Consumer Protection Law Commons^™

Holding Investment Bankers Liable For Aiding And Abetting Corporate Directors: The Under-Deterrent, Maren Worley

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Madden V. Midland Funding Llc: Uprooting The National Bank Act’S Power Of Preemption, Andrew Silvia

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Crossing The Line: Prime, Subprime, And Predatory Lending, Nathaniel R. Hull

Maine Law Review

The cornerstone of the “American Dream” has long been marked by the purchase of a home. Most families cannot afford to purchase a home with cash and, almost universally, need financing. Financing for a home purchase begins when a person or couple applies and is preliminarily approved for a home loan by a lender. The lender’s decision to approve is based on a number of different factors that are thought to predict how likely it is for the borrower to repay the loan according to its terms. The factors used to make this prediction have undergone drastic reformulations over the …

Leverage: State Enforcement Actions In The Wake Of The Robo-Sign Scandal, Raymond H. Brescia

Maine Law Review

In the fall of 2010, the revelations that tens of thousands of foreclosure filings across the nation were likely fraudulent—if not outright criminal—sparked a nation-wide investigation by all fifty state attorneys general to assess the extent of the scandal and its potential impacts, but also to consider likely legal and policy responses to such behavior. One of the tools at the state attorneys general’s disposal that might rein in this behavior includes each state’s Unfair and Deceptive Acts and Practices (UDAP) laws. Such laws typically prohibit “unfair” and “deceptive” practices, which are described loosely in these laws, and often give …

Foreclosure Diversion And Mediation In The States, Alan M. White

Georgia State University Law Review

The recent mortgage foreclosure crisis, whose economic effects are well known, transformed state legal structures governing the mortgage foreclosure process. What had been a relatively routine system of default judgments and auction sales has evolved into a negotiation and workout practice in which homeowners contest foreclosures, demand loan modifications and short sales, and propose other alternatives to foreclosures.

A profusion of state laws and court orders were adopted between 2008 and 2014 with the aim of promoting negotiated foreclosure alternatives. These laws have produced a variety of experiments in the “laboratories of democracy.” The defaults—whether home loans are renegotiated, defaults …

Consumer Credit In America: Past, Present, And Future, Pamela Foohey, Jim Hawkins, Creola Johnson, Nathalie Martin

Faculty Scholarship

We began organizing this symposium at the start of 2016 with the recognition that consumer credit and financial services were in a state of flux prompted in significant part by the Great Recession. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act brought with it the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The CFPB’s creation marked the most significant moment in modern American consumer law. Consumers gained an advocate charged with protecting them through researching, monitoring, and regulating the providers of consumer financial products and services, enforcing federal consumer financial protection laws, and, as importantly, empowering consumers.

The Dark Side Of Self-Regulation, Benjamin P. Edwards

Scholarly Works

The financial services industry indirectly regulates itself through little discussed, scandal-prone, and structurally-entrenched self-regulatory organizations. FINRA, the most prominent of these self-regulatory organizations, makes regulations and sets enforcement policy that directly affect public welfare. As with other self-regulatory organizations, FINRA's structure poses a continual risk that industry members will subvert its processes to act like a cartel, promoting industry interests at the expense of the public and contributing to the excessive rents collected by financial intermediaries. Although this dark side to self-regulation poses a constant danger, structural reforms may increase the likelihood that FINRA and other self-regulatory organizations will take …

From Systemic Risk To Financial Scandals: The Shortcomings Of U.S. Hedge Fund Regulation, Marco Bodellini

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

In the recent past, hedge funds have demonstrated that they can pose and spread systemic risk across the financial markets, and that their managers can use them to commit fraud and misappropriation of fund assets. Even if the first issue now seems to be considered a serious one by the U.S. legislature, which in 2010, as a legislative response to the global financial crisis of 2007-2008, enacted the Dodd-Frank Act Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank), the current regulation still appears inconsistent and inappropriate to prevent and face it. By contrast, the second issue is not always considered …

Regulating A Revolution: From Regulatory Sandboxes To Smart Regulation, Dirk A. Zetzsche, Ross P. Buckley, Janos N. Barberis, Douglas W. Arner

Fordham Journal of Corporate & Financial Law

Prior to the global financial crisis, financial innovation was viewed very positively, resulting in a laissez-faire, deregulatory approach to financial regulation. Since the crisis the regulatory pendulum has swung to the other extreme. Post-crisis regulation, plus rapid technological change, have spurred the development of financial technology (FinTech). FinTech firms and data-driven financial service providers profoundly challenge the current regulatory paradigm. Financial regulators increasingly seek to balance the traditional regulatory objectives of financial stability and consumer protection with promoting growth and innovation. The resulting regulatory innovations include RegTech, regulatory sandboxes, and special charters. This Article analyzes possible new regulatory approaches, ranging …

Consumer Credit In America: Past, Present, And Future, Pamela Foohey, Jim Hawkins, Creola Johnson, Nathalie Martin

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In September 2016, in conjunction with Law & Contemporary Problems at Duke University School of Law, we organized a symposium on Consumer Credit in America. We sought to assess the state of consumer credit in America — to review and examine its recent history, to consider arguments for and against regulation, and to discuss the potential for future innovation. This is the introduction to the volume of articles coming out of that symposium.

Calling On The Cfpb For Help: Telling Stories And Consumer Protection, Pamela Foohey

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Since it began operating in 2011, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has handled more than a million complaints regarding consumer financial product and services. Beginning in June 2015, the CFPB began publishing consumers’ narratives submitted with their complaints. This Article analyses a random sample of 5,000 of these narratives to assess how people engage with the complaint mechanism in light of the CFPB’s role in processing complaints. I find that people predominately use the complaint function for two distinct purposes: to express their anger and frustration about companies’ practices, or to express sadness and fear about how companies’ practices …

Financial Reform: Making The System Safer And Fairer, Michael S. Barr

Articles

In the fall of 2008, the financial crisis crushed the U.S. economy and plunged the country into the Great Recession. The crisis shuttered American businesses, cost millions of Americans their jobs, and wiped out home values and household savings. The macro effects hit hardest and were the longest lasting for those least able to bear the brunt of the crisis. It was devastating to middle-income families and perhaps even more so to low- and moderate-income households, who had little financial buffer (Barr 2012a). Financial stability, never robust for these families, dropped precipitously (Barr and Schaffa 2016). Both in the United …

Mandatory Arbitration In Consumer Finance And Investor Contracts, Michael S. Barr

Book Chapters

This chapter focuses on the use of mandatory pre-dispute arbitration clauses in a subset of consumer contracts – those involving consumer finance and investor products and services. Arbitration clauses are pervasive in financial contracts – for credit cards, bank accounts, auto loans, broker-dealer services, and many others. In the wake of the recent financial crisis, Congress enacted the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (Dodd-Frank). Dodd-Frank authorises the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to prohibit or condition the use of arbitration clauses in consumer finance and investment contracts, …