News Topic: Pending and New Legislation

While Congress struggles to figure out the best way to respond to the coronavirus pandemic, it is very apparent that immediate relief measures are necessary, if only to buy time for a more comprehensive approach. Layoffs are already happening and with ... Read full article

Today, Senator Elizabeth Warren unveiled her new plan to reform the consumer bankruptcy system . The plan is simple, yet elegant. It is based on actual data and research (including some of my own with Consumer Bankruptcy Project co-investigators Slipster ... Read full article

Short term (payday) loans and high interest consumer installment loans continue to deplete low income households of micro dollars and their communities of macro dollars. Although the CFPB seems intent on supporting the depletions, a good number of states ... Read full article

The Trump administration has just proposed a rule that declares open season on consumers for subprime lenders. ... Read full article

The Stop Wall Street Looting Act  introduced by Senator Warren has the private equity industry's hackles up. ... Read full article

The private equity industry is lashing out at Senator Warren’s Stop Wall Street Looting Act with some pretty outlandish claims that rise to Chicken Little level. ... Read full article

Two aspects of the Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 intrigued me as I looked more closely at this important new twist on Chapter 11 for the other 99%. ... Read full article

The Small Business Reorganization Act of 2019 adds a new subchapter V to chapter 11 for small businesses. The new subchapter gives small businesses the option of choosing a more streamlined -- and hence cheaper and quicker -- procedure than they would ... Read full article

In February 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for First Circuit held that the selection process of the Oversight Board in PROMESA, the rather bipartisan Puerto Rico debt restructuring law (and more), is unconstitutional. The reason: its members ... Read full article

I'll be testifying on Tuesday at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on housing finance that is focused on Chairman Crapo's reform outline.  My written testimony may be found here .  Suffice it to say, I'm skeptical.  I argue that a ... Read full article

The Yale Journal on Regulation is holding an on-line symposium about the draft Restatement of the Law of Consumer Contracts, which is scheduled for a vote at the American Law Institute's annual meeting this May.  The launching point for the symposium ... Read full article

There's bi-partisan legislation pending that would prohibit the practice of installment lenders sending out unsolicited live convenience check loan :  you get an unsolicited check in the mail.  If you cash it, you've entered into a loan ... Read full article

Saudi Arabia's King Salman has approved a new bankruptcy law. { Download Saudi BK final 2-2018 } Commentators have ... Read full article

If you think it's ridiculous that the CDC can't gather data on gun violence, consider the financial regulatory world's equivalent:  S.2155, formally known as the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, but better ... Read full article

As many  Credit Slips  readers will know, chapter 11 venue reform has been an issue for decades. As corporate filers have flocked to the Southern District of New York and the District of Delaware, the real reason some observers say is that these courts ... Read full article

I have a new (short!) paper out,  Bankruptcy's Lorelei:  The Dangerous Allure of Financial Institution Bankruptcy .  The paper, which builds off of some Congressional testimony from 2015, makes the case that proposals for resolving large, ... Read full article

The lives of Puerto Rico residents remain profoundly disrupted by the aftermath of Hurricane Maria measured by metrics such as electricity, clean water, health care access, with death tolls mounting. This week, though, in a federal court hearing on ... Read full article

For the spring semester, I am offering advanced commercial law and contracts seminar for UNC students, and have gathered resources to inspire students on paper topic selection as well as to guide what we otherwise will cover. But given the breadth of what ... Read full article