The House on May 22nd passed by a strict party-line 231-191 vote the Consumers First Act – H.R.1500. The Bill essentially seeks to undo many steps taken by former Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney, and his full-time successor, Director Kathy Kraninger. We didn’t report on this Bill when it was introduced in March, because it was devoid of any arbitration references. That is no longer the case. Before the final vote, the House passed along party-lines Amendment 263, “to reinstate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's final rule governing forced arbitration, within 60 days of enactment.” As we have reported many times, the CFPB’s final arbitration rule was retroactively nullified November 2017, when President Trump signed into law a Joint Disapproval and Nullification Resolution passed under the Congressional Review Act (5 USC §§ 801-808). The rule would have: 1) banned class action waivers in predispute arbitration agreements (“PDAA”) in contracts for consumer financial goods and services; and 2) required regulated financial institutions to file customer claims and awards data with the CFPB, which the Bureau could choose to publish. It would not have banned PDAAs. We will more fully cover this story in the next Alert.
(ed: We see this Bill as has having no chance passing the Senate, but the non-partisan Govtrack.us gives it a 20% chance of enactment.) (SAC Ref. No. 2019-20-03)
