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Consumer Law

CL&P Blog

The contributors to this blog are a diverse group of lawyers and law professors who practice, teach, or write about consumer law and policy. Although the blog is hosted by Public Citizen's Consumer Justice Project, the views expressed here are solely those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions with which they are affiliated.

Post Frequency: 15.1/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 11:13:04

Report on the American Council on Consumer Interests Conference

Posted on April 18, 2010
by Jeff Sovern Some comments on the Annual Conference of the American Council on Consumer Interests (ACCI), which I attended last week: ACCI seems to be made up largely of people who study consumer matters, including something called consumer science,...

New Studies on the Effect of Federal Preemption of State Lending Laws on the Foreclosure Crisis

Posted on April 12, 2010
by Deepak Gupta A new study, The Preemption Effect: The Impact of Federal Preemption of State Anti-Predatory Lending Laws on the Foreclosure Crisis (PDF), conducted by UNC-Chapel Hill's Center for Community Capital, concludes that federal action to exempt large national...

Texas Consumer Laws Prevented Banking Crisis

Posted on April 12, 2010
by Richard Alderman Paul Krugman's editorial in the New York Times today compares the results of the financial crisis in Georgia with Texas, noting that Texas did not face similar problems. He states, "Why didn?t the same thing happen in...

NCLC Practice Tools

Posted on April 09, 2010
This monthly update lists news re new NCLC practice tools, including a consumer attorney fee survey, free webinars, new case summaries, and other aids: 1. Consumer attorney fee survey showing hourly rates and other firm characteristics is now available on...

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American Bankers Association Predicts Tougher Federal Rules Will Reduce Availability of Credit

Posted on April 09, 2010
by Jeff Sovern The rules in question extended the HOEPA loan protections to more subprime loans. The thing is, they were adopted by the Fed in 2000, over objections by the ABA that they would reduce the availability of credit....

More Coverage of Rent-A-Center v. Jackson

Posted on April 08, 2010
by Deepak Gupta Last week, I blogged about Rent-a-Center v. Jackson, a very important arbitration case that will be argued before the U.S. Supreme Court on April 26. My post focused on the bottom-side amicus briefs in the case, particularly...

GM Claims It Is on the Road to Profits, Will Pay Back Government Bailout by June

Posted on April 07, 2010
We reported here last December that Bank of America paid back its $45 billion government bailout. And now General Motors claims that it has positive cash flow, will turn a profit in 2010, and will pay back its federal bailout...

George Bailey, Where Have You Gone?

Posted on April 07, 2010
Once upon a time, banks and thrifts served the important function of intermediating savings deposits and home mortgage loans. Those days are gone. My shiny new Mortgage Market Statistical Annual reveals that 86% of all mortgages, first and second, in...

A Bank President on the CFPA

Posted on April 07, 2010
by Jeff Sovern According to the News and Record of Greensboro, North Carolina, here's what one bank president said of the CFPA proposal: The consequences to the consumer will be equal or worse than what they?re trying to legislate away,?...

Mortgage Crisis Update: Treasury Tinkers with Failed HAMP Program, Delinquencies and Foreclosures Stubbornly Refuse to Go Away

Posted on April 03, 2010
By Alan White While the stimulus package and bank bailouts have treated the symptoms of the crisis and saved the banking and mortgage finance systems from collapse, the foreclosure crisis itself is about as bad as ever. As the foreclosure...

More Regulatory Change from the Obama Administration: Fuel Economy and Montaintop Coal Mining

Posted on April 02, 2010
The Obama Administration has made official its deal with the auto industry to increase average fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. Those vehicles will have to average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016. It's estimated that these requirements...

Ann Graham Article on the CFPA

Posted on April 02, 2010
Ann Graham of Texas Tech has written The Consumer Financial Protection Agency: Love It or Hate It, U.S. Financial Regulation Needs It, forthcoming in the Villanova Law Review. Here's the abstract: As the U.S. economy begins a tentative recovery from....

Register now for Consumer Law Conference

Posted on April 01, 2010
Registration is now open for ?Teaching Consumer Law in the New Economy,? to be held May 21-22 in Houston, Texas. Presented by the Center for Consumer Law at the University of Houston Law Center, the Conference is designed for anyone...

Should A Company's Hand-Picked Arbitrator Get to Decide Whether Its Fair for the Company to Hand Pick the Arbitrator?

Posted on April 01, 2010
by Deepak Gupta Even prominent arbitrators agree: Decisions about whether arbitration clauses in the consumer and employment context are unconscionable shouldn't be left entirely in the hands of arbitrators themselves. Instead, courts must be able to step in and prevent...

April 6 Webinar with Elizabeth Warren on the CFPA

Posted on April 01, 2010
Next week, on Tuesday, April 6th from 4:00-4:45pm EST, Americans for Financial Reform is hosting a special webinar discussion with Professor Elizabeth Warren and AFR Director Heather Booth for the general public. It will focus on where things stand in...

