It is well settled that the purpose of filing a bankruptcy petition is to give[] the honest but unfortunate debtor . . . a new opportunity in life and a clear field for future effort, unhampered by the pressure and discouragement of pre-existing debt. Local Loan Co. v.  Hunt, 292 U.S. 234,

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Kathy Kraninger is proving to be more aggressive than her predecessor, Mick Mulvaney. In recent weeks, Kraninger has issued seven orders strictly enforcing the Bureau’s civil investigative demands, or “CIDs,” demonstrating that she intends to be a vigorous consumer advocate:

  • In re Synchrony Financial (May 31, 2019): Kraninger rejected a

On May 30, a district court judge in the Middle District of Georgia granted a debt collector’s motion for judgment on the pleadings, ruling that the debt collector’s “submit a dispute” statement did not overshadow the letter’s 15 U.S.C. § 1692g notice under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. 

As required by

On June 6, the Federal Communications Commission unanimously approved a declaratory ruling affirming that voice service providers may, as the default setting for phones, block robocalls. This aggressive position means that service providers are strongly encouraged to use reasonable call analytics to block calls before those calls even reach a consumer’s phone.

While the FCC

On May 29, medical software company Medical Informatics Engineering, Inc. and its subsidiary NoMoreClipboard, LLC settled a first-of-its-kind lawsuit brought by several state attorneys general alleging violations of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act following a data breach. 

The multi-state lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, alleged

On May 7, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) released a 538-page Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (the Rule) that would update the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA). The Rule would be the first major update to the FDCPA since its enactment in 1977 and gives much-needed clarification on the bounds of federally-regulated activities of

Last week, the Eighth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a putative class action data breach lawsuit, holding that the named plaintiff failed to allege standing based on a single fraudulent charge to his credit card. A copy of the opinion can be found here.

In 2014, hackers accessed customer financial information from hundreds of retail

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that, because Ohio’s privity requirements only require that the interests of one party adequately represent the interests of another, a plaintiff’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act claim was subject to binding arbitration because of a settlement agreement entered into by the plaintiff’s

In Tyler v. Mirand Response Systems, Inc., the Southern District of Texas recently granted summary judgment in favor of a debt collector in a claim brought under § 1692d(5) of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

Plaintiff Nina Tyler had become indebted to her bank, and the debt was transferred to Mirand Response Systems, Inc.