Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe recently vetoed a bill that would have required public posting of most state contracts with private lawyers. The bill’s sponsor, Mark Obsenshain (R-Harrisonburg), wrote that “the legislation would have enhanced transparency for the procurement of outside counsel through the Office of the Governor or the Attorney General.” Governor McAulliffe disagreed and
On June 20, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring announced that an agreement had been reached to keep Sweet Briar College open, ending months of litigation over the future of the College. The agreement will both provide money for the next year of operation and create a wholesale change of school leadership.
In March of this
On June 18, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed a consent order and announced an enforcement action against a company specializing in medical debt collection for mishandling consumer credit reporting disputes and preventing consumers from exercising important debt collection rights. The CFPB is ordering the company to provide over $5.4 million in relief to harmed
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 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
Attorneys general from twenty-two states today announced that Classmates, Inc. which runs the website classmates.com, and Florists Transworld Delivery, Inc. and FTD.com, Inc. (collectively, “FTD”) have agreed to settle allegations that the companies were involved in misleading, unfair, and deceptive trade practices. Although FTD and Classmates did not admit to wrongdoing, they agreed to pay
On May 20, the three national consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) – Equifax Information Services LLC, Experian Information Solutions Inc., and TransUnion LLC – inked a deal with thirty-one state attorneys general to end an investigation initiated in 2012 by the Ohio Attorney General’s office.
Under the multistate settlement, which is in the form of
On April 15, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a final rule suspending for one year the requirement under the Truth in Lending Act and implemented by Regulation Z that credit card issuers submit their card agreements to the CFPB on a quarterly basis. The CFPB publishes the agreements to a public database on its
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently issued its Winter 2015 Supervisory Highlights report which provides an overview of the supervision work completed by the CFPB from July through December 2014. Matters resolved by the CFPB’s Supervision side are non-public in nature and are resolved, not generally through the payment of large fines and penalties, but
Following up on the failure in 2014 to implement changes to the CFPB through legislative action, on March 5, U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-Wis.) reintroduced a package of bills seeking to make changes to the CFPB’s leadership structure, how data is collected from consumers, and more.
Representative Duffy is the Chairman of the House Financial