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Consumer Law

CL&P Blog

The contributors to this blog are a diverse group of lawyers and law professors who practice, teach, or write about consumer law and policy. Although the blog is hosted by Public Citizen's Consumer Justice Project, the views expressed here are solely those of the individual contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions with which they are affiliated.

Post Frequency: 15.1/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 11:13:04

McCoy Paper on HMDA's Legislative History

Posted on April 13, 2008
Patricia A. McCoy, who has been an important scholar on predatory lending, has authored The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act: A Synopsis and Recent Legislative History, 29 Journal of Real Estate Research No. 4 (2007). Here's the abstract: This article describes...

Credit Card Marketing to College Students

Posted on April 13, 2008
Check out this article in today's Washington Post entitled "Majoring in Plastic -- With Easy Access to Credit Cards, Students Pick Up the Debt Habit Early." We blogged last year on U.S. PIRG's counteroffensive to the credit card companies intense...

Product Recall Information for March 2008

Posted on April 11, 2008
The Consumer Product Safety Commission's product safety recalls for March 2008 are available here. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's auto defect recalls for March 2008 are available here.

Senate bill and moral hazard

Posted on April 10, 2008
by Alan White The Senate today passed its version of a housing crisis bill, stripped of most provisions that could help homeowners facing foreclosure. The provision that would have permitted bankruptcy judges to modify interest rates and reduce mortgage balances...

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Fed's Mortgage Regulations

Posted on April 10, 2008
By Alan White Greetings from ORD! Yes, I'm on American, trying to get to Dallas. TV cameras are everywhere, and I have a bit of time on my hands. HT to the Trib for the photo of our rebooking line....

Mystery Shopping Test on RALs; IRS Comments

Posted on April 09, 2008
A new report analyzes the results of a mystery shopping test relating to Refund Anticipation Loans (RALs), entitled "Tax Preparers Take a Bite out of Refunds: Mystery Shopper Test Exposes Refund Anticipation Loan Abuses in Durham and Philadelphia." The mystery...

Times Articles on Mortgage Crisis and Preemption of Drug Product Liability Suits

Posted on April 07, 2008
Consumer law issues have frequently appeared on the front pages of the Times in recent weeks, and today's edition has two such articles. In "Drug Makers Near Old Goal: A New Legal Shield," the Times reports on the Supreme Court...

Elizabeth Schiltz Paper on the Supreme Court's Watters Decision

Posted on April 07, 2008
Elizabeth Rose Schiltz's paper Damming Watters: Channeling the Power of Federal Preemption of State Consumer Banking Laws, 35 Florida State University Law Review, is available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1028886. Here's the abstract: In Watters v. Wachovia, 127 S...

The New Century saga

Posted on April 06, 2008
The WSJ Law Blog recently reported the release of the Bankruptcy Court Examiner's Report on New Century Mortgage, the subprime lender that once led the market and is now in Chapter 11. The post includes a link to download the...

Second Circuit Rejects Class Certification in "Light" Tobacco Litigation

Posted on April 05, 2008
Last Thursday, the Second Circuit issued McLaughlin v. American Tobacco Company, No. 06-4666 (2d Cir. Apr. 3, 2008), reversing Judge Jack Weinstein's certification of a class including virtually all Americans who had purchased cigarettes labeled as "light" or "lights...

The Ninth Circuit Decides Roommates.com -- Is It the Right Decision for Consumers?

Posted on April 04, 2008
by Greg Beck and Paul Alan Levy The en banc Ninth Circuit yesterday decided an issue of great importance to consumers on the Internet. The issue: In what circumstances can web site operators that pose discriminatory questions that violate anti-discrimination...

Consumer Lawyer on ABC News

Posted on April 04, 2008
ABC News has put together a web page to accompany last night's story featuring Jessica Attie, a legal services lawyer fighting foreclosures in Brooklyn. The message to homeowners -- if you have legal claims, get a lawyer -- has been...

Nifty Subprime Data Maps

Posted on April 04, 2008
For state and county-level data, derived from LPI's rich database, on easy-to-use maps, check out the New York Fed's interactive page. You can find information on the percentage of households with subprime mortgages (designated here by the industry-preferred term "nonprime"),...

Texas Supreme Court limits uninsured motorist coverage.

Posted on April 03, 2008
In what I find to be a very interesting opinion, but not that surprising, the Texas Supreme Court has supported the insurance industry's position that uninsured motorist coverage doesn?t cover a collision with just part of a motor vehicle. In...

