Vice President Pence voted to break the 50-50 tie in the Senate in favor of the financial industry. The vote was to suspend the rule that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau formulated to permit consumers to be able to sue financial firms in class action law suits. Instead, consumers will now have to stick to mandatory binding arbitration, as is already the case in most contracts one has with banks and other financial institutions.
Here's how one lawyer on the bogleheads forum describes arbitration:
"given up their right as American citizens to take their dispute to a court of law and have it decided by an impartial judge and jury who are not selected by the company they have the dispute with, and that they have no right to appeal, and that they have to pay much higher filing fees than if they filed in court, and they are not allowed to use the procedural mechanisms to gather evidence that would be available in a court of law."
https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=228799&start=200Here's the NY Times article: Consumer Bureau Loses Fight to Allow More Class-Action Suits
https://nyti.ms/2h5Ooe2"For decades, credit card companies and banks have inserted arbitration clauses into the fine print of financial contracts to circumvent the courts and bar people from pooling their resources in class-action lawsuits. By forcing people into private arbitration, the clauses effectively take away one of the few tools that individuals have to fight predatory and deceptive business practices. Arbitration clauses have derailed claims of financial gouging, discrimination in car sales and unfair fees.
The new rule written by the consumer bureau, which was set to take effect in 2019, would have restored the right of individuals to sue in court."
