On September 7, the Financial Services Committee held hearings on a bill, H.R. 1849: Practice of Law Technical Clarification Act of 2017 (Trott), that seeks to amend the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
The current definition of “debt collector” under the FDCPA does not make clear whether it applies to attorneys, especially in the
Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB” or the “Bureau”) issued a new rule that will have a significant impact on the payday lending market. The CFPB will now require lenders to conduct a “full-payment test” to determine upfront whether the borrower will have the ability to repay the loan when it becomes due. Lenders
On July 10, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued its long-awaited final Rule banning class action waivers in arbitration provisions for covered entities, as well as requiring the covered entities to provide information to the CFPB regarding any efforts to compel arbitration. This Rule is of significance to any financial services company that utilizes consumer
Starbucks Corp. has been sued in a proposed class action in the Northern District of Georgia for alleged violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act with its employment application process. Plaintiff Kevin Wills claims Starbucks rejected job applicants based on consumer reports without first providing a copy of the reports to the applicants and notifying
In re Monitronics International, Inc., pending in the Northern District of West Virginia, is a consolidated class action lawsuit brought under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. After years of contentious litigation, this past week the Court preliminarily approved a class action settlement of $28 million. This significant settlement serves as another example of the high
This past May, Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) introduced H.R. 2359, the FCRA Liability Harmonization Act, which would cap class action damages in Fair Credit Reporting Act claims at $500,000 or one percent of the defendant’s net worth, whichever is less, and eliminate punitive damages. Such changes would align the Fair Credit Reporting Act with numerous
On September 20, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Katz v. The Donna Karan Company, LLC, affirmed the lower court’s dismissal of a Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act putative class action for failure to establish a concrete injury sufficient to maintain Article III standing to bring suit.
As we previously reported,
On Thursday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB” or “Bureau”) issued its first no-action letter to Upstart Network, Inc., an online lender. The no-action letter green-lights the lender’s use of alternative data in marketing and pricing decisions. In exchange, Upstart will report lending and compliance information to the CFPB.
California-based Upstart provides an
In January 2013, a teenager in Australia posted a photo online showing that his “footlong” Subway sandwich was in fact only 11 inches, setting off a viral storm of consumers discovering their “footlong” sandwiches were similarly not as large as advertised. That spawned a number of class action lawsuits in America accusing Subway’s franchisor, Doctor’s
Two recent decisions from the Southern District of New York and the District of New Jersey have expressly disagreed about a credit repair company’s dispute of a debt on behalf of a consumer in two Fair Debt Collection Practices Act cases.
In Taylor-Burns v. AR Resources, Inc., plaintiff Tonya Taylor-Burns alleged that the debt