Mortgage broker compensation

Posted on April 01, 2008
The incentives created by mortgage broker compensation structures, such as yield spread premiums, have been blamed for contributing to the reckless lending in the subprime mortgage market. The Treasury Department and Federal Reserve proposals, as well as various bills in...

Blueprint for Regulating Financial Services Released

Posted on March 31, 2008
The Bush Administration's Blueprint for Modernized Financial Regulatory Structure, released today, includes a proposal to consolidate consumer protection into a single federal agency. The press release provides a link to the full 218-page Blueprint. Although I have not digested the...

Fed Hearings on Countrywide merger

Posted on March 30, 2008
The Federal Reserve has announced public hearings in Chicago and Los Angeles on Bank of America's acquisition of Countrywide. The Fed will consider the public benefits and adverse effects of the merger as well as the Community Reinvestment Act performance...

PIRG Report on On-Campus Credit Card Marketing

Posted on March 29, 2008
Over at U.S. PIRG's Consumer blog check out this comprehensive post about PIRG's new report on marketing of credit cards on college campuses. The post links to a number of useful items, including the report itself, which you can also...

Fitch Ratings: HOPE NOW not working

Posted on March 28, 2008
In a report dated March 25, 2008 (login required), Fitch Ratings has again revised (upward) its estimates of foreclosures and losses for subprime mortgages made in 2006 and 2007. The news is not good. Fitch reports that fewer homeowners who...

Arnold S. Rosenberg Paper Comparing Regulation of Unfair Bank Fees in the US and EU

Posted on March 27, 2008
Arnold S. Rosenberg has written Regulation of Unfair Bank Fees in the United States and the European Union: Current Trends and a Proposal for Reform, AN EVALUATION OF LEGISLATION REGARDING COMMERCIAL PRACTICES AND CONSUMER CREDIT IN THE EUROPEAN UNION, Bank...

ABA Antitrust Section Consumer Protection Roundup

Posted on March 27, 2008
Rebecca Tushnet of 43(B)log has a detailed consumer protection roundup from the spring meeting of the ABA's Antitrust Section.

Obama on foreclosures

Posted on March 27, 2008
Senator Obama gave a speech this morning in New York with his views and proposals on the foreclosure crisis. The advance text is available here (login may be required). It will probably be posted on the campaign web site soon....

Foreign Courts Wary of U.S. Punitive Damages

Posted on March 26, 2008
The New York Times reports that Italy?s Supreme Court has refused to enforce a U.S. punitive damage award, finding that ?a peculiarity of American law ? punitive damages ? was so offensive to Italian notions of justice that it would...

Paper on Google and Privacy

Posted on March 26, 2008
Omer Tene of the College of Management - School of Law, Israel, has written What Google Knows: Privacy and Internet Search Engines, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1021490. Here's the abstract: Search engines are the most important phenomenon on the Internet today and...

Elizabeth Renuart and Diane Thomspon Paper on APR Disclosure

Posted on March 25, 2008
Elizabeth Renuart and Diane E. Thompson of NCLC have written The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth: Fulfilling the Promise of Truth in Lending, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1021318. Here's the abstract: Evaluating the cost of credit and comparison...

What Would Senators McCain, Clinton and Obama Do?

Posted on March 25, 2008
In a speech delivered today in Orange County California (ground zero for many subprime lenders as well as foreclosed homes) Senator McCain offered some details of his plan to deal with the foreclosure crisis. Rather than spin the speech, I...

Paper on Enforcement of Consumer Law in the US and EU

Posted on March 24, 2008
Fabrizio Cafaggi and Hans-W Micklitz, both of the European University Institute - Department of Law, have written Administrative and Judicial Collective Enforcement of Consumer Law in the US and the European Community, available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1024103...

Law Firm Incentives to Avoid Foreclosure

Posted on March 24, 2008
In an interesting story today, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports on an initiative by Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac to provide foreclosure firms with financial incentives to negotiate repayment plans and loan modifications, instead of foreclosing. Fannie Mae reportedly is willing...

Borrowing Upswing May Extend to Payday Loans

Posted on March 24, 2008
Last week I blogged on Federal Reserve Board numbers showing a large upturn in credit card borrowing last January. This morning Reuters is reporting annecdotal evidence of equally troubling growth in payday lending. Here's the Reuters lead: "As hundreds of...

Something Special for Anyone Teaching or Interested in Teaching Consumer Law.

Posted on March 24, 2008
If you are currently teaching or want to teach consumer law, full-time or as an adjunct, the Center for Consumer Law at the University of Houston Law Center has a Conference just for you. On May 23 and 24th, more...

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