Impoverishing the Consumer: Payday Loans and Financial Law
- Date
- September 14, 2023
- Time
- 12:00 PM EDT - 1:00 PM EDT
- Location
- POD-457 | Lunch will be provided
- Open To
- Lincoln Alexander School of Law Community
High-cost loans, including high-interest installment loans as well as small, high-cost payday loans, are becoming increasing common in Canada. The lenders, which are private firms, are not required to report on the volume of their loans or on the characteristics of their borrowers. Data associated with bankruptcy filings, however, allow us to estimate how many high-cost loans appear among the liabilities of those filing for personal bankruptcy and how that number has changed over time. In fact, between 2011 and 2019, this figure has roughly tripled, even though the number of bankruptcies remained roughly constant. Lincoln Alexander Law Visiting Scholar, Professor Stephanie Ben-Ishai, will provide an examination of the situation in Quebec, which, alone among the provinces, does not have legislation specifically aimed at payday lenders.
Speaker
Professor Stephanie Ben-Ishai is a Distinguished Research Professor and Full Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, where she engages in research and teaching on bankruptcy, contract, commercial law, and financial crises. Stephanie recently served as the Director of Clinical Education at Osgoode, where she is also the Director and Founder of the Osgoode graduate program in Financial Law and the Director of the Osgoode Business Clinic. She has authored or co-authored ten books and more than 60 refereed articles, including most recently Dangerous Opportunities: The Future of Financial Institutions, Housing Policy, and Governance, published by University of Toronto Press in August 2021. Stephanie has also been an Affiliated Scholar (Counsel) at Davies since 2009, where she contributes her unique blend of academic knowledge and high degree of business acumen on a range of insolvency and litigation files. She is regularly consulted by governments and self-regulatory organizations for her insights into insolvency and commercial law matters and has given expert testimony in a range of proceedings.
This event is part of the 2023/24 Lincoln Alexander Law Speaker Series.
The Lincoln Alexander Law Speaker Series brings together distinguished scholars, activists and practitioners to discuss today's most pressing legal issues. These sessions are interactive and offer the opportunity to engage with speakers on their scholarly projects in law. The speaker series creates a venue to present a body of work in a forum that is open to students, faculty, and staff.