Usury

Trump Administration Declares Open Season on Consumers for Subprime Lenders

11/18/19
The Trump administration has just proposed a rule that declares open season on consumers for subprime lenders.
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How to Deal with a $3 Trillion Bully

10/25/19

I don't like bullies.  And I just ran into a $3 trillion one.  JPMorgan Chase Bank, armed with six partners at two AmLaw 100 firms (Wilmer Hale and McGuire Woods) took the truly unusual step of filing an objection to an amicus curiae brief I filed in a 9th Circuit case called McShannock v. JPMorgan Chase Bank N.A. in support of neither party. Chase objects because the brief is late (which it is) and supposedly irrelevant to the disposition of the case.

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The Sky Is Falling: Securitization, Chicken Little Edition

09/18/19

It's been quite a week for "valid-when-made (up)".

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FDIC and OCC Race to Court to Defend 120.86% Interest Rate Small Business Loan

09/18/19

FDIC and OCC filed an amicus brief in the district court in an obscure small business bankruptcy case to which a bank was not even a party in order to defend the validity of a 120.86% loan that was made by a tiny community bank in Wisconsin (with its own history of consumer protection compliance issues) and then t

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Playing with Fire: The CFPB's Proposed Repeal of the "GSE Patch"

07/25/19
CFPB today put out an advance notice of proposed rulemaking to amend the Qualified Mortgage (QM) Rule by letting the "GSE Patch" expire.  What the Bureau is proposing is truly dangerous.  While I haven’t liked some of the Bureau's other proposed rules (including under the Cordray Directorship), none of them were an all-out ideological gamble with the economy. This one, in contrast, is really playing with fire.
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What Is "Credit"? AfterPay, Earnin', and ISAs

07/16/19
A major issue in consumer finance regulation in mid-20th century was what counted as “credit” and was therefore subject to state usury laws and (after 1968) to the federal Truth in Lending Act. Many states had a time-price differential doctrine that held that when a retailer sold goods for future payment, the differential between the price of a cash sale and that of credit sale was not interest for usury law purposes.
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The Second Circuit Got It Right in Madden v. Midland Funding

04/18/19

Professor Peter Conti-Brown of the Wharton School has written a short article for Brookings decrying the Second Circuit’s 2015 Madden v. Midland Funding decision. Professor Conti-Brown doesn’t like the Madden decision for two reasons. First, he thinks its wrong on the law.

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More on Madden

08/28/17

I have a more refined piece on the problems with the Madden fix bills in the American Banker.  See here for my previous thoughts. 

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