In a rare win for a plaintiff in a Supreme Court case involving class actions and arbitration, the Court ruled today in Oxford Health Plans LLC v. Sutter that an arbitrator's decision to allow class rather than individual arbitration had to be accepted by the courts. What was decisive in the case was that the plaintiff […]
Although I am not able to find the announcement or the rule on the Bureau's website, Mondaq is reporting that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has issued a rule to implement Dodd-Frank's ban on mandatory arbitration clauses in mortgage contracts. The rule is available here. The rule implements changes required by Section 1414 of the […]
Read Senator Whitehouse's essay. Here's the intro: In recent years corporations have racked up significant victories before the U.S. Supreme Court — a corporate windfall that has come at the expense of Americans who are unable to win redress for their injuries. These decisions have also worked an often overlooked harm: They have made it […]
by Brian Wolfman As many of our readers know, the Dodd-Frank financial reform law authorizes the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to regulate consumer arbitration. Under that law, the CFPB must conduct a study of consumer arbitration and then issue a report to Congress before it does anything to regulate pre-dispute aribtration clauses in consumer finance […]
Paul M. Schwartz of Berkeley and Daniel J. Solove of George Washington have written Reconciling Personal Information in the United States and European Union. Herer's the abstract: US and EU privacy law diverge greatly. At the foundational level, they diverge in their underlying philosophy: In the US, privacy law focuses on redressing consumer harm and […]
On Thursday, the FTC and CFPB held a joint roundtable titled Life of a Debt: Data Integrity in Debt Collection. Journalist Fred Williams has a report at the Taking Charge blog. An except: At Thursday's meeting, [debt buyer and industry association president Richard] Munroe and other debt buyers didn't repeat the argument the collection industry […]
Here. And an FTC infographic below:
As you will recall, in late April, the Supreme Court decided McBurney v. Young, holding unanimously that neither the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Article IV nor the dormant Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution prevents a state from limiting the right of access to the state's public records to its own citizens. (For […]
Lewis A. Grossman of American has written FDA and the Rise of the Empowered Consumer. Here's the abstract: This paper traces the historical evolution of a view of consumers as informed, rational, and rights-bearing decision makers, and the corresponding diminution of FDA’s role as a paternalistic gatekeeper acting in conjunction with medical and scientific experts […]