A Rhode Island federal district court recently refused to enforce a stand-alone class action waiver in the consumer plaintiff’s automobile lease agreement on the ground that it violates state public policy.  The court in Metcalfe v. Grieco Hyundai LLC held that the class action waiver contravened Section 6-13.1-5.2 of Rhode Island’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA), which provides that consumers “may … bring an action on behalf of themselves and other similarly injured and situated persons to recover damages.” … Continue Reading

Two recently-passed bills in California, Assembly Bill 2311 (“AB 2311”) and Senate Bill 1311 (”SB 1311”), were signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on September 13 and September 27, respectively, placing new restrictions on the sale of Guaranteed Asset Protection (“GAP”) waivers in California.  The new laws limit the price of GAP waivers, add new disclosure requirements, ban GAP waiver sales in certain instances, and prohibit financing of GAP insurance in auto loans to servicemembers.… Continue Reading

The U.S. Supreme Court today held that waiver of the right to arbitrate does not require a showing that the other party was prejudiced.  The unanimous opinion by Justice Kagan in Morgan v. Sundance reversed the Eighth Circuit, which had held that a party waives the right to arbitrate if it knew of the right, acted inconsistently with that right and prejudiced the other party by its inconsistent actions. … Continue Reading

We have revised the blog to more fully discuss the effect of a waiver on potential UDAAP liability.

The CFPB is proposing significant revisions to its “Policy to Encourage Trial Disclosure Programs” (TDP Policy), which sets forth the Bureau’s standards and procedures for exempting individual companies, on a case-by-case basis, from applicable federal disclosure requirements to allow those companies to test trial disclosures. … Continue Reading

The U.S. Senate, by unanimous consent, has passed a bill previously approved by the House of Representatives (H.R. 4014) that amends the Federal Deposit Insurance Act to provide protection against waiver of the attorney-client privilege when privileged information is shared with the CFPB or by the CFPB with other federal agencies. … Continue Reading

In a recent blog on the Bacchus-Capito letter to CFPB Director Richard Cordray, possible “legislative fixes” to the highly publicized privilege waiver issues involving the Bureau and possible amendments to 12 U.S.C. §§ 1821(t) and 1828(x) were discussed.  The major shortcoming identified with regard to such amendments was the persistent problem of the Bureau’s sharing privileged information, whether obtained from a regulated entity or from another federal regulatory agency, with State Attorneys General or other law enforcement authorities.… Continue Reading

Last week, a second legislative effort was launched to attempt to fix the much-discussed issue regarding the CFPB’s demands for attorney-client privileged information from banks subject to its supervision.  The new bill, H.R. 3871, seeks to “preserve privilege for information submitted to” the Bureau, but the key text of the legislation may or may not fully address the problem.… Continue Reading