Wall Street and Big Banks Win and Consumers Be Damned [network version]

The arbitration rule, in many ways, encapsulated the consumer bureau’s work: It was independent and designed to fill a regulatory gap. The rule was the first major check on arbitration since a pair of Supreme Court decisions, in 2011 and 2013, enshrined its widespread use.As arbitration clauses appeared in tens of millions of contracts, the consumer agency was specifically mandated to study arbitration under the Dodd-Frank financial law in 2010. That effort culminated in a 728-page report, released in March 2015, that challenged longstanding assumptions about arbitration.The agency found that once blocked from suing, few people went to arbitration at all. And the results for those who did were dismal. During the two-year period studied, only 78 arbitration claims resulted in judgments in favor of consumers, who got $400,000 in total relief.Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said the Republicans had betrayed ordinary Americans. “By voting to take rights away from customers,” he said, “the Senate voted tonight to side with Wells Fargo lobbyists over the people we serve.” New York Times“Tonight’s vote is a giant setback for every consumer in this country,” Richard Cordray, the director of the consumer bureau, said in a statement. “As a result, companies like Wells Fargo and Equifax remain free to break the law without fear of legal blowback from their customers.”