Seven things that sound like an April?s Fool joke but aren?t

Posted on April 01, 2010
by Steve Gardner 1. Denny?s ?Grand Slamwich (two scrambled eggs, sausage, crispy bacon, shaved ham, mayonnaise and American cheese on potato bread grilled with a maple spice spread. Served with crispy hash browns)? ? for those who don?t get enough...

OCC Does About Face, Says It Supports An Independent Consumer Agency

Posted on April 01, 2010
Shahien Nasiripour at Huffington Post has the story: After months of criticizing the Obama administration's proposal to create a consumer-focused agency dedicated to protecting borrowers from abusive lenders, the nation's top big-bank regulator has reversed course...

Public Citizen Wins Supreme Court Victory Allowing Class Actions in Federal Court!

Posted on March 31, 2010
The U.S. Supreme Court today decided that state laws barring class actions can't trump federal court rules allowing them. The case, Shady Grove Orthopedic Associates v. Allstate Insurance Company, was argued by Public Citizen's Scott Nelson. Congratulations, Scott! Today's decision,...

Bankers Were for Separating Safety and Soundness Regulation from Consumer Protection Before They Were Against It

Posted on March 31, 2010
Here's a quote from Elizabeth Warren's op-ed yesterday in Politico, referring to the 2006 filing from the American Bankers Association: In 2006, the ABA claimed to act on principle as it railed against an interagency guidance designed to exercise some...

Recent Opt-out and Opt-in News

Posted on March 29, 2010
by Jeff Sovern Two recent developments illustrate anew the difference between opt-outs and opt-ins. As the New York Times reported last month, JPMorgan Chase is bombarding customers with mailings urging them to opt in to over the limit fees on...

More on the Dodd Bill's Consumer Protection Veto Council

Posted on March 28, 2010
by Jeff Sovern As we've noted in the past, Senator Dodd's bill subjects the proposed consumer financial protection bureau to a veto by a two-thirds vote of a Financial Stability Oversight Council. Raj Date, Executive Director, Cambridge Winter Center for...

Obama Administration Plans to Move More Aggressively to Help Consumers Facing Foreclosure

Posted on March 26, 2010
The lead story in today's Washington Post explains that the Obama Administration is planning to overhaul its aid program for consumers facing foreclosure. Apparently, the Administration believes that its current program is not helping enough, particularly in light of persistent...

Massachusetts Attorney General Settles Massive Predatory Lending Case With Countrywide Financial

Posted on March 25, 2010
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley yesterday settled predatory mortgage lending allegations against Countrywide Financial Corporation (now owned by Bank of America), claimed to require $3.1 billion worth of loan modifications nationwide. Building on a 2008 settlement by 44 state attorneys...

Take consumer watchdog off the Fed's leash: Sen. Chris Dodd's bill will weaken a critical new agency

Posted on March 25, 2010
by Jeff Sovern I have an op-ed in today's New York Daily News on the placement of the consumer financial protection bureau within the Fed. Here are the first three paragraphs: Just imagine that years before the subprime crisis hit,...

New Federal Student Loan Law

Posted on March 25, 2010
Tucked away in the health care reconciliation legislation that awaits President Obama's signature is landmark student loan legislation. Among other things, it makes federally subsidized and guaranteed student loans largely the province of the federal government, cutting out private bank...

More on the Independence (or Not) of the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection in Senator Dodd's Financial Reform Bill

Posted on March 24, 2010
Recent CLP posts here, here, and here have commented on the fact that Senator Dodd's financial reform bill does not create an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency but rather establishes a consumer protection bureau within the Federal Reserve whose regulations...

Constitutional Challenges to Health Care Reform: Florida, et al. v. HHS and Virginia v. Sebelius

Posted on March 23, 2010
by Deepak Gupta A few minutes after the President signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act today, Virginia Solicitor General Duncan Getchell left his office and walked across the street to the federal courthouse in Richmond, where he filed...

Dodd Financial Reform Bill Approved in Committee

Posted on March 22, 2010
The Financial Reform bill sponsored by Senator Chris Dodd passed the Senate Banking Committee today on a party line 13-10 vote and now heads to the full Senate. Our earlier coverage of the bill is linked from this post.

Chamber of Commerce Will Not Work to Repeal Health Care Reform

Posted on March 22, 2010
The Chamber knows when to fold 'em. As the Chamber's President Thomas Donahue puts it: "If people want to try and repeal [the health care reform legislation], let them. We're not going to spend any capital on that." On this...

Streamlined Rulemaking for the FTC?s Consumer Protection Mission?

Posted on March 21, 2010
Guest Post by Dee Pridgen I was recently invited to testify at the March 17 hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance on some proposed FTC reforms that had previously been passed as...

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