Sumit Agarwal of the National University of Singapore and Douglas D. Evanoff of the Chicago Fed have written Loan Product Steering in Mortgage Market. Here's the abstract: Accusations of unscrupulous lender behavior — e.g., predatory lending — abounded during the housing boom of the 2000s. Such behavior is said to have generated significant social costs […]
See here for this new report on banking shenanigans. Here's the gist: When an outside analysis uncovered serious flaws with thousands of home loans, JPMorgan Chase executives found an easy fix. Rather than disclosing the full extent of problems like fraudulent home appraisals and overextended borrowers, the bank adjusted the critical reviews, according to documents […]
by Brian Wolfman It's nice to see the FTC shutting down unscrupulous, outrageous debt collectors. In this complaint filed last month, the FTC charged a debt collection company called Goldman Schwartz and related defendants with a variety of violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the Federal Trade Commission Act. As explained in […]
On Monday, we told you about one company's efforts to bring its challenge to President Obama's recess appointments before the U.S. Supreme Court. The challenge came in the form of an emergency stay application directed to Justice Ginsburg, which she wasted no time in denying. The challenger — a company, known as HealthBridge Management, that […]
by Brian Wolfman California legislators are considering requiring used car sellers to fix cars subject to government safety recalls before they re-sell those cars to unsuspecting customers. The idea is that consumers should not be buying used cars that the government says have bad brakes or faulty, fire-prone wiring. Legislation on the topic could affect […]
Here. This should be read by anyone interested in consumer protection.
The conference is titled ""What is Urban Law Today? A Symposium on the Field’s Past, Present, and Future in Honor of the Urban Law Journal’s 40th Anniversary. It will be be held on February 28, 2013 at Fordham’s Lincoln Center Campus. The consumer law panel, on consumer protection by local governments, is scheduled for 2:10pm-3:00pm. Speakers […]
Michael Hiltzik at the LA Times thinks so. Read his column "Congress's horse-and-buggy computer laws" to find out why he says federal computer laws aimed mainly at protecting intellectual property are hurting ordinary consumers and need to be re-thought.
So much is being written about Republican opposition to confirmation of the CFPB's director, Richard Cordray, that it's hard to keep up with it all. But a couple of recent pieces pull a lot together and are worth a look. One is Nobel Laureate and Times columnist Paul Krugman's op-ed yesterday, Friends of Fraud, about […]
We have blogged several times (here, here, here, here, and here) about the Federal Trade Commission's challenges to "pay-to-delay" settlements between brand-name and generic drug companies, in which the brand-name company pays the generic to delay selling a generic equivalent of the brand-name drug. The Legal Times reports that the new chair of the Senate's […]