Knowledge of the law is no excuse, FDCPA edition
“In a 7-4 en banc decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that the bona fide error defense in the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) did not protect a debt collector...
View ArticleBanking and finance roundup
“Unintended Consequences of Military Lending Act Hurt Some Families” [R.J. Lehmann] Tenth Circuit: Fed must provide all depository institutiona access to the clearing system, whether they serve...
View ArticleBanking and finance roundup
Using regulation to stomp political adversaries endangers rule of law: Gov. Cuomo directs New York financial regulators to pressure banks, insurers to break ties with National Rifle Association (NRA)...
View ArticleBloomberg investigation: “confessions of judgment” and NY debt collection
In New York, unlike some other states, the law permits liberal use in business lending of a device called confession of judgment, in which borrowers “sign a statement giving up their right to defend...
View ArticleDecember 5 roundup
“An important win for property owners”: Supreme Court rules 8-0 that protected species habitat doesn’t include tracts containing no actual dusty gopher frogs and not inhabitable by them absent...
View ArticleArkansas’s border-hopping borrowers
The Arkansas constitution caps allowable interest rates for lending at 17 percent. Is the effect more to protect consumers, or deprive them of desired choices? A study [Ben Lukongo and Thomas W. Miller...
View ArticleBanking and finance roundup
Progressive sentiment vs. actual progress: Philadelphia bans cashless stores [Jeffrey Miron; related, Billy Binion, Reason (council member thinks city should legislate against “elitism”), Joe Setyon,...
View ArticleFederal credit-reporting law may cover profs’ student recommendations
Now this is just bizarre: the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act is so loosely written that it may threaten professors with liability related to their writing of some student recommendations. In...
View ArticleThe folly of interest rate caps, cont’d
“A new proposal would likely sharply curtail the issuance of credit cards and the extension of unsubsidized credit to lower-income people.” Diego Zuluaga comments for the Cato Daily Podcast with Caleb...
View Article“I didn’t care about financial intricacies between predators and debtors.”
An amusing correction in New York magazine’s profile of Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “predators” to “creditors.” (The misheard quote is from a law professor who studied with Warren, not from Warren herself.)...
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