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…
On January 15, 2021, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced it had filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut against a Connecticut-based mortgage company and three individual defendants for alleged violations of the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), the Equal Credit Opportunity Act…
On July 15, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced it had filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against a Chicago-based nonbank mortgage creditor for violations of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1691(a) (ECOA), its implementing regulation Regulation…
On July 2, 2020, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it reached a settlement with a Maryland used car dealership. The consent order resolves a lawsuit filed by the DOJ in September 2019, which alleged that the dealership discriminated against African American consumers by offering different loan terms based on race,…
On September 30, 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland against a Maryland used cars dealership, and its owner and manager, for allegedly violating the Equal Credit Opportunity Act. The complaint’s allegations are…
On May 8, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that it had reached a voluntary settlement with a family-owned Minnesota bank, resolving allegations that the bank had violated the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601 et seq. (“FHA”) and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1691 et seq. (“ECOA”) by…
On January 20, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (USAO) announced that it had settled a recently-filed lawsuit against a national bank, resolving allegations of mortgage discrimination. As previously covered by Enforcement Watch, the government alleged that from 2006 to 2009, the bank charged minority borrowers higher rates…
On January 18, 2017, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (USAO) filed a lawsuit against a national bank, alleging that the bank had engaged in a years-long practice of racial discrimination in providing mortgage services. The parties reportedly have agreed to terms of a settlement to resolve the action. The…
On January 13, 2017, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that it had filed a lawsuit against a Minnesota bank, stemming from allegations that the bank engaged in illegal “redlining” of minority neighborhoods in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. The DOJ alleged in its complaint that the bank violated the Fair…
On December 16, 2016, the fair lending team at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced the markets that it would closely monitor in 2017. These new monitoring priorities are part of the general priority goals announced by the CFPB in 2016, which included: 1) regulating the use of arbitration clauses; 2) addressing…
On September 28, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it had entered into a consent order with a bank to resolve allegations that the bank discriminated against Hispanic borrowers. The DOJ’s complaint, filed along with the consent order in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas,…
On August 23, 2016, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the filing of a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against several California-based mortgage loan modification service providers. The complaint alleges that defendants violated the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA)…
On June 29, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CPPB) and Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a joint enforcement action against a regional bank for alleged discriminatory mortgage lending in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) and the Fair Housing Act (FHA), filed in the District Court for the…