Has the CFPB Asked the Right Questions about Consumer Arbitration?

Introduction
In 2010, in response to perceived abuses in the consumer financial services industry, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The Act directed the CFPB to conduct a study on the use of pre-dispute arbitration clauses in consumer finance agreements and to regulate or prohibit the use of such clauses if it determined that so doing was "in the public interest and for the protection of consumers." This represented a potential carve-out to the overriding federal policy in favor of arbitration established by the Federal Arbitration Act.