Americans for Financial Reform

News Category: Press Releases & Statements

Letter to Regulators: AFR Supports Competitive Swaps Trading

The AFR Education Fund wrote a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission supporting the agency’s proposal to require anonymous trading of cleared derivatives on Swaps Execution Facilities. Revealing the identity of trading partners can prevent new competitors from entering these markets and bidding down prices. Barriers to competition create unfair advantages for the small

In The News: Zombie debt – CFPB proposal could trick consumers into bringing dead debts back to life (The Washington Post)

It is “disappointing,” said Linda Jun, senior policy counsel for Americans for Financial Reform. The CFPB should bar the collection of debts that have passed their statute of limitations altogether. “The whole point of statute of limitations is that the government has decided that the debt is no longer collectible,” Jun said. “If you can’t be sued on it, why are you getting mail on it?”

News Release: CFPB Fails to Protect Consumers from Abusive Collection of Time-Barred Debt (Again)

The supplemental rule states that debt collectors must provide consumers with specific disclosures when collecting debt that is beyond the statute of limitations (time-barred debt). The proposed disclosures would be in addition to the CFPB’s proposal announced in May to prohibit collectors from filing or threatening a lawsuit on a time-barred debt, but only if the collector “knows or should know” that the legal time limit to sue has expired.

News Release: Internet, Federal Authorities Must Seek Answers Before Any Sale of Dot-Org

Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund and the Electronic Frontier Foundation said the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which coordinates the operation and maintenance of the internet’s domain name system, should make sure that the transaction will “not imperil the future operation of .ORG” before allowing it to proceed.