Consumer Law & Policy Blog

CFPB's Brief in PHH

Here.

Free or low-cost options for tax preparation

Tobie Stanger has posted this piece at Consumer Reports comparing no-cost and low-cost tax preparation options from the major commercial tax preparation companies and the IRS.

Rutgers Arbitration Symposium This Friday

by Jeff Sovern

More here.  One panel is on the CFPB proposed arbitration rule (I'm on that one) and consumer arbitration; another is on FAA preemption and nursing home arbitration; a third is on ADR in practice.

Emily Bazelon's and Eric Posner's Disturbing Op-Ed on What Gorsuch Could Mean for Consumer Protection, Among Other Things

It's titled The Government Gorsuch Wants to Undo.  All of it is worth reading, but here's an excerpt:

Judge Gorsuch embraces a judicial philosophy that would do nothing less than undermine the structure of modern government — including the rules that keep our water clean, regulate the financial markets and protect workers and consumers. In strongly opposing the administrative state, Judge Gorsuch is in the company of incendiary figures like the White House adviser Steve Bannon, who has called for its “deconstruction.” The Republican-dominated House, too, has passed a bill designed to severely curtail the power of federal agencies.

* * *

What would happen if agencies could not make rules for the financial industry and for consumer, environmental and workplace protection? Decades of experience in the United States and around the world teach that the administrative state is a necessary part of the modern market economy. With Judge Gorsuch on the Supreme Court, we will be one step closer to testing that premise.

Article on Agencies Seeking Admissions of Guilt in Settlements

Verity Winship and Jennifer K. Robbennolt of Illinois have written Admissions of Guilt in Civil Enforcement, Minnesota Law Review, Vol. 101 (Forthcoming). Here is the abstract:

Should agencies require admissions of guilt from the targets of civil enforcement? Administrative agencies rely heavily on settlement as a key enforcement tool. Admissions of guilt - or, more commonly, declarations that nothing is admitted - form part of these settlement agreements and the underlying negotiations. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has come under particular fire for allowing enforcement targets to settle while neither admitting nor denying allegations, and we use its policy changes as a case study. But our observations are aimed more broadly at civil enforcement across agencies and our examples come from a wide range of administrative agencies. We use the explicit debate over the SEC’s practices to draw attention to the high (and mostly unexamined) stakes of admissions for enforcement throughout the administrative system.

The article identifies possible enforcement models and provides a nuanced account of what it means to make and require admissions. Although the policy choice is often portrayed as binary - either an agency requires admissions or it does not - the reality is more varied. We break down the options, addressing how admissions of guilt interact with denials and identifying more precisely what may be admitted (facts? legal violation? intent?). Taking our lead from judges, regulators and commentators who have described agencies’ approaches to admissions with words like “truth,” “guilt,” “confession,” and “apology,” we link this discussion to empirical studies of the psychology of blame and responsibility-taking, acknowledgement, and apologies. We use these studies to shed light on the function and value of admissions and the implications for agency settlement negotiations.

Be wary of the accuracy of free online credit scores

Ya know how your credit card company now gives you your FICO credit score for free each month? And what about all those online companies peddling "free" credit scores? (They are sometimes free, sometimes not, and the companies are usually trying to sell you something else.) This article by Kenneth Harney explains that the credit score from these services is often inaccurate. By inaccurate, I mean not the score that potential lenders use in evaluating your credit worthiness for, for instance, a mortgage -- and that's only credit score that really matters. Harney explains the problem and what consumers can do about it.

Stephen Ware Article Takes On Current (Conservative) Arbitration Law

Stephen J. Ware of Kansas has written The Centrist Case Against Current (Conservative) Arbitration Law, 68 Florida Law Review  (2016). Here is the abstract:

In The Politics of Arbitration Law and Centrist Proposals for Reform, I explained how issues surrounding consumer and other adhesive arbitration agreements became divisive along predictable political lines (progressives vs. conservatives) and proposed an intermediate (or centrist) position to resolve those issues. However, The Politics of Arbitration Law did not argue the case for my proposals. It left those arguments for this Article, which makes the case against current (conservative) arbitration law, and a third article, which will make the case against progressive proposals to reform arbitration law. In other words, this Article stands out from the many other articles critiquing current arbitration law because this Article’s critique comes from a centrist, rather than progressive, perspective. For that reason, this Article’s critique may be more likely than progressive critiques to gain traction with lawmakers.

Read the white house financial (and prior employment) disclosures

There's been a good bit of news on the financial disclosures for the people who work in the Trump white house. Go here to read each employee's disclosure form. (Click on the pdf for each employee, listed in alphabetical order.)

What hasn't gotten much news is that in addition to disclosing the value (with ranges) of the employee's financial holdings, the forms also disclose where the employee has worked in the past (which is, perhaps, at least as important as how much money the person has).

Amicus briefs in PHH v. CFPB

Jeff posted yesterday one of the amicus briefs filed in support of the CFPB in the pending DC Circuit case. The others amicus briefs in support of the CFPB are these:

Public Citizen, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, National Association of Consumer Advocates, and National Consumer Law Center, and Tzedek DC - Click here.

Americans for Financial Reform, the Center for Responsible Lending, and several other consumer and civil rights organizations - Click here.

 

41 current and former Members of Congress - Click here.

Separation of Powers Scholars - Click here.