In 2025, the U.S. digital asset landscape evolved more dramatically than in any year since the industry’s inception. A pro‑innovation White House, an active Congress, and key regulators — including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the Department of
On January 9, the defendants in National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) v. Vought filed a notice and exhibit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia confirming that the Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) has now requested funding from the Federal Reserve Board (Federal Reserve), as required by Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s December 30, 2025 order.
Today, another significant decision was issued in the ongoing battle over the fate of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau). In National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) v. Vought, the D.C. federal district court granted the plaintiffs’ motion to clarify the existing preliminary injunction and squarely rejected the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel’s (OLC) interpretation of the CFPB’s funding statute. In so holding, the ruling makes clear that the CFPB cannot justify noncompliance with the court’s existing preliminary injunction by declining to request funds from the Federal Reserve.
As we discussed in our prior post on National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau), on August 15 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a decision vacating the district court’s preliminary injunction, which had previously restricted the CFPB’s actions to halt the Bureau’s operations and terminate its employees. The court of appeals held that most of the employees’ claims belonged in the Civil Service Reform Act regime and that the remaining claims did not target reviewable final agency action or equitable claims.
Three nonprofit organizations have filed a complaint in the Northern District of California seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent what they describe as a de facto shutdown of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau). Their suit targets Acting Director Russell Vought’s refusal to request funding for the Bureau from the Federal Reserve Board (Fed), arguing that Congress designed a statutory provision that provides stable, standing appropriation to support the CFPB’s mission and that the Director’s recent interpretation of the statute — which is being used to support the refusal to request funding — unlawfully cuts off those funds. The plaintiffs ask the court to compel the CFPB to fulfill its statutory duty by requesting funding immediately.
On November 24, the plaintiffs in National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) filed a motion to clarify the existing injunction, asking the court to confirm that the CFPB may not justify noncompliance by declining to request funds from the Federal Reserve Board (Fed) and that “combined earnings” under 12 U.S.C. § 5497(a)(1) refers to the Federal Reserve System’s total earnings, not a net figure reduced by interest expense. In response, Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued a minute order directing the parties to file submissions by November 26 identifying which provisions of the preliminary injunction they believe remain in force and addressing the court’s authority to enforce those provisions in light of the D.C. Circuit’s August 15 opinion and the pending petition for rehearing en banc.
On November 21, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) notified staff that it will restart supervision and require examiners, beginning with the 2026 examination cycle, to open each review by reading to the supervised entity a Humility in Supervisions Pledge. The pledge signals a notable shift in tone and execution that is in line with the CFPB’s Memorandum on Supervision and Enforcement Priorities from April 2025. Specifically, examinations will now have tighter alignment to the CFPB’s statutory authority, narrower and more clearly scoped exams (with a focus on “identified priority markets”), greater transparency and predictability, and an express preference to remediate issues in Supervision rather than escalate to Enforcement. It also formalizes a renewed focus on tangible consumer harm, especially to service members, their families, and veterans, and aims to minimize duplicative oversight where states or other regulators are already active.
As reported by Law360 on November 20, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) will hand off its remaining enforcement lawsuits and other active litigation to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as the Bureau prepares for a potential funding lapse. CFPB staff were informed that DOJ will begin assuming matters from the CFPB’s enforcement and legal divisions in the coming weeks, with transfer logistics to be worked out. It remains unclear whether all pending cases will survive the transition or whether case schedules and continuity will be affected.
Yesterday, President Trump nominated Stuart Levenbach, an energy official at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), to serve a five-year term as permanent director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau). Levenbach’s experience is in natural resources and energy policy rather than financial regulation, and he would inherit an agency facing profound uncertainty after months of leadership turmoil, enforcement retrenchment, and dwindling finances.
Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) notified the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the D.C. Circuit in the matter of National Treasury Employees Union v. Vought that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) anticipates exhausting its currently available funds in early 2026. The filing attaches a November 7 opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to Acting Director Vought concluding that the CFPB’s statutory funding stream — quarterly transfers from the “combined earnings of the Federal Reserve System” under 12 U.S.C. § 5497(a)(1) — is unavailable while the Federal Reserve operates at a loss. The Bureau expects to continue operating, including in compliance with an existing district court injunction, through at least December 31, 2025, but absent congressional action may face a funding lapse thereafter, which would trigger Antideficiency Act constraints.