A new public safety tool is now available: an online database of state worker health and safety requirements in the 25 states with a federally-approved occupational safety and health enforcement agency. The database was created by Public Citizen and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Public Health Law Research program. You can access the database on […]
As the New York Times reported earlier this month, The Bank of New York Mellon will pay $714 million to settle accusations that it cheated government pension funds and other investors for more than a decade, federal and state authorities announced on Thursday. It is part of a deal requiring the bank to dismiss some […]
From an EarthJustice press release issued this morning: Today, a broad coalition of health, firefighter, consumer and science groups filed a petition asking the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to ban four categories of consumer products—children’s products, furniture, mattresses and the casings around electronics—if they contain any flame retardant in the chemical class known as […]
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday announced that has initiated enforcement action against a nationwide debt collector National Corrective Group and its chief executive officer for using deceptive threats of criminal prosecution and jail time to intimidate consumers into paying debts for bounced checks. The company also misled consumers into believing that they must enroll in […]
Two editorials yesterday about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposal to regulate payday lenders. (Our post about the proposal, with a link to it, is here.) A New York Times editorial gives strong support for the proposed rule: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took the most important step in its brief four-year history this week when […]
Max N. Helveston of DePaul has written Judicial Deregulation of Consumer Markets, forthcoming in the Cardozo Law Review. Here's the abstract: The dangers posed by insufficiently regulated consumer markets are both real and monumental. While the rights of consumers expanded drastically in the mid-to-late twentieth century, these protections have weakened in the new millennium. […]
by Jeff Sovern Last Friday, I posted a comment on Alan Kaplinsky’s remarks, quoted in the Bloomberg Business story, Bank Customers May Get Their Day in Court, about the CFPB arbitration report. Alan replied in a post captioned “Sovern v. Kaplinsky.” Here I offer a rebuttal. In my original post, I expressed the view that […]
The Hill reports that on a party-line vote, "[t]he Senate Budget Committee added an amendment to the GOP budget that would subject the agency’s budget to the congressional appropriations process. Currently, the CFPB receives its funding directly from the Federal Reserve, and bureau advocates argue that giving appropriators control would allow Republicans to starve the […]
Seeking to help consumers avoid becoming trapped in a cycle of debt, the CFPB announced today that it is considering new rules that would require payday lenders to take steps to make sure that borrowers can repay their loans. The Bureau's press release explains the problem: For consumers living paycheck to paycheck, the short timeframe […]
The CFPB's field hearing on payday lending is underway, and is being livestreamed at the Bureau's website. Watch it here.