by Jeff Sovern Did Congress give the CFPB the power to ban or regulate arbitration clauses in consumer financial contracts? Not according to a Pepper Hamilton partner, according to a pair of recent reports. Here's an excerpt from a piece at credit.com. The CFPB’s Arbitration Ban Could Be the Next Supreme Court Showdown: “It comes down […]
Michael S. Barr of Michigan has written Mandatory Arbitration in Consumer Finance and Investor Contracts, 11 New York University Journal of Law and Business (2015). Here is the abstract: Mandatory pre-dispute arbitration clauses are pervasive in consumer financial and investor contracts — for credit cards, bank accounts, auto loans, broker-dealer services, and many others. These […]
… reports fivethirtyeight.com. For instance: During the strong labor market of the mid-1990s, only 1 in 5 minimum-wage workers was still earning minimum wage a year later. Today, that number is nearly 1 in 3, according to my analysis of government survey data. There has been a similar rise in the number of people staying […]
Yes, very good, with the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives, says reporter Joe Nocera in this NY Times op-ed.
Today's LA Times has another story on the Fiat-Chrysler stratagem of offering customers a "friends and family" discount in return for which consumers sign away their right to sue the automaker by agreeing to arbitration. (We had a short blog entry on the subject last week.) The story points out that most consumers can get […]
…is the question raised by a New York Times expose this week. The Times reports that the U.S. Department of Education, despite a crackdown against what it calls “bad actors,” continues to hand over tens of millions of dollars every month to other for-profit schools that have been accused of predatory behavior, substandard practices or illegal […]
The CFPB announced today that it finalized a rule to improve information reported about the residential mortgage market. The rule will shed more light on consumers’ access to mortgage credit by updating the reporting requirements of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) regulation. The Bureau is working with other federal agencies to streamline the reporting […]
The New York Times reports: A large new study by the federal government found that injuries caused by dietary supplements lead to more than 20,000 emergency room visits a year, many involving young adults with cardiovascular problems after taking supplements marketed for weight loss and energy enhancement. The study is the first to document the […]
One of the issues at stake in Campbell-Ewald v. Gomez, argued yesterday, is whether a defendant can moot a case (and thereby "pick off" a plaintiff who hopes to represent a class before the class has been certified) by offering the plaintiff complete relief even if the offer is not accepted. The issue, which is […]
On Tuesday, Scott posted a N.Y. Times op-ed describing a worsening U.S. student-loan debt problem. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is also concerned. Yesterday, it posted a piece entitled New signs of trouble for student loan borrowers, focusing not only on debt burden and default rates, but also on problems student-loan debtors have with loan servicers — […]