Bankruptcy's Adjunct Regulator

This Article bridges the fields of consumer finance and bankruptcy by presenting the first comprehensive study of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s potential as bankruptcy regulator. It provides an in-depth picture of how the Bureau’s regulatory authority crosses over into the consumer bankruptcy system. Based on the observations of this study, it makes the normative case that the Bureau should adopt a more purposeful bankruptcy-directed regulatory agenda. It provides a detailed framework for how the Bureau could collaborate with bankruptcy’s existing regulators to address pernicious consumer protection violations in bankruptcy.

It also observes how, in the current political climate, other regulators can capitalize on the fruits of the Bureau’s earlier work to enhance their own effectiveness.