U.S. Chamber of Commerce Comments Opposing Terms and Conditions Database

This letter is submitted on behalf of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by the Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness (“CCMC”) and the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (“ILR”). The Chamber created CCMC to promote a modern and effective regulatory structure for capital markets to function well in a 21st-century economy. ILR champions a fair legal system that promotes economic growth and opportunity. We write regarding the recent proposal by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to create a public registry of companies that use certain terms and conditions—including, most notably, arbitration agreements—in their contracts with consumers. The core of this Proposed Rule is a thinly-veiled, wholly impermissible and unjustified, attack on arbitration agreements, violating, among other things, the protections for arbitration agreements that Congress put in place when it enacted the Federal Arbitration Act.