by Jeff Sovern Here is the report in the NY Times (behind a paywall). Wells filed its arbitration motion on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. So Wells is using a secret system for adjudicating claims, agreed to by consumers who didn't understand what arbitration clauses mean, and invoked it at a time when people are less likely […]
by Jeff Sovern John Dugan, a former bank lobbyist, was the Comptroller of the Currency during the George W. Bush Administration. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency was then seen by some as an aggressive protector of banks. Among the reasons: the OCC took the position that state anti-predatory lending laws were preempted by […]
Aditya Bamzai of Virginia argues that he could here. Excerpt: [The] premise [that the president has to let the litigation runs its course] appears to rest on two mistaken assumptions: (1) that the President cannot exercise his removal authority absent an Article III judgment authorizing such removal, especially when a pending case may address the very […]
We have blogged several times (for instance, here and here) about the new U.S. Labor Department rule that significantly raises the pay threshold that triggers exceptions to the general rule that workers must be paid 1.5 times their ordinary pay for every hour they work over 40 per week. In plain English, that means overtime pay for […]
That's one of the questions addressed by the Wall Street Journal in an article headlined Financial Regulators Scramble to Complete Postcrisis Rules. (behind paywall). Excerpt: “This type of ’midnight rulemaking’ is neither conducive to sound policy nor consistent with principles of democratic accountability,” Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told […]
by Jeff Sovern The column is titled The future isn't bright for highly successful consumer watchdog. Excerpt: A stopgap government funding bill passed in September will expire Dec. 9. It’s widely expected that conservative members of Congress will include language in follow-up funding legislation that would change how the bureau operates and the scope of its […]
That's the topic of These Professors Make More Than a Thousand Bucks an Hour Peddling Mega-Mergers, a ProPublica piece by Jesse Eisinger and Justin Elliott. The sub-title of the piece summarizes its thesis: "The economists are leveraging their academic prestige with secret reports justifying corporate concentration. Their predictions are often wrong and consumers pay the price." […]
MarketWatch has a new article explaining why forced arbitration provisions have keep students at for-profit colleges from "get[ting] a Trump University-type outcome" when the students have alleged that their schools have defrauded them. The article also discusses the Department of Education's new rule cutting federal funding to schools that use forced arbitration provisions with their […]
From an op-ed in today's Times, Climate Change in Trump’s Age of Ignorance, by Robert N. Proctor (behind paywall): [S]science was one of the instruments used by Big Tobacco to carry out its denial (and distraction) campaign. Cigarette makers had met at the Plaza Hotel in New York City on Dec. 14, 1953, to plan […]