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.

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) carries the risk of annihilative damages for class action defendants based on its remarkable statutory damages scheme. Because of this risk, the statute has been the subject of significant court and agency attention recently. And much of this attention – from the D.C. Circuit’s opinion in ACA International to

The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas recently granted summary judgment in favor of a debt collector, holding that letters sent with the same client account number for two different debts incurred with the same underlying creditor was not false, deceptive, or misleading or otherwise in violation of the Fair Debt 

In a recent ruling, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s $10 million disgorgement order assessed jointly and severally not only against collection agencies but also their individual owners.  The Second Circuit’s decision can be found here.

This case involved thirteen debt collection companies that operated pursuant to the same strategy:

The House of Representatives’ Financial Services Committee convened for a hearing last week entitled “Challenges and Solutions: Access to Banking Services for Cannabis-Related Businesses.”  At the hearing, the Committee focused on a “discussion draft” of the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act of 2019 (the “SAFE Banking Act),

On February 7, 2019, AllianceOne Receivables Management, Inc. (“AllianceOne”), a debt collector, agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle a nationwide class action alleging violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”) for obtaining consumer reports on individuals with outstanding parking tickets without a permissible purpose.

The parties moved to approve the settlement after more

The Texas House of Representatives recently introduced new legislation, H.B. No. 996, to amend the Texas Fair Consumer Debt Collection Act (“TFCDCA”) to require debt buyers to provide additional written disclosures to consumers regarding debt that could be subject to a statute of limitations defense in a collection action. 

The proposed bill comes as

The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas recently granted summary judgment in favor of a debt collector, holding that letters sent with the same client account number for two different debts incurred with the same underlying creditor was not false, deceptive, or misleading or otherwise in violation of the F

2018 was a busy year in the consumer financial services world. As we navigate the continuing heavy volume of regulatory change and forthcoming developments from the Trump Administration, members of Troutman’s Consumer Financial Services Practice will review the current state of federal and state consumer financial services law and policy and highlight what you and

2018 was a busy year in the consumer financial services world. As we navigate the continuing heavy volume of regulatory change and forthcoming developments from the Trump administration, Troutman Sanders is uniquely positioned to help its clients successfully resolve problems and stay ahead of the compliance curve.  

In this report, we share developments on