Law360, New York ( July 13, 2016, 4:39 PM EDT) -- In the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress asked the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to study the use of consumer arbitration clauses, and authorized the CFPB to prohibit or impose conditions or limitations on the use of such clauses if doing so was "in the public interest and for the protection of consumers."[1] That broad charter gave the CFPB the opportunity to think afresh about dispute resolution, and to imagine and foster a system through which consumers' rights would be upheld efficiently and effectively. Unfortunately, the CFPB instead decided to revert to a class action regime that its own study indicates poorly serves consumers' interests. The CFPB should look more deeply at the facts it assembled — and investigate critical questions it failed to analyze — before taking such a drastic step....