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Keith’s experience representing clients in the financial services industry as a litigation, compliance, regulatory, investigations (internal and regulatory), and enforcement attorney spans 20 years. Keith represents clients against government regulators (CFPB, FTC, SEC, CFTC), industry regulators (FINRA), and private litigants in federal courts, state courts, and before arbitration and administrative law panels in the financial services industry.

On February 22, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed an enforcement action against digital asset exchange, CoinEx, for failing to register as a securities and commodities broker-dealer and for falsely representing itself as a crypto exchange without appropriate registration in violation of New York law. In the petition, filed in the New York

On March 8, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a special edition of its Supervisory Highlights report, focusing once again on fees assessed in relation to bank account deposits, auto loan servicing, mortgage loan servicing, payday lending, and student loan servicing. As the Supervisory Highlights reveal, the CFPB continues to scrutinize and challenge fees

On March 1, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued an issue spotlight highlighting concerns about prepaid card programs for accessing public assistance benefits. In particular, the spotlight notes “specific recurring issues” related to cash assistance benefits including Social Security, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), and unemployment benefits that are provided on prepaid cards.

In the fourth and final segment of our four-part Crypto Year in Review series, Ethan Ostroff, Keith Barnett, and Carlin McCrory discuss how the U.S. Treasury Department — including the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) bureaus — functions in the digital asset space. Our speakers examine how these

In the third segment of our four-part Crypto Year in Review series, Ethan Ostroff, Keith Barnett, and Addison Morgan discuss state-level regulation of interest-bearing cryptocurrency deposit products. Our speakers explain these product types and cover how state attorneys general and other regulators seek to protect consumer interests amid the rapidly evolving digital asset landscape.

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As discussed here, on September 8, 2022, an en banc panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s decision that a debt collector’s outsourcing of its letter process to a third-party mail vendor violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act’s prohibition on third-party disclosure. The Eleventh Circuit remanded the case

On February 23, The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (the Board), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) (collectively, the Agencies) issued a statement on the liquidity risks presented by funding provided to banks related to certain crypto activities and offering some effective

In a letter dated February 10, the American Bankers Association (ABA), Consumer Bankers Association (CBA), Credit Union National Association (CUNA), National Association of Federally‐Insured Credit Unions (NAFCU), and The Clearing House (TCH) (collectively, the Associations) vigorously requested that the Federal Reserve Board (Fed) extend the effective date for the final rule amending Regulation II (Final

In the first of a four-part Crypto Year in Review series, Carlin McCrory, Keith Barnett, and Ethan Ostroff look at how the CFPB and FTC viewed and regulated cryptocurrency in 2022. The panel examines statements by CFPB Director Rohit Chopra and recent CFPB and FTC enforcement actions, identifying likely regulatory trends for 2023 and beyond.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Act (FDIA) generally prohibits insured state banks, but not uninsured state member banks, from acting as principal in activities that are not permissible for national banks. Relying on its authority under the FDIA to limit the activities of state member banks, on January 27, 2023, the Federal Reserve Board (Fed) issued