Photo of Ethan G. Ostroff

Ethan’s practice focuses on financial services litigation and compliance counseling, as well as digital assets and blockchain technology. With a long track record of successful litigation results across the U.S., both bank and non-bank clients rely on him for comprehensive advice throughout their business cycle.

On December 14, Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) introduced the Digital Asset Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2022 (the Act) that would extend anti-money laundering and countering of the financing of terrorism requirements to cryptocurrency and digital assets. The bill follows warnings from the Treasury Department, Department of Justice, and national security and

As we previously discussed here, in 2020 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a final Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) rule amending Regulation C to raise institutional and transactional coverage thresholds for closed-end mortgage loans and open-end lines of credit. The final rule raised the threshold to report closed-end mortgage loans from 25

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a decision denying Nexo Financial, LLC’s petition to modify a civil investigation demand (CID) originally served on the company on December 1, 2021. At that time, Nexo Financial and its affiliates advertised a range of products, including interest-accruing accounts and lines of credit. In its petition, Nexo Financial

On November 30, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sherrod Brown (D-OH) sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen requesting that she coordinate with other financial regulators to further work on the recommendations from the Financial Stability Oversight Council Report on Digital Asset Financial Stability Risks and Regulation (FSOC report), which we previously discussed here.

To help you keep abreast of relevant activities, below find a breakdown of some of the biggest events at the federal and state levels to impact the Consumer Finance Services industry this past week:

Federal Activities

State Activities

Federal Activities:

  • On December 1, U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN), ranking member on the House Financial Services

On November 16, the Ninth Circuit issued a decision affirming the dismissal of a lawsuit on the grounds that to qualify as an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) the telephone system must randomly or sequentially generate telephone numbers, not just any numbers.

In Borden v. eFinancial, LLC,

On November 28, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced a $362,158.70 settlement with Payward, Inc. d/b/a Kraken. The Delaware-incorporated virtual currency exchange allegedly processed 826 transactions amounting to approximately $1.7 million on behalf of individuals located in Iran. In addition to the fine, Kraken also has agreed to

To help you keep abreast of relevant activities, below find a breakdown of some of the biggest events at the federal and state levels to impact the Consumer Finance Services industry this past week:

Federal Activities

State Activities

Federal Activities:

  • On November 23, the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced the