Consumer Law

Catholic University Program on Proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency

By Jeff Sovern

Catholic University Law School is presenting what sounds like a terrific program on the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency on October 20, 2009 from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.  Admission will be by reservation only.  Speakers include Michael Barr, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Institutions and a drafter of the bill, Oliver Ireland, Partner, Morrison & Foerster, Arthur Wilmarth, Professor of Law, George Washington University, and it is to be hosted by CUA professors Heidi Schooner and Ralph J. Rohner (my co-author).  The program, titled ?Inventing a New (or Reviving an Old) Regulatory Structure for the Consumer Finance Marketplace? is not yet final, but here is the tentative description: 

The global financial recession of the past year or so has drawn attention to a host of questions about whether the U.S. adequately monitors and regulates the consumer credit markets and the volatile financial products sold there.  Revelations of bad or questionable practices suggest the need for more conscience, self-discipline, and fairness from market participants.  Among the questions:  Is there too much reliance on disclosure of transaction terms, or can current disclosures be strengthened and improved?  Is there greater need for regulatory authority to proscribe unfair or deceptive practices without waiting for Congress to address them?  Should federal regulatory authority be consolidated in a new federal Consumer Financial Protection Agency (as proposed in legislation introduced by the Administration), and if so what would be the nature and range of its authority?  How much of the federal agencies? authority would be subsumed in the new agency, and how much would survive outside it?  To what extent would federal laws and regulations preempt state law in order to encourage national markets?  How should enforcement authority be concentrated, or distributed, among the federal agencies and their state counterparts?  How would a revised consumer regulatory structure relate to other proposals for tightened controls in the larger financial markets

 

Almost forty years ago, the National Commission on Consumer Finance recommended creation of a federal ?Consumer Credit Czar.?  Is the proposed CFPA anything more than a revival of that un-enacted suggestion?  Are market conditions, and politics, in 2009 and 2010 any more receptive to a regulatory and enforcement overhaul than in 1972?

 

Mr. Barr, one of the drafters of the pending bill, will sketch the case for regulatory and enforcement overhaul.

 

Mr. Ireland will address the likely impact of a new regulatory structure on bank operations, safety and soundness, and profitability.

 

Mr. Wilmarth  will speak to the federalism issues inherent in sorting out federal and state roles in consumer protection.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on September 10, 2009 (boomark / email).