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 18, 2017, the United States Supreme Court, once again with nine justices sitting on the bench, heard oral arguments in Henson v. Santander Consumer USA, Inc., No. 16-349, concerning the scope of the Federal Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), codified at 15 U.S.C. § 1692 –1692p. As previously…
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 March 30, 2017, Judge Karas of the Southern District of New York dismissed multiple claims in a putative nationwide class action challenging default servicing activities. In the case, Tardibuono-Quigley v. HSBC Mortgage Corp., the plaintiff sued her lender (HSBC) and mortgage servicer (PHH) to contest charges she claimed were wrongly…
On March 31, 2017, the D.C. Circuit held in Bais Yaakov of Spring Valley v. FCC that, based on a plain reading of the TCPA, the FCC does not have the authority to mandate that senders of solicited fax advertisements include opt-out notices in their fax advertisements. The decision overturned…
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 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 February 27, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) entered into a stipulated order for permanent injunction and monetary judgment with defendants United Debt Counselors, LLC, a debt relief company, and its principals, banning the defendants from making misrepresentations about financial products and services and requiring the defendants to pay a $9…
Last month, the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a putative class action that challenged certain fees imposed for property inspections conducted after the named plaintiffs had defaulted on their mortgages. Demonstrating the value of the increased pleading requirements set by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9, the Ninth Circuit’s decision in…
On February 28, 2017, the CFPB issued its monthly complaint report spotlighting credit reporting complaints (the Spotlight). Two days later, the Bureau issued a Special Edition of its Supervisory Highlights Report, which also focused on credit reporting (the Report), and Director Cordray delivered prepared remarks on the topic the same day. …
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 21, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order remanding a False Claims Act (FCA) case, Bishop v. Wells Fargo & Co., No. 15-2449 (2d Cir. 2016), to the Second Circuit for further consideration of the availability of implied certification claims. The Court’s decision to remand the case is significant…
On Friday, February 24, 2017, more than half of the U.S. states’ attorneys general (the Amici States) filed an amicus brief in support of the petitioners in Henson v. Santander Consumer USA, Inc., a case that is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Amici States, along with the petitioners, urge…
On February 21, 2017, the United States District Court for the Central District of California issued a stipulated order as to the final defendant in an alleged mortgage-relief scam. The court had entered judgment against the other co-defendants in the case, Federal Trade Comm’n v. CD Capital Investments, LLC, No….
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…
Earlier this month, the Northern District of Illinois struck the class allegations in Cholly v. Uptain Group, Inc., a single-count TCPA case filed against a medical services provider and a debt collector based on allegedly autodialed calls the plaintiff received. The defendants had sought to dismiss the complaint on several…
On January 31, 2017, Mitzie Perez—a former undocumented immigrant who is authorized to work in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) policy—filed a class action in the Northern District of California, Perez et al. v. Wells Fargo & Co. et al., No. 17-454 (N.D. Cal….
On Monday, January 30, 2017, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in Van Patten v. Vertical Fitness Group, LLC, No. 14-55980, that the plaintiff’s allegation that he received unsolicited text messages in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) satisfied the “concrete injury” standing requirement as articulated…
A recent decision by the Ninth Circuit has created a circuit split regarding the interpretation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). In Vien-Phung Ho v. ReconTrust Co. et al., case no. 10-56884, the court held that the trustee of a California deed of trust is not a “debt collector” under the…