On July 22, the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government approved a spending bill for the 2016 fiscal year that would change the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) leadership structure by replacing the CFPB director with a five-member commission.
The bill also would bring funding for the CFPB’s budget under the annual
On July 14, 2015, a federal judge in Atlanta denied a law firm’s Motion to Dismiss a claim against it filed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (“CFPB”) for violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (“FDCPA”) and the Consumer Financial Protection Act or the Dodd-Frank Act (“Dodd-Frank”).
The CFPB filed suit against a
On July 13, the American Bankers Association, the Consumer Bankers Association, and The Financial Services Roundtable submitted a comment letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in response to the CFPB’s March 10, 2015 Consumer Arbitration Study.
This Arbitration Study has been widely viewed as potentially laying the groundwork for the abolition of mandatory
On July 9, just weeks after initiating its first enforcement actions against payment processors, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued an outline of nine “guiding principles” for faster payment networks which will provide greater consumer protections. The CFPB indicated that new technology supporting payment systems must be secure, transparent, accessible, affordable to consumers, and have
On June 29, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it had reached settlements with two Las Vegas auto dealerships, Planet Hyundai and Planet Nissan, over claims that they violated the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 by advertising large discounts not available to the general public.
The allegations against Planet Hyundai and Planet Nissan involved
On June 17, New York’s state attorney general announced a $14 million settlement to resolve claims of illegal “jamming” sales practices from 2010 to 2014 with Paragon Honda, Paragon Acura, and White Plains Honda, three New York City-area dealerships owned by the same individuals. The state’s press release defines jamming as “unlawfully charging consumers for
On June 25, 2015, a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”) permits discrimination claims brought under a disparate impact theory of liability. Justice Kennedy authored the majority opinion in the much-anticipated decision in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, Inc. – a
On June 18, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) voted 3-2 to approve an order that promises to have major and negative impacts on companies who use modern telephone technology to text and call consumers.
The stark increase in the number of lawsuits that were filed under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”) has been
On June 17, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a lawsuit against Security National Automotive Acceptance Company, LLC, an Ohio-based auto-finance company specializing in lending to members of the United States military to purchase used vehicles. Security National operates in approximately 30 states.
The CFPB’s lawsuit alleges that Security National engaged in unfair, deceptive, or
On June 10, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a final rule defining larger participants of the automobile financing market. The new rule will become effective 60 days after being published in the Federal Register. The final rule follows up the CFPB’s proposed rule, issued on September 17, 2014, on which we previously reported here