On November 6, 2015, State National Bank (SNB) filed a summary judgment motion in the United States District Court for the District of D.C., seeking a declaratory judgment holding that the CFPB is unconstitutional and invalidating the actions taken by Director Cordray during his 18-month recess appointment. See State National…
On March 18, 2016, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced that a federal district court entered final judgment against a debt relief company over allegations the company charged illegal upfront fees and engaged in other deceptive business tactics. The CFPB filed suit against the company in 2013, alleging violations of the…
On February 12, 2016, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a report to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau regarding its efforts to implement the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. The full report can be reviewed here. According to the report, in 2015, the Commission: coordinated the first federal-state-local enforcement initiative targeting deceptive…
On October 1, 2015, the CFPB announced an enforcement action and consent order with an indirect auto lender for illegal debt collection and other practices. It is alleged that the company’s actions violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, the Truth in Lending Act, and the Dodd-Frank Act. The illegal…
A U.S. District Judge in the Northern District of Illinois recently granted summary judgment in favor of defendant PNC Bank on a borrower’s promissory estoppel and Illinois Consumer Fraud Act (ICFA) claims in connection with PNC’s HAMP procedures. In its August 25, 2015 decision the court found that PNC’s actions…
On August 20, 2015, the CFPB and the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) announced they had filed a lawsuit in federal court in California against two regional financial companies. According the complaint, the companies deceived consumers about the fees and interest rates associated with pension loans. The companies…
On August 6, 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an order denying a petition to modify or set aside a Civil Investigative Demand (CID) issued to an employee of a marketing company that generates and sells leads. According to the petition, the CID sought oral testimony to determine “whether…
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) took action against two credit card vendors, entering into proposed consent orders regarding the companies’ offerings of allegedly unlawful add-on products. Credit card companies offer consumers “add-on” services, such as credit monitoring or identity theft protection for a monthly or annual membership fee. Following an…
On June 10, 2015, the CFPB issued a Final Rule amending the scope of its regulatory authority to include “larger participants” of the automobile financing industry. Under the Final Rule, the CFPB will supervise certain nonbank auto finance companies that (1) originate loans for the purchase of automobiles; (2) refinance…
On Wednesday, June 10, 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) announced a new rule that grants the CFPB the ability to monitor nonbank companies that qualify as “larger participants of a market for automobile financing.” The CFPB simultaneously adopted a separate rule defining certain automobile leases as a “financial…
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…
On March 9, 2015, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Director Richard Cordray held oral arguments in the first appeal of a CFPB administrative enforcement action. Both counsel for the CFPB and Respondents PHH Mortgage Corporation and Atrium Insurance Corporation appealed to Cordray from the Administrative Law Judge’s (ALJ) Recommended Decision,…
On March 10, 2015, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released its Arbitration Study, which concludes that arbitration agreements in contracts associated with consumer financial products constrain consumers’ ability to assert their rights if a dispute arises. The study, which the CFPB was directed to carry out under Section 1028(a)…
Speculation abounds regarding what the CFPB’s expected 2015 rules regarding first party debt collectors will be. Here’s the background you need to know. On November 12, 2013, the CFPB issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, seeking comments to its proposal to update the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”). As…
No readers of this blog would disagree that the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act transformed the legal landscape for banks and consumer finance companies. In the area of enforcement, two of the Act’s most significant changes were (1) the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and…
On October 22, the CFPB issued amendments to the Dodd-Frank Act mortgage rules that took effect in January 2014. The amendments include: ATR/QM Cure Provision: Under the Ability-to-Repay/Qualified Mortgage Rule, a mortgage loan must meet certain requirements to be considered a “qualified mortgage”. One such requirement is that the points and fees…
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has entered a consent order with a mortgage bank following CFPB’s allegations that the bank violated the new mortgage servicing rules. CFPB claimed that the bank: took an unreasonably long time to process borrowers’ applications for loan modifications or other foreclosure relief; failed to…
The Federal Reserve Board recently made headlines when it repealed its Regulation AA to comply with the Dodd-Frank Act, leading some to wonder how, and to what extent, regulation of financial institutions might change going forward. But the federal agencies charged with regulating banking and credit activities have made it clear that they will continue to enforce prohibitions…