Just What We Need - More Law Professors in Power

Elizabeth Warren

If mobile phones can be used to buy gas and pay bills in the U.S., should they be subject to the same consumer protections as bank accounts or credit cards? Questions like this may be answered one day by a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau being built in Washington. The agency’s $400 million budget and mandate to guard people from high fees, confusing contracts and “unfair, deceptive or abusive” practices have corporations and their critics wrestling over its jurisdiction and agenda, even before it gets a director or office space. In a Rose Garden ceremony today, President Barack Obama will name Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren to lead a committee to establish the regulator. Uncertainty over the agency’s scope and demands by consumer advocates for rules in a variety of industries has companies bracing for unexpected battles. Read more here:

Just What We Need - More Law Professors in Power