Welcome to an MLEX podcast.

I'm U.S. Financial Services editor Neil Rowland, and we're talking to reporter Neil Haggerty.

Thanks for joining us, Neil.

Good to be here.

This week, Republicans in Congress and the

White House dealt a major blow to consumers. They killed a federal rule adopted by the Consumer

Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB. The rule would have let customers go to court with complaints

about their banks or credit card companies.

Now dissatisfied customers will soon be back to square one. They'll be left to decide whether to go

through arbitration, where the costs will be higher and the payoff less than if they could have

filed a class action suit. Neil, what happened here?

So in July, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau passed this arbitration rule.

Basically, what it does is it bans, it prohibits financial firms from imposing mandatory arbitration clauses on consumers.

Immediately after the rule was finalized, House Republicans

passed a Congressional Review Act resolution to block the rule. The CFPB has been under fire by both

Republicans in both the House and the Senate, and because the House holds a very strong majority,

a Republican majority in the House, they were able to pass that resolution very easily.

In the Senate, it's a 5248 majority, so they able to pass that resolution very easily. In the Senate,

it's a 52-48 majority, so they had to, it was a little bit harder for them to get enough members to support a resolution blocking the rule, but they were eventually able to get just enough members

this week. It was a 50-50 vote, and Vice President Mike Pence was able to break the tie.

Wow, what a cliffhanger.

Yes.

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