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 […]
PHH was the case that held that the CFPB's structure is unconstitutional and that the remedy was to provide that the CFPB director could be fired without cause. The petition is here. It describes that case as "what may be the most important separation-of-powers case in a generation." National Law Journal coverage (behind paywall) here. […]
Associated Press reports: New York's attorney general says President-elect Donald Trump has agreed to a $25 million settlement to resolve three lawsuits over Trump University, his former school for real estate investors. The deal announced Friday by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman would settle two class-action lawsuits in California and a civil suit filed by Schneiderman. […]
The Department of Justice plays a role in consumer protection. So for that reason (and there are plenty of others), our readers may want to meet our next attorney general (assuming Mr. Trump's nominee is confirmed). See this article by Ari Berman.
Here. And here is the abstract: Though few realize it, forced arbitration clauses are endemic in today’s marketplace — hidden in credit card agreements, bank accounts, corporate social media pages, even Starbucks gift cards. More than half a billion arbitration provisions infiltrate our everyday lives. Despite their prevalence, few consumers are aware of the forced […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has announced a request for information regarding consumer access to financial records: The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act provides for consumer rights to access financial account and account-related data in usable electronic form. The [CFPB] is seeking comments from the public about consumer access to such information, including […]
Since the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau began accepting mortgage complaints in 2012, it has received more than 12,500 mortgage complaints from servicemembers, veterans, and their families. In a new report, the CFPB reviews and analyzes about 1,800 of those complaints related to mortgage refinancing. The report finds that veterans complain that "the solicitations and advertisements they […]