Yesterday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced at a field hearing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that it is proposing regulations that would prohibit covered providers of certain consumer financial products...more
Public Citizen, Inc. has sent a petition to the Department of Education requesting the Department to adopt a rule that requires schools to agree, as a condition of receiving Title IV assistance under the Higher Education Act...more
Democratic Senators Patrick Leahy and several other Democratic Senators have cosponsored a bill that would place new limits on the use of arbitration agreements. According to Senator Leahy’s press release, the “Restoring...more
Resolving a split between the California Court of Appeal and the Ninth Circuit concerning the enforceability of the same DirectTV arbitration agreement, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the California Court of Appeal’s...more
An article on consumer arbitration in this week’s Sunday New York Times concludes that “[b]y inserting individual arbitration clauses into a soaring number of consumer and employment contracts, companies… devised a way to...more
11/3/2015
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Banking Sector ,
Banks ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Consumer Financial Contracts ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Financial Institutions ,
New York Times
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...more
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...more
A debt collector did not violate the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) when it filed a summary judgment motion in a collection action after the debtor had sought enforcement of a credit card agreement’s arbitration...more
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is considering proposing rules that would prohibit consumer financial services companies from using class action waivers in consumer arbitration clauses, the CFPB announced...more
10/8/2015
/ Arbitration Agreements ,
AT&T Mobility v Concepcion ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Class Certification ,
Consumer Financial Products ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Financial Institutions ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
SCOTUS ,
Small Business
We have previously blogged about the comment letter concerning the CFPB’s March 10, 2015 Study on consumer arbitration that we submitted to the CFPB on behalf of the American Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers...more
A mandatory arbitration provision is enforceable even when not contained within the four corners of a retail installment sales contract between a consumer and an automobile dealer, Maryland's highest court has ruled....more
On March 23, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in DirecTV, Inc. v. Imburgia, agreeing to resolve a split between the Ninth Circuit and California state courts on how to interpret the same DirecTV arbitration...more
The California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, recently affirmed an order denying a petition to compel arbitration where the employer failed to present sufficient evidence that the employee electronically signed an...more
The American Financial Services Association (AFSA) has sent a letter to Director Cordray responding to the letter sent to him last month by 16 Democratic state attorneys general calling on the CFPB to limit the use of...more
Jeff Sovern, through his Consumer Law & Policy Blog, recently responded to our criticism that the St. John’s study didn’t include arbitration provisions with opt-out features. Jeff makes the point that since consumers don’t...more
Following on the heels of the Pew Foundation’s survey of consumer attitudes towards arbitration and the CFPB’s on-going empirical study of consumer arbitration, a group of professors from St. John’s University School of Law...more
In a case intersecting the 89-year-old Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and the digital era, the Ninth Circuit has ruled that a consumer who did not read the company’s terms of use when ordering a product on its website was not...more
In Opalinski v. Robert Half International, Inc., the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that where an arbitration clause is silent as to the availability of classwide arbitration, that issue should...more
In the aftermath of AT&T Mobility, LLC v. Concepcion and American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurant, consumer lawyers have frequently argued that arbitration agreements should be invalidated if features other than the...more
A recent decision by the Arizona Court of Appeals underscores the importance of keeping consumer arbitration agreements consumer friendly. In Clark v. Renaissance West, LLC, the court affirmed the trial court’s denial of a...more
As industry and consumers await the results of the CFPB’s arbitration study, the FTC became the latest federal agency to weigh in on consumer arbitration issues. Recently, at the invitation of the Seventh Circuit, the FTC...more
As part of its on-going study of consumer arbitration mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB announced on June 7, 2013 that it is seeking funding from the Office of Management and Budget to undertake a telephone survey of...more
Applying the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Oxford Health Plans v. Sutter, the 11th Circuit affirmed an arbitrator’s conclusion that the parties’ agreement permitted class-wide arbitration....more
Last week, in its decision in American Express Co. v. Italian Colors Restaurants, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a knock-out punch to the last major court challenge to the use of class action waivers in consumer arbitration...more
The Pew Charitable Trusts has released a report on the safety and transparency of checking accounts. The study questions whether banks are sufficiently engaged in what Pew deems "best practices" and concludes that the...more