Consumer Law & Policy Blog

Senate votes to consider Trump's nomination of Kraninger to head CFPB

Here, in The Hill. Excerpt:

Senators voted 50-49, along party lines, to end debate on Kathy Kraninger’s nomination to be the next CFPB director, with no Democrats supporting her. Kraninger is likely to be confirmed next week after a contentious Senate floor debate over her selection.

"What, never?" "No, never!" "What, never?" "Well, hardly ever!" The Supreme Court, Rule 23(f), and Gilbert & Sullivan

When a federal district court certifies, refuses to certify, or decertifies a class, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f) gives a party 14 days to ask a court of appeals for permission to appeal the ruling. But what if a party seeks permission outside the 14-day window because some circumstance prevented action within 14 days or otherwise provided a compelling reason for later filing? Can such a request for permission be considered by the court of appeals? Or, to put it in more technical legal jargon, is the 14-day period subject to "equitable tolling"?

The Supreme Court heard argument on that issue this past Tuesday in a case called Nutraceutical v. Lambert. And if the argument is anything to go on (which it often isn't), class action lawyers should play it safe by filing for permission to appeal within 14 days of a district court ruling on certification if at all possible. The questions asked at argument suggest that most members of the Court may see the Court's choice as being between saying the time period can never be tolled or saying it can be tolled only in the most extreme circumstances (of which the case under consideration doesn't seem to the Justices to be an example).

Or, as opera-buff and civil-procedure-maven Justice Ginsburg put it, evoking Gilbert and Sullivan's "I am the Captain of the Pinafore" from H.M.S. Pinafore, "not necessarily never but not more than hardly ever." The defendant's lawyer, to whom she directed the question, either didn't hear or didn't get the reference and seemed confused by the audience's laughter. But Justice Ginsburg's phrasing didn't seem to bode well for his opponent.

CFPB Ombudsman’s Office 2018 Annual Report

The Ombudsman explains: "At the Ombudsman’s Office, we are an independent, impartial, and confidential resource that assists consumers, financial entities, consumer or trade groups, and others in informally resolving process issues with the Bureau. In short, we advocate for fair process in consumer financial protection. As in previous years, our annual report outlines our work process and summarizes our activities from fiscal year 2018. ... We provide examples of our work throughout the report and highlight the various ways we assist in our Demonstrating the Ombudsman in Practice section, such as: assisting stakeholders in engaging with the Bureau’s Request for Information process, sharing resources to assist consumers in recognizing financial frauds and scams, and facilitating technical assistance to companies responding to consumer complaints

The report is available here.

New group to focus on state and local student loan efforts

The New York Times profiles a new watchdog group started by a CFPB alum to focus on student loan issues:

Three months ago, one of the government’s top student loan watchdogs, Seth Frotman, stepped down from his job at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with a scathing resignation letter that criticized the Trump administration for undermining the agency’s enforcement efforts.

Then he took some people with him.

Full article is here.

"How white racism destroys black wealth"

That's the title of this essay by Christopher Ingraham, which focuses on a new Brookings study on race and wealth. Here's how the essay starts:

There are a lot of reasons that home prices tend to be lower in black neighborhoods than in white ones. Decades of racist policies put in place by governments and private companies — segregation, redlining, deed restrictions, exclusionary zoning, the deliberate hollowing out of urban cores — have had the net effect of eroding the quality of life in many majority-black neighborhoods nationwide. As the authors of a new Brookings Institution-Gallup study note, Zillow data shows that the median listing price of a home in a majority-black neighborhood in a major metro area is around $184,000, while the median listing in a neighborhood where blacks make up less than 1 percent of the population stands at over $341,000.

The essay includes this profound statistic: The median net worth for a white family in the U.S. is $140,000; for an African-American family, it's $3,400.

Gov't plans to drop requirement of home-sale appraisals

The Trump administration is proposing to eliminate the requirement of professional appraisals for many home sales — "a move that critics say could push the country back toward the see-no-evil days of mortgage lending that preceded the housing crash,"reports the Washington Post.

Just before Thanksgiving, the administration’s top financial regulators — the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — issued a joint proposal that would make traditional appraisals unnecessary for many new mortgages originated for less than $400,000. Instead of a formal appraisal, these homes would receive an “evaluation” by individuals who have no appraisal licenses or certification and would not be subject to current state regulatory oversight requirements that govern appraisers. The evaluators could be an “independent bank employee” or unnamed “third part[ies].” They would, however, have to be “competent” and possess “knowledge of the market, location and type of real property being valued.”

The full article is here.

Privacy bill could come early next year

A  bill to give the federal government authority to collect civil penalties if a company misuses online consumer data or allows it to be stolen may be drafted early next year, the New York Times reports. "A subcommittee of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee discussed elements of the bill on Tuesday, including the possibility that the Federal Trade Commission could be given the authority as enforcer to oversee telecommunications companies and non-profits, exact civil penalties and create regulations."

One important question for consumers is whether the bill will preempt a California law that gives consumers more control over how companies collect and manage their personal information, including allowing consumers to request data be deleted and to opt out of having data sold to third parties.

The full article is here.

"Consumer groups urge FTC to investigate Google over location tracking"

The Hill reports that the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue, a coalition of more than 75 consumer groups, is urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google for allegedly manipulating Android users into having their location tracked at all times. In a letter sen today, the groups argued that Google "nudges" mobile phone users with Android operating systems to turn on their location services. 

The full article is here.

CFP: International Association of Consumer Law Conference to be held in Indianapolis

The International Association of Consumer Law has put out a call for papers for its 17th Annual Conference to take place in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 13-15, 2019. The theme is “Innovation and the Transformation of Consumer Law.”  The abstract (max. 500 words) submission deadline is: 15 December 2018. Submit to: IACL2019submissions@gmail.com. Quoting from the CFP:

The goal of this conference is to provide a forum where leading international scholars, practitioners, representatives of consumer organizations, public authorities and business can gather together to present and discuss issues relevant to consumer protection in many sectors and from various perspectives. We welcome both theoretical and empirical submissions. Selected papers will be published in the Indiana International and Comparative Law Review.

TOPICS: We encourage presenters to focus on the overarching theme of the conference: “Innovation and the Transformation of Consumer Law.” Innovation in this sense could encompass technologies that create new challenges for consumer policy (e.g., the “internet of things”), creative developments that can assist consumers in protecting their economic interests (e.g., online consumer reviews), innovative approaches to solving traditional and continuing consumer concerns, and challenges presented by emerging ways of creating and delivering consumer products and services. Within the general theme, presenters might reflect on past successes (and failures) of consumer law and policy in a particular area of commerce, opportunities for moving consumer law in a different direction, or the potential threats to consumer welfare (particularly the impact of changes in the political landscape in some parts of the world). Papers focusing on consumer law in individual countries are welcome, as well as papers with an international focus.

More information here.

"Mick Mulvaney’s Year at CFPB Has Pleased Financial Industry"

The Wall Street Journal reports: "Mick Mulvaney, as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, has softened the agency’s hard-charging approach that financial companies had long complained about. One year after his appointment, the industry is pleased, but not fully satisfied. Mr. Mulvaney, appointed by President Trump last November, over the past year has made a number of changes that the financial industry has hailed, including a pullback in enforcement actions, an easing of supervisory activities, and a pledge to redo a new payday-loan rule that lenders warned would decimate them. But many in the industry had expected Mr. Mulvaney to move more swiftly to blunt the power of the agency and ease regulations in areas such as mortgage disclosures, debt collection, and prepaid cards."

The full article is here. (Subscription may be required.)