Consumer Protection Act: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Abstract

The Consumer Protection Act 2010 is a federal statute in the USA, which was passed as a response to the subprime crisis. The Act brought the most significant changes to financial regulation in the USA since the regulatory reform that followed the Great Depression, representing a significant change in the financial regulatory environment affecting all Federal financial regulatory agencies and almost every aspect of the financial services industry. As with other major financial reforms, financial scholars have analysed the law, critiquing that the reforms were insufficient to prevent another financial crisis. In this paper it is argued that the Act went too far and would unduly restrict the ability of financial firms to operate efficiently.