Competition law, particularly in the European Union, has turned away from structural remedies and toward “consumer-facing” firm conduct remedies, a seemingly light-touch approach. These remedies aim to empower and stimulate consumers to drive competition through shopping based on accurate...

To ensure that consumers understand financial products' “costs, benefits, and risks,” the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been redesigning mandated disclosures, primarily through iterative lab testing. But no matter how well these disclosures perform in experiments, firms will run...

After existing regulatory systems failed to prevent the 2008 financial crisis, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a sweeping reform designed to alleviate the crisis and prevent its recurrence. Out of this Act, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau...

On March 7, 2018, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, under Acting Director Mick Mulvaney, issued a Request for Information eliciting public comment on its rulemaking processes. This response expresses concern that under its new leadership, the Bureau is retreating from its commitment to...

Starting in 1995 and throughout the subprime boom during the next decade, Congress failed to take action to curb predatory mortgage lending. Many states and cities filled the void by passing anti-predatory lending laws of their own. Lenders, worried about potential liability, quickly organized a...

Soon after the 2016 election of Donald Trump as President, while Republicans controlled Congress, opponents of the fledgling Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) opened a campaign against the Bureau. Their target was less the substance of federal consumer financial laws than the structure...

Transparent pricing is a prerequisite for an efficient, competitive market and responsible consumer behavior. If the card industry were required to price its products in a straightforward manner, and it were less costly for consumers to switch cards, deceptive practices would be harder to...

Consumer protection in financial services has failed. A crisis is now playing itself out in the mortgage, credit card, auto loan, title loan, refund anticipation loan, and payday loan markets. Consumer protection was a traditional element states' regulatory power until federal preemption ousted...