Still screwing the people

With a razor-thin margin, the Senate passed a resolution to nullify a signature regulation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which banned forced arbitration provisions. Such clauses, tucked into the fine print of contracts that nobody reads, deny consumers the ability to contest claims through a class-action lawsuit, and can allow banks and other financial institutions to rip off their customers with virtual impunity.

[...]

[I]n July, in a rare instance of government using an outright ban instead of requiring disclosure or some other half-measure, CFPB finished a rule preventing arbitration agreements in financial contracts from stopping consumers who band together with other victims in a class-action lawsuit. But Republicans managed to twist the issue into one where corporations needed to be protected from greedy trial lawyers.

First, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency head Keith Noreika, himself a former defense lawyer for Wells Fargo who tried to push class-action suits into arbitration, argued the rule posed “safety and soundness” concerns for banks and would raise the cost of credit. Then this week, the Treasury Department, relying heavily on a discredited claim that plaintiff attorneys routinely shake down corporations with meritless claims, published a 17-page report attacking the CFPB rule.

  Intercept

Yes, the banksters are still running the show.  And it will ever be thus.

Both Sens. Corker and Flake, along with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., joined in the effort to give Trump a major win, even if it will hurt many of his own voters. Consumer advocates had hoped that moderate Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine would block the GOP effort. They did not.

Only GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Kennedy of Louisiana bucked their party.

[...]

[C]ontinuing reports of petty consumer fraud at Wells Fargo, and a data breach of over 140 million customer accounts at the credit reporting bureau Equifax, made it difficult for the Senate to proceed. Both Wells Fargo and Equifax have attempted to use arbitration clauses in their financial contracts to force victims out of class-action litigation.

[...]

The scandals put a human face on the practice of companies forcing customer disputes through a secret, non-judicial process. Days before the vote, Americans for Financial Reform addressed this directly in a video featuring a disabled woman and a veteran who were ripped off by Wells Fargo and then prevented from a day in court because of an arbitration clause.

[...]

As federal judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals once wrote in a ruling, “The realistic alternative to a class action is not 17 million individual suits, but zero individual suits, as only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $30.”

[...]

The vote was split 50-50, which required Vice President Mike Pence to break the tie.

And Wells Fargo (or any other) can multiply 17 million by $30 in a fraction of a second.

Plus...

An Economic Policy Institute report showed that consumers only win 9 percent of arbitration cases, and banks almost always win when they issue counter-claims, with the consumer paying $7,725 on average.

Spaulding should have such a racket.

President Trump is expected to sign the resolution.

You don't say.

But it's not just the GOP that's been gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  As you know, banksters and corporations are equal opportunity Congressional pocket liners.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.