The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) recently released its long awaited Report to Congress on arbitration agreements in consumer financial contracts. The Report’s conclusion, and Director Richard Cordray’s remarks, were as expected: consumers are better served by litigation—and particularly, class action litigation—than by agreements to arbitrate disputes. But after spending almost three years analyzing the issue, the 700-page Report does not appear to back up that conclusion. Rather, the evaluation of arbitration agreements, including class action waivers, requires complex value judgments that are not suited to the Bureau’s data-driven approach. Here’s our summary and analysis of the CFPB’s findings, along with a roadmap of what comes next.
Read our client alert.