On November 20, U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman (R‑AR) and Senator Cory Booker (D‑NJ) released a new bipartisan discussion draft to create a federal spot‑market regime for “digital commodities” under the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The proposal, which expands upon the CLARITY Act approved by the House in July, would give the CFTC exclusive jurisdiction over cash and spot trading in covered non‑security crypto tokens, establish registration frameworks for exchanges, brokers, and dealers, impose listing and public‑information standards, require qualified custody and strict segregation of customer assets, enhance retail protections, and clarify bankruptcy treatment of customer property.

In two recent litigation status reports, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau) indicated that it is working to issue interim final rules for both Section 1071 and Section 1033 in light of an opinion from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) concluding that the Bureau cannot lawfully draw funds from the Federal Reserve Board at this time. Specifically, as discussed here, the OLC concluded that the Federal Reserve System presently has no “combined earnings” from which the CFPB may lawfully draw funds under the Dodd‑Frank Act, and the CFPB has publicly stated it anticipates having sufficient funds to continue normal operations through at least December 31, 2025.

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.

A coalition of hospital associations and individual safety‑net providers recently filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine challenging the Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) newly announced 340B Rebate Model Pilot Program, alleging violations of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). As framed in the complaint, the program would replace the 30‑year‑old practice of offering 340B discounts at the point of sale with a post‑dispense rebate for a set of high‑volume drugs, compelling covered entities to pay wholesale acquisition cost (WAC) upfront and then pursue reimbursement from manufacturers. The plaintiffs contend the shift will impose hundreds of millions of dollars in administrative and cash‑flow costs on safety‑net hospitals, jeopardize care in rural and underserved communities, and reflect a sudden, unexplained reversal of HRSA’s longstanding position that upfront discounts are the most effective and efficient way to administer the program.

On November 25, the House Financial Services Committee majority staff published Operation Chokepoint 2.0: Biden’s Debanking of Digital Assets, a detailed account of how, in the Committee’s view, federal prudential regulators between 2021 and early 2025 discouraged banks from serving lawful digital asset businesses through informal guidance, supervisory posture, and enforcement.

As reported by Bloomberg, the Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA) has hired Rohit Chopra, former Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB or Bureau), to lead a new Consumer Protection and Affordability Working Group within DAGA’s policy arm. The move was announced as a coordinated, state-led response to rising living costs and widespread fraud, with a policy agenda that spans financial services, technology, and health care.

Private equity’s footprint in health care has expanded rapidly over the past decade, and in response states have begun to retool long‑standing doctrines and create new guardrails that target ownership, control, and transparency. The result is an emerging patchwork of laws and review processes that remake the corporate practice of medicine landscape, constrain common “friendly PC” structures, and require far more visibility into transactions involving private equity, hedge funds, real estate investment trusts (REITs), and management services organizations (MSOs).

On November 25, the New York Court of Appeals issued a pair of decisions — Art. 13 LLC and Van Dyke — that provide definitive guidance on the hotly contested and heavily litigated issue of the Foreclosure Abuse Prevention Act’s (FAPA) reach. In both cases, New York’s high court confirmed that FAPA applies retroactively to foreclosure actions where a final judgment of foreclosure and sale has not been enforced, and rejected all constitutional challenges to the statute.