On May 29, 2015, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) and the State of Florida a final default judgment against a Florida Foreclosure Relief Company and its corporate affiliates based on the company’s failure to answer or otherwise…
On May 28, 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) and the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed a joint complaint and proposed consent order against a national mortgage lender in the United States District Court for Northern District of California. The complaint alleges that the lender violated the Equal Credit…
On May 22, 2015, the Michigan Attorney General (“AG”) and its Homeowner Protection Unit filed charges in Oakland County’s 48th District Court against a Michigan mortgage company and its owner alleging that the owner and mortgage company engaged in a scheme to defraud borrowers by promising to modify mortgages for…
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it reached a settlement agreement with a regional bank over a disparate treatment fair housing claim. HUD alleged that the bank engaged in racially discriminatory redlining by lending less in majority-minority census tracks than in other neighborhoods. Under the…
On May 20, 2015, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, along with attorneys general of thirty other states (“the State AGs”), announced a $6,000,000 settlement with three major credit reporting agencies (“CRAs”). According to the announcement and the Settlement Agreement, the settlement is a culmination of a multistate investigation that the…
On May 4, 2015, Comptroller of the Currency Thomas Curry, Federal Reserve Board (FRB) Governor Daniel Tarullo, and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) Chairman Martin Gruenberg held the third in a series of outreach meetings to discuss with the public their efforts to reduce the regulatory burden on community banks…
The CFPB’s Request for Information On May 14, 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) held a field hearing on student loans in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and issued a Request for Information (RFI) about student loan servicing practices. The RFI is in response to a Presidential Memorandum that instructed the Secretary…
On May 19, 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an announcement and released remarks prepared by Director Richard Cordray regarding a complaint filed by the CFPB against California and Maryland based online-payment services. The complaint, filed May 19 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland,…
On Friday, May 15, 2015, the California Department of Business Oversight (DBO) announced that it filed a complaint in state court against an Ohio-based biweekly debt repayment firm and allegedly associated entities (collectively “Defendants”) claiming certain violations of licensing, fee, and consumer protection provisions of California’s Financial Code and Business & Professions…
On May 15, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that a settlement was reached against “a company that deceptively advertised its add-on biweekly auto payment plan” for allegedly violating the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. Section 45, et seq. The Complaint alleged that the payment liaison company deceptively pitched consumers a…
On May 13, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman annouced that the AG obtained default judgment against Brooklyn and Florida Law Firms and the firms’ principal attorney for participating in a fraudulent mortgage rescue scheme. The AG’s petition alleged that, directly and through their third-party marketers, the firms collected…
On May 12, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System announced the execution of a settlement in an enforcement action against a state member bank concerning alleged violation of Section 102(f) of the National Flood Insurance Act (NFIA). The settlment noted that where a pattern of practice of…
Goodwin Procter’s Consumer Financial Services Enforcement practice today launched Consumer Finance Enforcement Watch, a first-of-its-kind tracking blog to monitor state and federal consumer finance enforcement actions. The blog provides real-time reporting of publicly available enforcement activity taken against consumer financial service companies in key areas, including: mortgage lending and servicing;…
For the first quarter of 2015, Consumer Finance Enforcement Watch tracked 46 instances of enforcement activity taken against a consumer finance service provider. Not surprisingly, the year started off slow with only 9 enforcement actions taken in January, likely due to agencies wrapping-up actions before year-end 2014. The 46 actions ranged…
On May 12, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced that it is seeking to settle claims against two cellular providers who have agreed to return $120 million in funds to wireless customers. The Bureau filed proposed orders in the United States District Courts for the District of New Jersey…
On May 11, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced that it filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against the provider of a mortgage payment liaison service for allegedly misleading customers about costs associated with its bi-weekly mortgage payment program and misrepresenting…
Beginning with its next sale in June 2015, HUD will have new, stricter requirements for entities that purchase distressed loans as part of the Distressed Asset Stabilization Program (“DASP”), a development we initially covered here. Initially conceived as a way to lower losses suffered by the FHA from troubled loans,…
On May 8, 2015, the Colorado Attorney General announced that it filed suit against a Colorado corporation for violations of Colorado lending and consumer protection laws. The company allegedly sought members of the military and their families as customers. The company would then sell goods on credit, offer consumer loans, and then collect…
On May 7, 2015, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced a settlement with a regional bank over allegations of discriminatory lending. In a Complaint filed in federal court, the Department of Justice alleged that the bank engaged in a “pattern or practice” of charging Hispanic or African American borrowers higher…
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) settled claims with three defendants after the CFPB claimed the corporations were targeting homeowners who were struggling to make mortgage payments. The parties stipulated to final judgments for the individual defendants that were filed with the Court. The CFPB also filed a motion for default judgment as…