arbitration

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The CFPB released its Fall 2015 rulemaking agenda last Friday.  The agenda sets the following timetables for key rulemaking initiatives:

Arbitration.  The Fall 2015 agenda gives a December 2015 date for further prerule activities.  We assume that date reflects the December 19 due date for the report to be issued by the CFPB’s arbitration Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) panel. … Continue Reading

This past Sunday, the NY Times published an article carrying the headline, “Efforts to Rein in Arbitration Come Under Well-Financed Attack.”  The “well-financed attack” to which the headline refers appears to be an advertisement critical of the CFPB that ran during last week’s Republican presidential debate and recent efforts by the U.S.… Continue Reading

Daniel Fisher of Forbes has written another article criticizing the NY Times for its stance on arbitration.  Last week, Mr. Fisher criticized the first article in the Times’ three-part series on arbitration for disregarding the many negative aspects of class action litigation.  (Alan Kaplinsky, Practice Leader of Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Financial Services Group, was quoted extensively in the first article and blogged about the article’s failure to acknowledge many critical facts concerning consumer arbitration and class actions that are inconsistent with the article’s negative conclusions. … Continue Reading

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has issued further criticism of the recent articles on arbitration published in the New York Times.  The Chamber’s initial comments focused on the Times’ first article in which Alan Kaplinsky, Practice Leader of Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Financial Services Group, was quoted extensively.  In its latest comments, the Chamber discusses how the Times “continued its deceptive caricature of arbitration” in its second article.… Continue Reading

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has issued strong criticism of the first two articles on arbitration published in the New York Times this past Sunday and earlier this week.  (The articles were part of a series of three reports.)  Alan Kaplinsky, Practice Leader of Ballard Spahr’s Consumer Financial Services Group, was quoted extensively in the first article. … Continue Reading

The CFPB has issued its third Financial Literacy Annual Report to Congress.  The report covers the CFPB’s activities to improve consumer financial literacy during the period from June 2014 through September 2015.  The report’s Appendix contains a list of the CFPB’s currently available financial education resources, which includes web-based tools, CFPB brochures and other publications, and CFPB research reports.… Continue Reading

In his remarks today to the CFPB’s Consumer Advisory Board, Director Cordray denigrated arbitration agreements as a “free pass” that allows companies to “sidestep the legal system, avoid big refunds, and continue to pursue profitable practices that may violate the law and harm consumers on a large scale.”  He also repeated the CFPB’s claim that class actions “can result in substantial relief for many consumers and create the leverage to bring about much-needed changes in business practices.”… Continue Reading

In a blog post earlier this week, Professor Jeff Sovern took issue with statements made by a legal expert that suggest an amendment to the Federal Arbitration Act would be necessary for the CFPB to ban class action waivers in arbitration agreements.  Regardless of whether Professor Sovern is correct, proponents of a class action waiver ban should keep in mind that the CFPB’s authority under Section 1028 to issue an arbitration rule is also subject to several important limitations.… Continue Reading

Last week, the CFPB released an outline of the proposals it is considering for regulating the use of arbitration agreements in anticipation of convening a Small Business Regulatory Enforcement Fairness Act (SBREFA) panel.  As described in more detail in our legal alert, the proposals would ban companies from including arbitration clauses that block class action lawsuits in their consumer contracts.… Continue Reading