On October 15, 2024 the CFPB and DOJ announced they had jointly filed a complaint and consent order against a mortgage company over allegations of racial discrimination in Birmingham, Alabama. The joint complaint alleged that the company engaged in unlawful discrimination by “redlining majority-Black and high-Black areas in Birmingham” and engaging in acts that would discourage applicants…
On September 18, 2024, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had entered into a consent order and a conciliation agreement with a New Jersey-based bank resolving allegations that the Bank had engaged in a pattern…
On August 15, 2024, the FTC and the State of Arizona announced they had taken action against the owner of several car dealerships and one of their employees for allegedly deceptive advertising practices and alleged overcharging of Latino customers. According to the Complaint, the dealerships advertised prices that were thousands of dollars below the retail…
On July 11, the Seventh Circuit held that the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1691 et seq. (ECOA) authorizes the imposition of liability for the discouragement of prospective applicants. See CFPB v. Townstone Financial, Inc., ___ F.4th ___ (7th Cir. 2024), 2024 WL 3370023. As anticipated in Goodwin’s…
In September 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued guidance on the use of artificial intelligence in issuing credit denials, a prevalent practice among lenders. The CFPB explained that when denying a credit application, lenders must provide a substantive reason behind the denial. The guidance further explains that the…
On January 24, 2024, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had reached a settlement with an online cash advance provider and its co-founders resolving claims that the company violated the FTC Act, the Restore Online Shopper’s Confidence Act (ROSCA), and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), by engaging in allegedly deceptive marketing tactics and…
On January 17, 2024, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee (“USAO”) announced that it entered into a consent agreement with a full-service bank, resolving allegations of lending discrimination in violation of the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”), 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601–3619 and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (“ECOA”),…
On December 20, 2023, the CFPB announced that, along with the DOJ, it had filed suit against a Texas-based developer and lender for operating an allegedly illegal land sales scheme that targeted Hispanic borrowers. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, alleges that the lender sells…
On November 8, 2023, the CFPB and a national bank entered into a consent order to resolve allegations that the bank engaged in intentional discrimination against Armenian Americans who had applied for credit cards with said bank. Specifically, the CFPB alleges that between 2016 and 2021, the bank singled out…
On June 14, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed its opening brief in its appeal of a U.S. district court’s decision in the CFPB’s enforcement action against Townstone Mortgage (Townstone). The CFPB’s brief argues that the Seventh Circuit should reverse the district court’s holding that the Equal Credit…
On May 31, 2023, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), announced that it had entered into a settlement with a Philadelphia based bank and trust company over allegations that the bank had engaged in unlawful redlining in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. In the Complaint, filed contemporaneously with the consent order in U.S. District Court for the…
On April 3, 2023, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) filed a notice to appeal a district court’s decision to dismiss its complaint against Townstone Finance, Inc. (Townstone), a nonbank mortgage lender, and its owner Barry Sturner, for allegedly violating the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). Relying on the language…
On February 3, 2023, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted Defendants Townstone Financial, Inc., a mortgage broker/lender, and Barry Sturner’s, Townstone’s owner, motion to dismiss the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB or Bureau) redlining complaint brought under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), ECOA’s…
On September 29, 2022, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it reached a settlement with a Memphis-based bank to resolve alleged violations of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601–3619, and Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1691–1691f, and its implementing Regulation B, 12 C.F.R. §…
On July 27, 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint and proposed consent order in a federal district court alleging that a mortgage company intentionally discriminated against families living in majority-minority neighborhoods around Philadelphia in violation of the Fair Housing Act…
On July 27, 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that they reached a settlement with a nonbank residential mortgage lender to resolve allegations of race-based lending discrimination in violation of the Fair Housing Act (FHA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601-3619; the Equal Credit Opportunity Act…
On April 1, 2022, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it reached a settlement with a group of Illinois-based auto dealers to resolve allegations that they had violated Sections 13(b) and 19 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTCA), 15 U.S.C. § 53(b), 57b, the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1601-1666j,…
A new essay published in the Emory Law Journal argues that two empirical studies of advertising by certain banks and payday lenders in Houston, Texas indicate that payday lenders steer African Americans and Latinos to their products, while banks market primarily to white consumers. The authors suggest that, consistent with…
On October 22, 2021, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that the CFPB, Department of Justice (DOJ) and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) collectively reached a joint settlement with a national bank that resolved allegations of mortgage lending discrimination in the Memphis metropolitan area in violation of the Fair Housing Act (FHA),…
On September 8, 2021 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that it filed a complaint against an online lender for alleged violations of a 2016 consent order, the Consumer Financial Protection Act (CFPA), 12 U.S.C. §§ 5564, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA), 15 U.S.C. §§ 1691–1691f, and Regulation B (Reg…