On May 6, 2019, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in CFPB v. Seila Law LLC, No. 7-56324. Seila Law LLC is a law firm that provides debt-relief services to consumers. The CFPB filed a petition to force Seila Law to…
On March 12, 2019, the issue of whether the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) leadership structure violates Article II and the separation of powers established by the United States Constitution was argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in CFPB v. All American Check Cashing, Inc, et…
On February 6, 2019, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) released a proposed rescission of the 2017 “Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans” final rule (Payday Rule), along with a “Payday, Vehicle Title, and Certain High-Cost Installment Loans; Delay of Compliance Date” (Delay of Compliance) notice. The Payday…
On January 10, 2019, the CFPB issued a press release regarding two recently-released reports, which analyze the efficacy of the Ability to Repay Rule (ATR), and the RESPA Servicing Rule (Servicing Rule). The assessment reports analyze data collected since the rules were enacted in January 2013, and are designed to assess whether…
On December 13, 2018, the CFPB published a proposed rule, seeking public comment regarding a change to its policy on No-Action Letters, as well as a new feature called the “Product Sandbox,” a rule change that was initially announced on September 13, 2018. The comment period for the proposed rule…
On December 10, 2018, Kathy Kraninger was sworn in to serve as Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for a five-year term. This followed her December 6, 2018 confirmation by the Senate with a vote of 50 to 49. Kraninger succeeds Mick Mulvaney, her former boss at the…
On October 15, 2018, in remarks to the Mortgage Banker’s Association, Acting Director Mick Mulvaney declared that the CFPB will move away from “regulation by enforcement” by clarifying standards of conduct, to provide the regulated community with a measure of certainty when engaging in business operations. Mulvaney stated that, under…
On September 14, 2018, the Community Financial Services Association of America, Ltd. and the Consumer Service Alliance of Texas (Industry Groups) moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent many of the provisions of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) payday lending rule (12 C.F.R. Part 1041) from becoming effective on…
On August 10, 2018 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a final rule adopting changes to Regulation P to bring the regulation into conformity with its authorizing statute, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, 15 U.S.C. § 6801 et seq. (GLBA). The rule, which was enacted to reduce regulatory burden on financial…
On July 16, 2018, in Collins v. Mnuchin, No. 17-20364, a Fifth Circuit panel ruled that the single-director structure of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) is unconstitutional. The ruling comes on the heels of the Southern District of New York’s CFPB v. RD Legal Funding LLC decision (2018 WL 3094916…
On June 21, 2018, a judge in the Southern District of New York ruled that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) single director structure is unconstitutional. See CFPB v. RD Legal Funding LLC (2018 WL 3094916 (S.D.N.Y. June 21, 2018)). In doing so, the court adopted two dissenting opinions from…
One month after the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) indirect auto lending guidance under a Congressional Review Act challenge, President Trump signed the resolution to make the repeal official on May 21, 2018. The guidance, which Congress and the President have…
At the end of May 2018, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released an analysis of consumer debt collection complaints highlighting several issues that often arise in those complaints. In light of Acting Director Mulvaney’s comment in his January 2018 staff memo that debt collection complaints made up the majority…
On April 17, 2018, House members Sean Duffy (R-WI) and Ed Perlmutter (D-CO) co-sponsored bi-partisan legislation aimed at providing more certainty to companies subject to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) regulation. The bill, H.R. 5534, titled the “Give Useful Information to Define Effective Compliance Act” or “GUIDE Compliance Act,”…
On April 17, 2018, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that the Senate would seek to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB’s) indirect auto lending guidance. The Senate passed a joint resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act (CRA) on the following day, thereby sending the resolution…
On March 1, 2018, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued its sixth request for information (RFI) since Mick Mulvaney, acting head of the CFPB, began his tenure. This request seeks “comments and information from interested parties on the usefulness of complaint reporting and analysis, as well as specific suggestions or…
On January 25, 2018, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued the final prepaid accounts rule (which we wrote about here and here) under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act (Regulation E) and the Truth in Lending Act (Regulation Z). The final rule, which will now become effective on April 1,…
The Trump Administration-appointed Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”), Mick Mulvaney, recently stated in a memo to his staff that under his leadership, the CFPB would significantly change in its approach to regulation and enforcement. The most concrete example of this thus far is his approach to the payday lending…
On January 31, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (D.C. Circuit), sitting en banc, issued its long-awaited decision in PHH Corp. v. CFPB, holding that the provision of the Dodd-Frank Act shielding the single director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) from removal without cause…
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has solicited comments to assist it to revise its current Civil Investigative Demand (CID) process. The “Request for Information Regarding Bureau Civil Investigative Demands and Associated Processes” was published in the Federal Register on January 26, 2018. The CFPB’s power to issue CIDs is derived from…