Last month the Supreme Court delivered a crushing defeat to Wall Street’s challenge to funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Undeterred, Wall Street is now trying to distort the Supreme Court’s decision to conjure up a new and utterly nonsensical argument about the legality of the CFPB’s funding. The trial balloon for this argument was launched in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal by Hal Scott, a retired Harvard Law professor and longtime industry shill whose specialty is neither consumer nor constitutional issues but international finance. Scott’s notion has already been swatted down by several credentialed legal experts of various political stripes.
When consumers purchase many financial products and services they have no say over specific terms and conditions, only the choice of whether to sign or not. Yet, hidden in the fine print in virtually every contract is another grave price consumers unwittingly pay: the removal of many of their legal rights and protections. If consumers want financial services, the fine print — and the proper regulation thereof — is critically important.
Today is Exxon’s annual shareholder meeting. Regardless of the results of key votes, shareholders have made their voices heard by making it clear there will be consequences for corporations that, as the fossil fuels giant has, sue their own shareholders for daring to exercise their rights. Members of Congress should be listening too as they consider curtailing shareholder rights through H.R. 4655 and H.R. 4767 — bills marked up by the House Financial Services Committee that are expected to come to a floor vote this summer.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently finalized a rule that will close loopholes Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) issuers have taken advantage of to profit at the expense of investors. The rule becomes effective starting July 1st of this year. Here is what to expect under the new rules: Any business combination involving a
In 2020, amid a global reckoning for racial justice, the largest Wall Street banks make public pledges to better serve communities of color. But their recent lawsuit to overturn the enforcement of the updated 1977 Community Reinvestment Act starkly undermines the principles they claim to champion.
Today, Sam Bankman Fried – known as SBF, the founder of crypto firm FTX; the once exalted face of the crypto boom, and now the poster child for crypto scandals – was sentenced to serve 25 years in prison, after being found guilty of seven counts of fraud in a jury trial last year. The presiding judge found SBF, in addition to his other charges, had committed perjury and witness tampering during his trial as well.
