agency’s failure to rule on their applications for borrower defense relief to their loans–or anyone else’s–for more than a year. After years of litigation, the parties reached a settlement, which was approved in November […]

3rd Circuit on Scope of CFP Act and Ratification Post-Seila Law

Nearly a year after oral argument, the Third Circuit this morning released its opinion in CFPB v. National Collegiate Master Student Loan Trust. The case is a long-running enforcement action brought by the CFPB against investment trusts that were created for the purposes of acquiring and servicing student loans, seeking to enforce civil investigative demands. […]

Richard Frankel Empirical Study of How Businesses Responded to Mass Arbitration

Richard Frankel of Drexel has written Fighting Mass Arbitration: An Empirical Study of the Corporate Response to Mass Arbitration and Its Implications for the Federal Arbitration Act. Here’s the abstract: Over the last forty years, corporations have increasingly inserted mandatory arbitration provisions into their consumer and employment contracts. Most prominently, and with the Supreme Court’s blessing, […]