On May 4, 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee passed the Financial CHOICE Act, H.R. 10, with a 34-to-26 vote down party lines. The legislation, co-sponsored by Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), seeks to overhaul the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, including restructuring the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). LenderLaw…
On April 27, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced the filing of a suit against four online lenders alleging that the lenders illegally collected debts on invalid loans. The complaint alleged violations of the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA), 12 U.S.C. §§ 5531(a), 5536(a), and 5564(a), and the Truth in Lending Act (TILA),…
On April 26, 2017, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it reached a consent order with an Ohio-based auto lender that allegedly violated a prior CFPB consent order by failing to properly return $1 million in refunds and credits to its customers. According to the CFPB, the auto lender specializes in auto loans to servicemembers. Under…
On April 21, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the lower court’s decision denying the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) petition to investigate a college accreditation organization. The Court limited its holding to the particular Civil Investigative Demand (CID), finding that the Notification of Purpose within…
On April 5, 2017, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee to present the CFPB’s semi-annual report, which is available here. The hearing was unsurprisingly divisive among members of Congress. Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) set the tone during his opening statement,…
On April 13, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued proposed amendments to clarify certain requirements of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). HMDA requires that financial institutions collect and report certain information regarding their mortgage lending activities. The information that financial institutions are required to collect and report includes…
On April 17, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio against an Ohio-based debt collection law firm, alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) and Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA). The…
On March 28, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released Volume 21 of its Monthly Complaint Report (the “Report”). The purpose of the Report is, in part, to educate consumers and financial institutions on major consumer issues—which it does by providing a high-level analysis of trends in consumer complaints, focusing on one or two…
The five-year anniversary of some of the major financial regulations passed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is coming up in January 2018, meaning that they will soon undergo a review to check on their effectiveness. The Dodd-Frank Act requires the CFPB to review its rules five years after their effective date to…
On March 23, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it had entered into a consent order with a California-based credit reporting agency (CRA) and its subsidiaries, resolving allegations that the CRA deceived consumers by misrepresenting that the credit score reports that it marketed to consumers were used by lenders in determining a consumer’s credit worthiness….
On March 17, 2017, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an amicus brief in PHH Corp. v. CFPB, No. 15-1177 (D.C. Cir.), in which it argued that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) single director structure is unconstitutional and that President Trump should have the power to remove the CFPB’s director…
On March 15, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) entered into a consent order with national nonbank mortgage lender that requires the lender to pay a $1.75 million civil monetary penalty to resolve alleged violations of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA). The CFPB alleged that the mortgage lender violated HMDA, 12 U.S.C. § 2803,…
On Thursday, September 8, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”), in connection with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (“OCC”) and the City of Los Angeles, announced that the government was levying a combined fine of $185 million on Wells Fargo, N.A. (“Wells Fargo”) for aggressive sales…
On February 16, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit granted Respondent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) petition for rehearing en banc of PHH Corp. v. CFPB, No. 15-1177 (D.C. Cir.). In doing so, the court vacated its October 11, 2016, order, which had held, inter alia, that the CFPB’s single-director structure…
On January 31, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it ordered a California-based mortgage lender to pay $3.5 million in civil penalties for an illegal mortgage kickback scheme. According to the CFPB, the lender entered into several different referral programs with multiple third parties, each of which the CFPB contends violated…
On February 7, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the New York Attorney General (NY AG) jointly announced they filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against a settlement advance company and its founder. The Complaint alleges that the company violated section 1054 of…
On February 2, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia (Virginia AG) announced the filing of a complaint and a stipulated consent order in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against a Virginia-based pawn broker for allegedly deceiving consumers…
On February 1, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced a settlement with a credit card service provider and a credit card provider over a disruption of service for prepaid credit card consumers. According to the CFPB, the credit card provider marketed its prepaid credit card to consumers nationally as a way to get…
On January 30, 2017, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Central District of California against several debt relief law firms and individual attorneys based in Orange County, California and Kansas City, Kansas. The CFPB brought the action under the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse…
On January 24, 2017, 38 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) sent a letter to President Trump urging him to cease any planned efforts to remove Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray. The letter was co-authored by the ranking member of the U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services…