During the Sher Garner Keynote Address in Commercial Law, Professor Christopher Lewis Peterson discussed the origins, purpose, and benefits of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the scope of its regulatory authority. Professor Peterson is the John J. Flynn Endowed Professor of Law at the University of Utah and currently serves as Special Advisor to the Director of the CFPB. He presented original statistics that demonstrated the increasing amount of enforcement actions initiated by the CFPB since its inception and the related growth in the amount of monetary redress that the CFPB has been obtaining from violators. Professor Peterson also highlighted a number of key enforcement actions that the CFPB has brought, including actions brought against a for-profit college; an owner of tax-preparation franchises who illegally steered his customers to high-interest tax-anticipation loans that he also sold, which was brought in conjunction with the Navajo Nation; and Citibank for engaging in illegal credit card add-on practices. Professor Peterson posited that the CFPB has been an effective voice for consumers and that the CFPB’s success in protecting the interest of consumers will only continue to expand. The Sher Garner Keynote Address in Commercial Law was given as part of the Tulane Law Review’s symposium, entitled “The Promise and Perils of Convergence in Financial Regulation and Consumer Protection,” which took place at Tulane Law School on Friday, November 13, 2015. The keynote address was made possible through the generosity of Sher Garner Cahill Richter Klein & Hilbert, L.L.C., and their recent endowment of the Sher Garner Fund for the Advancement of Commercial Law. The Tulane Law Review is sincerely grateful for Sher Garner’s support of student intellectual life at Tulane Law School.
Christopher Lewis Peterson Delivers Sher Garner Keynote Address