October 18, 2011

Tort Lawyers' Dream, Economy's Scourge: Richard Cordray and the CFPB

By Michael I. Krauss
In late July, flanked by two teleprompters, Treasury Secretary Geithner, and Harvard Law professor (now U.S. Senate candidate) Elizabeth Warren, President Obama announced the nomination of former Ohio attorney general Richard Cordray as first head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).  This new agency puts "one consumer watchdog in charge, with just one job: looking out for regular people in the financial system," the president asserted.  Sounds like something right up Occupy Wall Street's alley, right?  Well, not so quick.  The new board might not be constitutional and is almost certainly inappropriately structured.  And its proposed chair, whose nomination was confirmed by the Senate Banking Committee on a party-line vote this week, has a cloudy past and a very cozy relationship with security litigation firms that wreak havoc on markets.  The CFPB was created by the Dodd-Franks financial reform plan, the same bill that created the...(Read Full Article)