In late September, the Department of Justice (DOJ) entered into two consent orders to resolve allegations related to violations of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). The past year has seen an uptick in regulatory scrutiny centered on military consumer protection laws. The DOJ’s recent consent orders highlight this trend.
The SCRA provides various legal
The Department of Education (Department) has announced that individuals who have a total and permanent disability (TPD) will have their unpaid student loans automatically discharged without having to file any paperwork. The change will affect 323,000 borrowers and result in a discharge of more than $5.8 billion in unpaid loan balances.
Pursuant to regulations enacted
On July 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that private student loans are not explicitly exempt from a debtor’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy discharge.
In Homadian, the borrower, after graduating from Emerson College, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2007 and obtained a discharge in 2009. The discharge order did
In Consumer Fin. Prot. Bureau v. Nat’l Collegiate Master Student Loan Trust, the District of Delaware dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), alleging that a group of trusts that hold more than 800,000 private student loans engaged in unfair and deceptive practices. The District Court held that the CFPB’s
The U.S. Department of Education (Department) recently forgave nearly $1 billion in student loan debt for those who were defrauded by their schools into taking out loans. The relief was granted under the Borrower Defense to Repayment program and will impact roughly 72,000 individuals. The loan forgiveness only applies to those student loan borrowers who
The Sixth Circuit recently confirmed student loan servicers, who begin servicing debts after default and resale, are not liable to borrowers under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA) because the servicers are not acting as “debt collectors.”
On March 25, in Willison v. Nelnet, Inc., the Sixth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for student
A bill introduced by Democratic U.S. senators looks to make it easier for Americans to discharge student loans and medical debt. If passed as currently written, the Medical Bankruptcy Fairness Act of 2021 would drastically change the U.S. bankruptcy system by removing certain procedural hurdles that make the bankruptcy process complex and by creating a
Last week, attorneys general from 17 states wrote a letter to Democrat and Republican leaders in both houses of Congress, expressing support for Senate Resolution 46 and House Resolution 100, which call upon President Biden to use executive authority under the Higher Education Act to cancel up to $50,000 in federal student loan debt for
In a statement recently disseminated to all Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) personnel, Acting Director Dave Uejio set forth new priorities for the CFPB’s Supervision, Enforcement, and Fair Lending Division (SEFL), specifically around providing COVID-19 relief to consumers and racial equity.
In the statement, Uejio communicated his belief that “strong oversight” can make a
New York Attorney General Letitia James and Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on November 4, 2020, that the State will continue the suspension of its debt collection efforts of medical and student debt through the remainder of the calendar year. The suspension, which was originally instituted during March 2020 as part of the state’s response to
